Romans 5.1-11 Excited about God on Trinity Sunday
Prayer: Lord, open our hearts and minds to the wonder of your glory and your love, in Jesus’ name.
Trinity Sunday is the one that clergy are supposed to dread, when it comes to thinking about what to preach. Attempts to make it all simple with drawings of triangles can only take us so far, and we can end up giving the impression that we’re as confused as anyone else! The glory of Trinity Sunday isn’t mathematical sleights of hand or unconvincing attempts to define God in any way, but that we should just stop and just wonder at God in Himself. On Sundays for the last six months of the year, we’ve been thinking about the great events of Jesus’ coming into the world. But now it’s time to take stock, to pause, and to re-focus our sights - for the God who was visible, and yes, even measurable, and comprehensible in Jesus Christ is also far beyond our definition.
The study of theology doesn’t necessarily take us to the heart of God, and the first commandment is not that we should understand God, but that we should love Him with every part of ourselves, and this is what we are trying to do as we worship God. Our worship, like our financial giving, should be judged by that yardstick. Remember when Jesus saw the big impressive gifts and the widow’s penny - he said it was her gift that came from the heart. If we measure worship by any other standard - like beauty, or punctuality, or liturgical correctness, or length (or brevity), the regularity of our attendance, the kind of music we include, the amount of happy clapping or the lack of it - then we will be led astray. These are not the ways to judge our worship of God. Worship is coming close to God our Father in love, and our participation of love is its gold standard, love that is drawn up by our appreciation of God’s love.
In the Romans reading, St.Paul has evidently been bowled over by God’s love. The Good News Bible has no less than 4 exclamation marks in these few verses!
Romans isn’t an easy read in any translation, but in this passage Paul is practically singing for the joy of knowing God, and the wonder of his grace. He writes as a man who has spent years of his life looking for something, but now he has gloriously found it (or in fact it has gloriously found him).
Many religions, and much Christian tradition, have been concerned with religious deeds, the things you must do, to satisfy God : Do this, obey that, and you will find peace with God. The passionate first four chapters of Romans describe how Paul had devoted himself strenuously, trying to do all the things necessary, but finally came to the conclusion that try as he may, he’d fail. It was a dead end. Doing things for God, however beautiful, will not bring us to his side. He is holy. We are twisted. And never the twain shall meet, on that basis.
In chapter 4 Paul described how God knew that all this was bound to fail, but has provided us with a better way, and the only way which comes to terms with humans as they really are.
If your child wants to do something you know perfectly well they can’t do, you may find you have to let them have their go first, and reach that point of failure, before they’ll be willing to let you show them how it has to be done. So God had to let them try it their own way, before he could teach them.
Struggle as we may, we can never pull ourselves up to heaven by our own boot-laces. So God took the initiative himself. At his own great expense, He did it for Paul, for you and me, and for everyone who wants it. Such is grace, given freely to us all.
Even the faith to receive it is not something which we have to squeeze out of ourselves, but is God’s gift to us. Suddenly we wake up out of sleep and see that we have it right there in front of us! - Peace with God.
Trusting faith, which means the accepting of God at his word, has done what the heavy duty of doing religious works could never achieve. The relief of discovering this filled St. Paul’s mind and never left him. The joy that filled his heart remained with him as the years went by. Whatever happened, that joy gave him the strength to cheerfully endure the many imprisonments, the beatings, the insults, and even the sadness at sometimes seeing churches he had built up lose their first love.
Some people object that free grace sounds too easy, and that there ought to be some element of effort on our part before we deserve what God gives us. But if our relationship with God depended on continuous good conduct on our side, the Gospel would be Bad News. Even if it was a combination of Him and us, it would still be bad news. Once we’ve placed our faith in God’s redeeming work on the cross, it is His responsibility not ours. If some days we are feeling a bit low, it isn’t that important, although we’d obviously be much better and happier to continue trusting him each day. But if it relies solely on him, it’s Good News, the wonder of God’s grace to us, the goodness which we must stop at gaze at on this Sunday in the year.
‘Now that we have been put right with God, through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. He has brought us by faith into this experience of God’s grace, in which we now live. So we revel in the hope we have of sharing God’s glory! We also revel in our troubles, because we know that trouble produces endurance,... which brings God’s approval... and this creates hope. This hope does not disappoint us for God has poured out his love into our hearts by leans of his Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to us’.
Let’s have a closer look at God’s whole series of gifts to us...
The first is being put right with God, the bringing to an end of an uncomfortable relationship. If you owe someone some money, and you really ought to have paid it back by now, you’re unable to look that person in the eye, because you know you’re in the wrong. But then if the debt is somehow paid, you can shake hands, and face that person once again. You’re all squared up now. You have a dignity instead of embarrassment. You can talk with that person about other things, you don’t have to avoid then. Of course that’s on a very small scale example compared with the damage done to our relationship with God by our sinfulness. In our day to day lives we tend to become quite blasé about both sins and forgiveness. Our prayer life will be cramped if we’re lazy about acknowledging our need for forgiveness - it will be deepened as we take our sinfulness more seriously, and seek God’s pardon more wholeheartedly.
The second gift, which flows from being put right with God is having peace with God, so you no longer need put up defences or hide from him, like Adam and Eve. A sense of trust can flourish as between two neighbours who get on well. They don’t harbour suspicions about one another, or assume the worst every time something unusual happens. Peace with God means we can look more positively at the things which come to us in life, seeing them as opportunities rather than problems Peace with God enables us to listen to his voice more attentively, as we find less need to crowd our lives with other things (which is the way the rest of the world keeps God at arms’ length).
The third gift is being ushered in to receive God’s grace. Christ has come to escort us into the palace we could never have got into without such an introduction. We are able to enjoy all sorts of privileges as an honoured guest. He pours his love into our hearts and he sends us hope with His Holy Spirit, to guide and inspire us, and to fill us with the joy of his permanent presence.
The fourth gift is looking forward to sharing in God’s glory. The very mention of an escort into his presence reminds us of our heavenly destiny. This world is only our temporary home. That’s a salutary thought when we are feathering our nests and spending time and money on things we won’t be taking with us. It’s not that as Christians we shouldn’t enjoy the lives God has given us, but that we can be released from the excessive house-pride which people who have no destiny in mind can be severely gripped by.
A foretaste of the life we shall enjoy in God’s presence hereafter is the Christian fellowship we can enjoy here.
Here are at least some of the people we will share that destiny with. The Christian fellowship extends well beyond our lives here at home. Wherever we go, we have a place in his church, and this is one of the joys of travel. But life is not all sweetness and comfort. Paul uses the Greek word ‘thlipsis’, which means stress or pressure.
The early Christians faced persecution; that was their kind of thlipsis. For us, it can be the sheer pressure of doing all the things we have to do, and maintaining a cheerful countenance as our Christian witness that may be our thlipsis. No one’s going to drag us off to fight any lions, or put us in prison for our faith, but there are plenty of more subtle pressures.
Paul says ‘Come on!’ - God doesn’t let this happen to you as some kind of punishment for being a Christian! It’s for your good! Or as Peter says in his epistle, the heat is turned up in order to purify you, ready for the big day when Christ calls your name! On that day you will shine brightly if the impurities have been burnt off. So here Paul says suffering trouble and pressure leads to endurance; endurance leads to God’s applause and that increases hope, and God’s Holy Spirit will encourage us along in the process.
Of course we don’t go around longing to find trouble, but nor should we expect to have an easy ride, or assume that Christians are destined to lead trouble-free lives. Sometimes it’s when we’re under pressure that we can actually be most like Jesus. Jesus did not drift about ethereally. He had those crowds pressing in upon Him, he lived under great pressure. The disciples needed teaching and re-teaching, the scribes and Pharisees were looking for an opportunity to catch him out. There was the heat, the travelling, and the thirst that is a constant battle in that part of the world. He’d been up all the previous night, but supremely on the cross, he allowed the pressures of physical, mental and spiritual anguish to get to him. And in it all, he achieved the greatest victory. Under greatest pressure we too can be seen at our best, living not just on our own resources, but more obviously on the divine resource promised to us, so this can be our time of greatest witness. Being under pressure is not a recipe for failure in our Christian lives, but may be the time when we live most to his glory. As St.Paul said ‘When I am weak, then am I strong’. God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, does not mean himself to be completely hidden in our lives, but that that our relationship of love with Him should be our mainspring, exciting us and driving us, and the wonder of all that is what we have to share with the people around us.
So to Him be glory, now, this week, in your life and in mine, everywhere and evermore. Amen.
And now I think we should stand, not to say the creed together, but to sing it, or something fairly similar.
