Romans 5:1-5 DREARY-FREE CHRISTIANITY
This past week with the warmer weather, I was finally able to clean out some of my garage. It’s not such a bad place to be when the weather is decent. One thing I was finally able to get rid of is a pile of dirt that always sits right next to my car. All that dirt and sand and mud from the road is dragged into the garage by my car, and it piles up right next to my door. It’s hard not to step on it and drag that dirt into the house. This past week, I was finally able to get rid of that pile I’ve been looking at for a long time.
Lent is a time when you do that same sort of thing in your soul. As life goes on, different things pile up in your soul, sinful attitudes, sinful habits. Lent is a time when you take an inventory of your soul, and whatever sinful attitudes or habits are there, you get rid of them with the Word of God.
Last week, we swept doubt out of our hearts. Today, we would like to focus on something else. And that something is dreariness. Have you ever felt a sense of dreariness? You feel glum, gloomy, negative, as you look at your life and the world around you.
This past week I turned on the TV for background while I was doing a few things. There was a show on called “Becker.” I would have to say that this show was one of the dumbest shows I have ever seen. The main character was a very dreary person, a doctor played by Ted Dansen. He was crabby, always complaining, a very negative outlook on life. Every day was a bad day, and there was always something to be upset about.
There are people like that in real life. Perhaps you know one. Always dreary. You never want to ask them how they are doing, because they always complain. Perhaps, at times, you’ve been one of these people. All of us, at times, have felt a sense of dreariness, a desire to be down and complain. Today, we are going to focus on the key to dreary-free Christianity. As we study God’s Word, you will see why you don’t have to be dreary. Through his Word, God the Holy Spirit will work on your heart, and sweep away your dreariness, and fill you with joy.
What brings you down? Often times, it is your conscience. You become dreary when you think about your relationship with God. “I will never be good enough,” you say. “I make mistakes every day. I never do the things I ought to do as a Christian. I’m always falling flat on my face when I try to serve my God. I’ll never be the kind of Christian that God wants me to be.” That’s our conscience talking, isn’t it? And our conscience does have a point. We are sinful people.
All this talk about war and peace on TV– Iraq has not complied with the rules set up for them by the United Nations. They are guilty of a material breach. Now we are amassing our troops, preparing for war. Some nations are calling for peace. In a strange way, you personally have a lot in common with Iraq. Here’s what I mean - God has set up rules for you: love other people, love God above all things – rules - and you have not complied. In the eyes of God, you are guilty of a material breach. You know it, and you’re still not cooperating. Like Iraq, you make excuses, you ask for more time. You would think that God would have enough with you. You would think that God would declare war on you. Perhaps he ought to amass his army of angels and punish you for your material breach of his commands. The more you think about these things, the more depressed, the more dreary you begin to feel.
But instead of declaring war on you, God has declared peace. Look at verse 1: “Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” God has declared peace, not war, between you and him. Jesus has brought this peace into the world. And he did that not through negotiating between you and the Heavenly Father. He didn’t ask for more time, nor did he strike a deal. Jesus achieved peace between you and God by suffering. He talked about this to his disciples in our Gospel lesson for today when he told them that he would have to “suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed, and after three days rise from the dead.” This is how Jesus has established peace between you and God. To know this, to believe this – that takes away our dreariness, and fills us with joy.
It’s one of the few things in the world that’s free. Believe it and it’s yours. Verse one tells us, “we have been justified through faith,” not through good works. Peace through Jesus Christ is free, “through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” What do you see underneath your feet? You probably would say “carpeting.” But here you are told that you are standing in grace. Everywhere you walk, everything you say and do, you are standing in grace. When you’re having a bad day, when you fall into a sin, when you are frustrated by your sins, when your conscience is bothering you, remember what’s underneath your feet – you are standing in grace. The free, undeserved love of God. Every sin you have committed is forgiven.
When your sins start to make you feel dreary, focus on Jesus. Focus on his cross, which covers our sins. Remember that in him, God has declared peace between you and him. Let that be what causes you to rejoice, as the Apostle Paul says, “And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”
Another reason we feel dreary in our lives is because life isn’t easy. Sometimes we face problems. There often doesn’t seem to be any purpose to our problems. “Why am I going through this,” we ask ourselves. “There doesn’t seem to be a point! Why this problem? Why right now?”
God doesn’t always answer that question. But he does shed light on the good things that can result from suffering. Look at verses 3 and following: “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings.” The Greek word for “sufferings” is an interesting one. It actually means pressure – to have different things pressing down on you. What is the modern day word for that? The leading cause of insomnia, heart problems, high blood pressure…
We call it “stress.” You could translate this verse to say, “Not only so, but we also rejoice when we are under pressure.” What are things that cause you stress? In the days of the Bible, stress was caused by persecution. Christians would have their jobs terminated, houses taken away. All kinds of things caused stress back then.
When you focus on all the things that cause you stress, you can become dreary very quickly. You can become depressed, down in the dumps, glum. You can become a complainer who drags other people down. But here it says: “We also rejoice in our sufferings.” Instead of complaining, we rejoice. How?
Because as a Christian, you understand that God has a good purpose for your sufferings. He uses them for your good. Look at how Paul describes that here: “ Because we know that sufferings produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us.” God uses suffering to change your personality for the better. When God allows you to be placed under pressure, he is developing in you the ability to persevere. In other words, you become someone who gives up easily. When the going gets tough, you stay put, and you keep working to make things better. Sufferings produce perseverance.
And perseverance produces character. You become someone who has gone through difficult moments in life, someone God can use you to help others. Perseverance produces character. And character produces hope. Hope that God will work out all things for the good. Hope that a better life is coming, hope that God is blessing you every day, and will bless you forever on Judgment Day.
If a piece of coal could talk, what would it say? Perhaps it would say, “I don’t like it when the earth is pressing down on me, and all the rocks are piled on top of me, and it’s hot, and I feel uncomfortable. I don’t like it. But that’s how a piece of coal becomes a diamond, isn’t it. All that pressure, all that heat, and after a period of time, that piece of coal becomes a beautiful diamond.
You are like that piece of coal. Under pressure. Problems. Difficulties. Some days, you can feel the heat. But God is changing you, working on you, transforming you from a worthless piece of coal into a beautiful diamond that shines in his kingdom.
Jesus Christ, and his Word we are studying today, changes the way we look at suffering. He is the key to dreary-free Christianity. He told his disciples in our Gospel lesson that they would have to suffer. “Pick up your cross and follow me,” he told them. But there is no need to be dreary, to be down, when we think of suffering, because we know that Christ is with us, using our sufferings to mold us more and more into the Christians he wants us to be.
This is the hope we have. It’s not an earthly kind of hope. People always, say, “Don’t get your hopes up,” because you can’t always trust that people will come through for you.
But that is not the kind of hope we are talking about here. When you are trusting in Jesus Christ, you can get your hopes up. And here’s why: “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” God has already poured out his love into your heart. You already know that you are forgiven. You believe that God has declared peace between you and him. You believe that God is using your troubles for your good. These are things that are already in your heart. And so yes, you can get your hopes up, because those who trust in Jesus Christ will never be disappointed. He is the key to dreary-free Christianity. Amen.
