I Can’t Wait!
Romans 5:1-8
Well the stores are already starting to decorate with Christmas things. Since they have already started to celebrate the Christmas season there is no reason that we should not as well. So I went out and picked up this item to share with all of you in the church.
As a kid I was so curious and sometimes a little sneaky. When the presents started appearing under the tree, I would feel the papers and try to figure out what was in the package. The square boxes were the hardest. If the rapping was on tight, all you could do was to guess based on size and weight. When no one was looking give it a quick shake. Mom never gave any hints. She would just tell me to leave it alone or she would make it disappear and I could only hope she would ever let me have it.
Perhaps you have someone in the family that acted like me. So excited about what was un-seen, someone that was almost desperate to tear into the package. They could hardly stand to wait until the appropriate time.
--- We will talk more about this package a little later.
Today our scripture reminds us of the basic elements of our faith. This scripture picks up by telling us we are justified by faith. Justified, is a word that means that we are made right with God. Because of Jesus Christ we get the benefit of the price he paid with his suffering.
Then it uses a phrase that caught my attention, “And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” Hey wait a minute, At the beginning it said faith was the required step. Where does the work hope come from?
Today we tend to say the word hope and mean Wish. We don’t have any feeling of certainty. We say I hope it does not rain tomorrow. I hope dinner is ready. For us the word hope includes more doubt than assurance. When someone is very ill in the hospital, the doctor might tell the family bad news and then say there is always the hope that God will step in. Personally, I wish that more doctors had a real hope when they said that.
The school system in a large city had a program to help children keep up with their school work during stays in the city’s hospitals. One day a teacher who was assigned to the program received a routine call asking her to visit a particular child. She took the child’s name and room number and talked briefly with the child’s regular class teacher. "We’re studying nouns and adverbs in his class now," the regular teacher said, "and I’d be grateful if you could help him understand them so he doesn’t fall too far behind."
- The hospital program teacher went to see the boy that afternoon. No one had mentioned to her that the boy had been badly burned and was in great pain. Upset at the sight of the boy, she stammered as she told him, "I’ve been sent by your school to help you with nouns and adverbs." When she left she felt she hadn’t accomplished much.
- But the next day, a nurse asked her, "What did you do to that boy?" The teacher felt she must have done something wrong and began to apologize. "No, no," said the nurse. "You don’t know what I mean. We’ve been worried about that little boy, but ever since yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back, responding to treatment. It’s as though he’s decided to live."
- Two weeks later the boy explained that he had completely given up hope until the teacher arrived. Everything changed when he came to a simple realization. He expressed it this way: "They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?"
My point is that when we read the word hope in this scripture we might not give it the weight that the situation deserves. We are all too often like the young Boy. Things get bad and we think we are going to die. People call on us to have hope but until we find the inspiration we will just decline.
The key to the work hope here is that we are hoping that the promise of God to save us through his son is true. For us to down grade a promise from God to being anything like a promise from man is really not fair to God.
My kids often have hopes of wonderful gifts at Christmas. And all too often they get disappointed. My only excuse is that I did not make a promise to get the super popular and usually expensive gift they hoped for.
So their reaction to my attempt usually makes me feel bad or angry when their hope was misplaced in the first place. They decided what I MUST GET to make them happy instead of receiving what I wanted to give.
It amazes me how it is often the same between God and any of us. God’s promises are set out in scripture. But often we blur the lines to our personal needs and understandings. We take the promise of Justification and adoption into the family of God to mean the easy life from now own and if it does not go exactly that way we get disappointed.
He did not make that promise to us. His promise is to accept us in heaven through his son. Our action is here, his action is there and he has not dropped the ball on his promise and damaged our understanding of Hope unless he fails to receive us into his kingdom.
In this scripture, we are reminded how our hope really is to mature and develop. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
So we have a path that we can expect to happen on the way, from this description it sounds like suffering is totally automatic and unavoidable. It sounds like being a Christian is a bad idea. If suffering is automatic what is the point? All I will say now is that there are many types of suffering and not all of them are physical, and God does promise to be with you on the path. But the first suffering we think of would be our financial situation, the aches and pains in the legs and back, the car accident , the hospital stay. Anything that can happen to us on earth can land us in suffering.
This statement says suffering leads to perseverance, there is a word that leaves me uncomfortable. I don’t want to learn how to push through the hard stuff. I want to live the good and easy life. Perseverance then leads to character. That is what mom and dad said the punishment was about, to form and build my character. We all have had plenty of times when we felt whipped by the world and our character was shaped. This is another unpleasant earthly step on the path. Our Christian Character allows us to demonstrate or understand hope.
How can you have hope after all the bad stuff that comes through our lives? It comes down to realizing when God’s promises start and earthly expectations end. A mature Christian that is living a life of faith comes to understand faith. A mature Christian will also notice that there have already been a number of blessings along the way. That God has been helping and directing all along.
Sometimes our demonstration of hope looks pretty hopeless. We don’t always have hope as a constant as a part of our character. But usually we can cling to the optimistic hope that we can have that things will get better with time.
A man sentenced to death obtained a reprieve by assuring the king he would teach his majesty’s horse to fly within the year.
- This was on the condition that if he didn’t succeed, he would be put to death at the end of the year.
- "Within a year," the man explained later, "the king may die, or I may die, or the horse may die. Furthermore, in a year, Who knows, within a year maybe the horse will learn to fly."
We are to have hope because as we survive our earthly experiences. We notice the work of God in our lives acting as assurances of the ultimate promises to come.
This scripture reminds us that we will feel the assurance because of the gift of the Holy Spirit placed in our hearts that will just feel the excitement that the touch and blessing that God pours into our lives gives as a natural side effect.
The reason that Hope is not a wish is because it is a promise from God. God is not a politician, he has nothing to prove to any of us, he has no reason to lie or exaggerate. God keeps his promises, But it happens In God’s timing and plan. Jesus Christ died for our sins. Not too early and not too late, but right on time. And we are reminded by Paul that he died for us when we did not deserve it. He died when we did not believe. He died when we decided to live the way we wanted to. He died for sinners. He died for people that are selfish, self-centered, lying consumers.
- Are there very many people you would die for?
Why did he? Because, he sees the value in his creation. While we have a ugly side that only a mother could love,,,, He is our father and he embraces us and calls to us and want us to feel the comfort of his promises. He wants us to have a firm hope that he keeps his word and will act just in time. His time for our good.
It is easy to lose sight of hope in our earthly experience. Think about the people in other places that are being persecuted. How do they have hope? We loose hope a little too easy here. We seem to miss the blessings that God has continued to pour on each of us and our church and even our community.
I guess watching the news puts the blinders on and keeps us from listen the soft voice of the Holy Spirit.
A man approached a little league baseball game one afternoon. He asked a boy in the dugout what the score was. The boy responded, "Eighteen to nothing--we’re behind." "Boy," said the spectator, "I’ll bet you’re discouraged."
"Why should I be discouraged?" replied the little boy. "We haven’t even gotten up to bat yet!"
Hope in God is realizing that he has not gotten up to bat yet. Why get discouraged over waiting for his timing. His turn. Our scripture today is one of many places that calls us, as believers to understand that Faith and hope are both tied to actions of God and both are strong and offer us assurances that have no doubts for us to worry about. Hope in God is a sure thing. But it is us-seen. It is hard to measure and seems intangible.
-- Let’s talk about the gift. (Go down to the box like sneaking around the house. Tear the false top to peek inside.)
The sneaky part of me always had me peeking around edges, trying to read through Christmas paper. On one occasion I went too far and ripped the paper. Unfortunately for me I Mom was right there and I was caught in the act and still did not figure out what was in the package. I was banished from the room with the packages, I was told that I could not comeback until Christmas eve or there would be a switch involved. On Christmas Eve, I could not start opening any of my gifts until the process was well under way.
I searched for the object that I had desperately want to figure out. It seemed not to be there. I finally asked and my mom gave me what appeared to be a different package, larger. I found that she had re-rapped the original in several boxes and several layers of paper. I guess it was to make a point as I have to open one layer at a time.
Today our box is almost empty. It contains some things I put in it. Over the next two months I hope it will contain many things that you will put in it.
It has two slots. One says prayers and the other blessings. I have a bunch of paper strips for you to place the things you pray about in the box and for you to make a count of the many blessings and answers to prayers that God has poured out on you and your family. Place it on a paper and put it in the box.
I call this box a hope chest. The hope chest that Renee had came to mind as I worked this week. (God is so cool) This is our hope chest as the bride of Christ. We all have our hope on the promises of God and the chest can not stay empty, it contains the treasures of the love that our God has already given us.
In the coming weeks, keep a pad around the house. As you remember or receive blessings or notice the joys in your life. Give God the credit and place it in the box. As you pray for your needs and desires place them in the box.
Just before Christmas I will open the box and we will be reminded of the things that are hoped for and often unseen.
All Glory be to God!
Xx Let me ask you something, is it just me or is there some excitement in the air. I have just felt on edge in a good way. I have felt like something good is about to happen but I did not know where to look. So I have looked everywhere.
I know I like the fall. The slow change into colder weather. I get heaver shirts out to wear. During the heat of the summer I hope for an early fall. But I don’t think that is it.
Perhaps it is a feeling of Revival that we talked bout for several weeks.
What ever it is, I LIKE the feeling. I hope you feel it too. Go in peace.
