A RIDE THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS
This weekend, as my family and I headed back through the mountains from District Assembly in Denver, we happened to pass a bike race with athletes peddling through the steep twists and turns leading to Wolf Creek Pass and I couldn’t help but marvel at the determination and fortitude which these bikers possessed. As they pushed up the grueling, miles-long climb to over 10,000 ft. we would watch as they slowly shoved one pedal down, and then the other. They weren’t looking around at the cars as they passed, or even at the beautiful scenery which greeted them with every turn. Their eyes were forward, their shoulders down, and they just pushed on.
This reminded me of a time when I was a little boy, probably no more than Samson’s age, out on a ride with my Grandpa. My Grandpa was an athlete all his life, and competed in 100 mile bike rides up to the year he died at the age of 76, even completing the grueling 400+ mile RAGBRAI race across Iowa. Bicycling was a lifelong passion for him, and I asked him one time how he could compete over such amazing distances. I mean, the task of traveling hundreds of miles on your own power is mind-boggling! Surely you have to plan out your rest stops, your calorie-intake, make sure you have enough water and emergency supplies, while also communicating with your support driver so that you have the help that you need, if you need it. The logistics, planning, training, and expense required made me wonder how anyone could commit to such a daunting task.
But as I asked the question, I remember clearly him stopping and as I pulled up level with him on my own bike, he looked at me and said with a smile, “It’s simple really, you just get on your bike and start peddling.”
LIFE ISN'T ALWAYS LIKE A BIKE RIDE
That’s an encouraging story, isn’t it? Sometimes we are tempted to look at life like a bike race or a footrace and assume it’s just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. Paul himself repeatedly uses athletic metaphors and imagery, suggesting life is a race that is worth it if we just don’t quit.(1) And while that is certainly true, what do we do when we do feel like quitting? When we feel like the tasks that are in front of us are insurmountable. What do we do when life seems less like a nice, bicycle race through the mountains, with a concrete goal in mind; and instead seems more like a juggling-contest, where more and more balls are piled onto our arms to try and juggle at once, with no clear-cut end game or goal?
That’s a reality I know many of us face today. Our schedules get busier and busier and our lives get lonelier and lonelier. For the first time in our history, more people live in cities than in the country,(2) yet more and more people also live alone than ever before.(3) Economic pressures and the desire for opportunity cause many to uproot from the places where their extended families life, and they often find themselves paradoxically isolated in a crowd of other lonely individuals. And for many, the idea that they must meet all the expectations thrown at them and face the pressure to succeed without any help from others becomes too much for them to bear.
The most recent statistics tell us that depression is the leading health crisis of our time with over 17 million US adults reporting at least one major depressive episode a year.(4) Depression increases the risks of a host of other health problems, and for some, it leads to the ultimate despair: suicide. Suicide isn’t a topic we like to think of often, and the extent of the current suicide epidemic is rarely reported in the media. In the most recent statistics from 2017, over 47,000 men, women, and children lost their lives to suicide; and that’s the highest rate in well over 30 years!(5) I want you to think about that for a second. That’s a medium-sized city lost to suicide every year. That’s 129 people per day. And of those, 22 per day are veterans. Veterans make up just under 8% of the population, but over 17% of suicides.(6)
If a foreign power wiped out a city on U.S. soil, you can bet we’d certainly hear about it in the news! If a terrorist attack wiped out tens of thousands of people, we would remember it for generations! But that is exactly what is happening. An enemy has infiltrated our cities, our communities, even our families; and yet most of us continue with our lives completely unaware of the extent of the problem. This is because the enemy is inside of us. So many of us become our own worst enemies, because we hold on to the unrealistic expectations and hopes which the world feeds us.
THE HOPE EXPRESSED IN ROMANS
The world expects us to be materially successful, independent, happy consumers with all the best status symbols money can buy. But thankfully, that isn’t what God expects of us, because God knows a much more lasting and meaningful hope can be ours, if we are just willing to accept it. That is the point from which our passage launches this morning. In the previous chapters, Paul laid out the groundwork for justification by grace through faith in the new covenant in Christ, and not through works of the law of the old covenant of Moses. In these chapters he gives the “how” and the “why” of salvation, with David and Abraham being examples of those who lived by faith before. But he doesn’t stop with the theoretical.
He now moves into the concrete to describe exactly what salvation looks like in the life of the believer. He begins with the assumption that his readers have already been justified in Christ. They have understood why they needed to be saved, and accepted the free gift of salvation. But like so many of us, they were probably wondering, “OK, what now?” After all, all of life isn’t just making that initial confession of faith, though we as Evangelicals sometimes seem to stop right there. I don’t want you to misunderstand me. It is absolutely essential that you receive Jesus if you haven’t already done so. He is our only hope for forgiveness of the sins which we have all committed, so that we can be redeemed and restored, and spend an eternity with Him.
But life is more than just the beginning and the end. It is more than just initial justification and the hope of heaven. There is a long space in between, and for most of us, that long space is going to include decades of struggle. For some, that struggle is going to include going through a divorce while trying to raise kids, or it’s going to include coping with a loved one’s drug addiction, or a friend’s suicide, or the loss of a job, or mounting medical bills, and housing and transportation costs. For many, that struggle might seem like you’re stuck in the mud, going no where, or that you’re sliding down the impossibly high hill you’re trying to climb.
It’s to Christians in the midst of that struggle that Paul is now speaking. He begins in v. 1 by speaking of the “peace of God,” which newly justified believers are party to. Though we were once enemies of God, by receiving His free gift of grace, we are enemies no longer. This free gift is accessed through Jesus Christ alone. The Greek word Paul uses for “accessed” begins to paint a picture for us, of a royal court where no one can see the king except through invitation and by exceptional merit.(7) Except that we don’t possess that merit ourselves, as outlaws and enemies of the realm, there is no way we would have been granted audience with the king. But Christ has vouched for us by his own merit and brokered a peace treaty. Now we stand firmly before the king, in the confidence that comes with a warm invitation, as ambassadors to a once hostile, but now friendly, power.(8)
But “peace” in scripture means more than just the end of hostilities. It is rooted in the Hebrew concept of “shalom,” or “wholeness, well-being, and abundant life.”(9) It is what Christ means when he says in Jn. 10:10b, “I came that [you] may have life and have it abundantly.” In Jewish and Christian gatherings today, it is still used as a greeting. How many of you grew up in a more traditional church, where you “passed the peace?” or where in the liturgy, the pastor said, “Peace be with you,” and everyone responded, “And also with you?” This greeting is an implied prayer. It is saying to our neighbor, our brother or sister who may be struggling, “I’m praying the best for you. I’m praying that you find healing, and wholeness, and well-being in the grace of Our Lord.” Believe it or not, and this sort of floored me when I found out, it’s even the root of the greeting in English, “Hello,” which comes from the Old Saxon word, “Haelen” meaning “wholeness be yours” or “healing go with you.”(10)
REJOICING IN OUR SUFFERING
By proclaiming and trusting the peace with God which we have in faith, we are expressing the prayer and the hope that wholeness will be ours, and having this hope, we are able to rejoice; even in the midst of our suffering. Now that’s a hard concept to swallow, isn’t it? We have all experienced times where we don’t feel like rejoicing at all. And I don’t think Paul is saying God intends for us to fake it here. If you are mourning, mourn! If you are angry, tell God that you’re angry! There’s no point in hiding it, and if we try, it just eats us up inside.
But that isn’t the end of the story. We aren’t expected to just vent our frustrations and struggles to God and move on like nothing happened. Instead, God gives us the tools to meet our frustrations head on, openly and honestly, in the hope that by doing so we will be changed and better able to weather future storms in the process. This is what Paul means in vv. 3-4, when he says, “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”(11) I do not believe God causes our suffering, but He does give us the tools to find purpose in suffering.
This purpose is rooted in peace and propelled by hope. When we suffer, instead of freaking out or shutting down or fleeing, God is calling us to meet our challenges head on, and doing that requires a plan and frank honesty with ourselves. There is no shame in this honesty, because as Paul says in v. 5, that honesty and openness to admitting that we are struggling opens us to hoping in a bright future with Him.
A PLAN FOR BUILDING RESILIENCY
When I was an NCO in the Army, and I would conduct resiliency training for my Soldiers, I broke it down for them in three steps:
When struggling with a series of seemingly insurmountable task, first order your priorities and goals. For people with a strictly materialistic mindset, this probably revolves around professional success, financial security, and physical health. But for disciples of Jesus, our goals need to reflect the things which Jesus cared about. This means that, first and foremost, they must be rooted in love. In Mat. 22:36-40, Jesus tells us that the two greatest commandments are to love God with everything we are and to love each other as much as we love ourselves. And v. 5 of our passage this morning makes it clear that we have any hope at all because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts, for us to experience ourselves and pour out into the lives of others. This means that, when we sit down and map out our personal goals, they should be specifically crafted as means for more fully loving God and each other.
The second step is to triage your struggles. When we are depressed, or anxious, or simply overwhelmed with everything we are trying to juggle; it can all seem like one, big impossibly-high mountain that we have to climb. But it might be helpful to break down your tasks into more easily manageable chunks, and treat the ones which are either most urgent or will have the biggest impact. This is what triage means.
In the early years of battlefield medicine, medics struggled to treat the wounds of all the soldiers lying on the battlefield. Many who could have made a full recovery instead bled out before help arrived. And care was often priorities for officers or nobles, while the common man suffered needlessly. But as casualties mounted with technological advances, and field hospitals were flooded with hundreds of thousands of wounded Soldiers, a systematic way of treating them needed to be developed. This was realized by Baron Dominique Jean Larrey, a French field surgeon, during the Napoleanic Wars, who began to treat Soldiers by the seriousness of their wounds and their treatability; irrespective of rank, social status, or nationality.(12)
And this is what we need to do with the challenges which if left unaddressed can wound us so deeply. We break them into smaller chunks, and tackle the ones which are either the most essential to our well-being and mission, or are in the deepest trouble first. This means we may not achieve a solution to every problem right when we would want to, but at least we are making real progress which hopefully relieves some of the stress and brings a measure of confidence to our lives.
The third step in this resilience-building process is observing the cycles which contribute to our struggles. This is especially difficult in Western cultures where we tend to think in linear terms. History builds on itself, and a big part of our theology is the belief that it is all moving toward an eventual goal: the settling of all debts and the restoration of all creation to God. This is certainly true of our salvation history, but equally true is that within lives, families, and generations we often experience cycles where past decisions and actions lead to consequences which make those same decisions and actions more likely in the future.
This cyclical view of time is much more common in the East, but it is reflected in scripture too. Ecc. 3:1-8 tells us,
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.”
And Deu. 5:9 says, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” Now, I do not believe this refers to God passing judgment on children for the sins of their fathers. After all, God also says in Exo. 34:6-7, that He extends his steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who remain loyal to Him. Instead, I believe it refers to the natural consequence of sin. Sin, by its selfish, short-sighted nature, naturally breaks relationships and wounds individuals. And these wounds are often carried on to the people around us. In fact, recent studies have demonstrated that violence in communities manifests in clusters, just like the outbreak of physical disease.(13) Violence leads to violence, sin leads to sin, wounds lead to wounds. And these are often carried out into whole family and social systems and across generations. When we realize this, we can begin to discern the causes of the problem cycles in our lives, and directly address (or “triage”) those causes instead of just always trying to treat the symptoms.
The third and final step requires us to take an honest look at how we contribute to the problems and struggles we are facing. It’s natural to look for the causes of our hurts in others. But real transformation has to happen inside of us before it can be seen in our circumstances. The biggest obstacle to this is often our own sense of shame. Especially if our struggle is one which is cyclical, and which we have struggled with for years, it can sometimes lead us to fear that we are failures, that we can never find victory, and so we ignore our own place in the center of the struggle while despair mounts under the surface.
It’s to that fear that Paul speaks in our passage this morning, when he says in v. 5, “Hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” We have no shame before God, because He has already forgiven us of our failures and coming to terms with them is the necessary first step toward receiving His grace in the first place. God loves us so much that He is happy to meet us and welcome us to Him just as we are, even with our sins, faults, and shortcomings. But He also loves so much that He doesn’t leave us the way He found us.(14)
And it is in that hope, that He will change us and transform us, bring us wholeness and restoration, that we are able to find freedom from fear and shame. This hope isn’t simply wishful thinking. It is rooted in the fact that the God who has promised it is a God who keeps His promises. We know this, because He has done so in the past. His care for His people throughout the Old Testament is testimony to this fact, and as Paul says here, the love which He has poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit is testimony to it as well.
CONCLUSION
So as you go out to meet whatever challenges and struggles you may face this week, in that in-between-space after salvation, but before the final realization of our hope;(15) remember that God has promised you the tools and the resources to meet them. The ability to meet our challenges, to endure and even rejoice in the midst of suffering is rooted in the peace, the shalom, which only He can provide and which we are promised at the moment of justification; is honed and refined through the building of our character as we grow in sanctification; and is driven by the hope and promise of our glorification in Christ.
I hope the above steps help you in a real, practical way through the midst of that process. But I also want to encourage you to do one more thing. I considered listing it as a separate step, but it is essential through all of them: Pray. Pray continuously. Carve out time to pray in the morning and before you go to bed. Pray in the car. Pray with friends. Pray at church, and at home, and at work. Seriously, set a daily alarm on your phone if you have to. If we do not pray, if we do not keep that essential line of communication open with God, we will not find the discipline to follow these steps through in obedience. It’s true that God’s grace alone is the source of our sanctification, but it does not exempt us from obedience to His commands. And essential to this obedience is our prayer life.
So with that, I pray that the fullness of God’s peace goes with you all, and I pray that He gives you the strength and the tools you need to meet your struggles and grow in the process. Thank you.
FOOTNOTES
(1) 1 Cor. 9:24-27.
(2) Ritchie, Hanna & Max Roser. “Urbanization." Our World in Data. Web. Retrieved Jun. 15, 2019.
(3) Fry, Richard. “The Share of Americans Living Without A Partner Has Increased, Especially Among Young Adults." Pew Research Center. Web. Written Oct. 11, 2017.
(4) National Institute of Mental Health. “Major Depression.” Web. Retrieved Jun. 15, 2019.
(5) American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “Suicide Statistics.” Web. Retrieved Jun. 15, 2019.
(6) U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs. “Suicide Among Veterans and Other Americans, 2001-2014.” Office of Suicide Prevention. Written Aug. 03, 2016.
(7) Cragg, Gerald R. “Romans” in the Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, vol. 9, 452. Ed. by George . Buttrick, et al. Nashville, TN: Addington-Cokesbury Press, 1952.
(8) Greathouse, William M. and George Lyons. “Romans 1-8” in New Beacon Bible Commentary, 153. Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2008.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Ibid.
(11) All scripture quotes are from the ESV.
(12) P.N. Skandalakis, P. Lainas, J.E. Skandalakis, P. Mirilas, "'To afford the wounded speedy assistance': Dominique Jean Larrey and Napoleon", World Journal of Surgery 30:8:1392-9. Aug. 2006.
(13) National Public Radio. “Researchers Begin to Look at Gun Violence as Public Health Issue,” on All Things Considered. Broadcast Jan. 07, 2017.
(14) Greathouse, “Romans 1-8,” 154.
(15) cf. Greathouse, “Romans 1-8,” 151.
Delivered Jun. 16, 2019 - Cortez (CO) Church of the Nazarene.
