A few years ago, SBC Games wrote a tutorial on how to include sprites within a Bitmap Font, so you could display them inline with the rest of your text and take advantage of kerning, line wrapping, etc.
The tutorial has been updated for Phaser 3 and covers the new methods required for getting your sprites to fit flush inside your Bitmap Font. It's a lovely concept and well worth looking at, especially if you need to display illustrations as part of your in-game text.