Dare to Hope
Nick Owens, June 9, 2024
Intro:
Just a little over a year ago – Esau McCaulley, NT professor at Wheaton College, wrote an opinion piece in the NYTimes about Easter and the Resurrection with the title – “Easter Reminds me that hope is a demanding emotion.”
He begins by confessing,
“Easter has never been my favorite church service. Shouting “Alleluia, Christ is risen!” requires an emotional crescendo my melancholy temperament can’t easily manage.
I’m much more comfortable on Maundy Thursday. Maundy Thursday remembers Jesus’ last meal with his disciples. That night ends with Judas’s betraying Jesus and the other disciples’ abandoning him, fleeing into the darkness. I have always felt closest to God on this night in the silence, surrounded by the story of failure.
I have never been a big fan of hope. It’s a demanding emotion that insists on changing you. Hope pulls you out of yourself and into the world, forcing you to believe more is possible.”
I love that line – Hope – is a demanding emotion that insists on changing you, it pulls you out of yourself and into the world…. it forces you to believe more is possible….
Isn’t that what we’ve seen as we’ve studied Romans 8? Isn’t that what we saw last week when we considered what it means that we who believe in Jesus are Sons of God – Royal children! – That God has brought us into his family and so not only has our status changed, but he is at work right now making us to look more like our older brother, Jesus?
The past 3 weeks as we’ve been looking at Romans 8, we’ve been talking about hope.
This morning as we finish Romans 8, I want to challenge us to hope – to embrace this demanding emotion.
The title of this sermon is – “Dare to Hope” because I think that’s one way of summarizing what Paul is writing in these verses. Paul is telling us about who we are as those who belong to Jesus. He’s telling us about who our God is – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and what our God has done, is doing, and will do. He’s telling us about how much confidence we can have in God and his love – so much so that we can really embrace this hope, and bravely live into it.
Paul wants to convince and assure every believer in Jesus of the certain victory we have through God’s love.
He wants us to have this assurance and know God’s love for us in the depths of our being that we would dare to live as if it’s really true. Dare to believe the gospel;
Dare to live your whole life embracing this hope and aiming every part of your life toward this hope. Dare to hope, because through Jesus you can be certain of God’s love and your victory through God’s love.
(Transition)
This morning, I want us to consider two parts of this theme of daring to hope as we look at this passage.
FIRST – The challenge of daring to hope, and then SECOND – how/why we can really know God’s love and our victory through God’s love.
First – The Challenge of daring to hope.
Perhaps you’re not like Esau McCaulley – you’re not melancholy. You’re cheerful! … You’re a “look on the bright side, let’s be positive” kind of person. Well, I want to begin by complicating the hope of this chapter before we ultimately land why we can truly embrace this hope.
You see, the hope talked about in this passage is not a Hallmark card kind of hope. It’s not squishy and sentimental. It is fierce and it is tough.
Let’s remember the hope we’re talking about – Paul writes in v. 18 –
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
You could just as easily translate that last phrase – “the glory that is to be revealed in us.” We are headed toward glory. V. 30 ends with this same promise and assurance.
You see, though humanity as a whole has fallen short of the glory of God – we sinned, we turned from God and sought to make life work apart from God, not reflecting God’s glory and character, which is what we were made to do as people made in his image – despite that – – everyone who believes in Jesus……….. has been made right with God and are on the path to becoming their fullest and truest self – that person who was made to image and reflect God. God is doing this work in us as the whole creation waits on it’s tiptoes for this fullness to be worked out in us….. because when that happens everything will be made right and all of creation will be restored to the way things were meant to be. This is the hope of v. 18-30. It is the hope of new creation, resurrection, and the renewal of all things.
Right now, we live in this time of hope – where all creation longs for everything to be made right in Jesus and the renewal of all things to come, and we who believe long and hope for glory and to be made like Jesus in every way.
But as we live in this time of hope – we face many challenges, trials, sufferings, because what we long for is not yet fully here. And it is hard.
In v. 22, Paul uses the metaphor of the pains of child birth to describe this time that we’re in. Because the time that we are in is one where there is pain and longing and suffering, but it will in the end give way to life and joy – just like the pains of child birth.
But lets not forget how long we’re talking about here. This is the longest birth pains in history – it is centuries upon centuries…..
I remember, and I know Erin remembers when she was in labor with our first child, Liam, how excruciatingly painful that birth was – from start to finish it was about 24 hrs. It was long………but it was one day. It was one long and exhausting day…..but at the end we had a beautiful baby boy.
But these birth pains are the longest the world has ever known.
If Jesus does not return during our early life to bring the fullness of his kingdom and all he’s promised – the final judgment, the renewal of all things – if that’s some point in the future after we’re all dead and gone, then we are talking about birth pains that last a lifetime.
And in that place of pain and suffering God’s people are those that are called to hold on to our hope in Jesus and to continue to follow him.
Look at what Paul describes in v. 20-27.
We are to live in the nexus, the connection point of the groans of this world (v. 20-22), and our own groaning (v. 23-25), and the Holy Spirit within us groaning (v. 26-27) as the Spirit intercedes for us. And in all the groaning and longing, all the suffering and pain we are to continue to hold on to this hope as God even now is making us more and more like his Son through it all.
We are in a time of hope – but it is also a time of groaning and longing because what we hope for is not yet. It is a time where we will experience difficulty and suffering and pain.
look at the end of this passage – v. 36. Paul quotes from Psalm 44.
36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
Psalm 44 is a Psalm about God’s people suffering. They are suffering not because they have done wrong: they’ve not disobeyed; they’ve not worshipped other gods. They have done no wrong. No they are suffering “for God’s sake.”
Suffering is inevitable – regardless of what you believe or whether you follow Jesus you will face suffering. BUT – there is a sense that as you follow Jesus in this world, to the extent you live your life toward the hope of Romans 8, and follow Jesus not running away or trying to protect yourself and hide yourself from the pains and sufferings and groanings of this world, but rather living the life of faith, hope, and love in those places – life may very well get harder.
This past week I was lunch meeting with area pastors, and Ted Powers – our pastor of missions, was sharing some updates about Haiti – And while there are encouraging things happening like the distribution of food that many of you helped to fund and ways the church in Haiti is ministering and serving people and people are coming to know Jesus – at the same time there is great suffering – we’ve lost 5 pastors in the network of churches we partner with – 5 pastors have been killed. Others pastors have been kidnapped, targeted for kidnapping specifically because the gangs are banking on churches doing what’s necessary to come up with the money to pay the ransom to free these men. Other pastors have been forced out of their homes, and must seek shelter with their families wherever they can find it …….. I hear things like this and I think of these words –
v. 36 “For your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
That verb “regarded” in v. 36, is a verb we’ve seen elsewhere in Romans. It’s a word that’s often translated “reckoned” or “considered” – in Romans 4 – by faith we were “regarded” or “considered” righteous because of Jesus. In Romans 6 we were told to “regard” or “consider” ourselves dead to sin and alive to God because we’ve been united to Jesus. And here, because of Jesus, as those who follow Jesus and are being made like him, we are “regarded” or “considered” as sheep to be slaughtered.
We follow a savior who has already gone ahead of us on this path. First pain and then joy. First suffering and humiliation and then glory.
This passage is meant to stir up assurance of our hope – but it is not a squishy kind of hope. It is a fierce hope that lives in the face of these kinds of sufferings and these kinds of challenges.
As I’ve thought about it this week, I think there are at least two ways we can fail to live into the hope held out in this passage. And both involve a diluting of the hope or turning down the dial of the hope we see in this text.
One way is to allow the suffering of this present time to be so loud, that hope can’t be heard. You may have experienced pain, or suffering, or some kind of trauma and it could be that the pain would become so defining that you struggle to hear hope. You struggle to let others speak this hope into your life. It is the kind of thing that could move you away from community and relationships in the church, where you are more and more isolated and disconnected from others in a place where the voice of pain and suffering continues to be the loudest voice drowning out all others. Paul doesn’t diminish the pain or the suffering that happens in this world in any way. He is utterly real about it in this passage. But he calls you through faith in Jesus to hope – to get greater clarity on your hope so that the present sufferings can’t compare to the coming glory.
A second way I think we can fail to live into this hope is what I’ll call – Hope diversification. Here’s what I mean – You approach hope and your life like you approach investing in the stock market. I’m no expert in the stock market, but I know it’s better to invest by spreading my investments out in all sorts companies and funds rather than just putting all my money in 1.
Hope diversification might be one of the greatest temptations for Christians in a place like the western suburbs of Chicago, because there is the temptation to live in such a way that even if the resurrection wasn’t true and turns out not to be true – we still were able to live pretty much live our best life. Every part of our lives was not lived and done through the hope of this text. Jesus was just one of many hopes we’ve had and even if he doesn’t work out, most of my life was pretty great.
NO, Paul wants us to take this hope seriously – Dare to live like the gospel is really true.
We’re going to see in Romans 12 through the end of the book this coming fall – that being a part of the church and seeking to follow Jesus together will be difficult and require sacrifice. Living in community and struggling alongside of others who are still sinners will sometimes make life a lot harder. And just like allowing suffering to be the loudest voice in your life can lead you away from living into community in the church, so too will a posture of hope diversification –
Because carrying one another’s burdens will feel heavy, and bearing with and forgiving one another will at times be painful, and living in community and relationship with others who are different from you will be hard, and loving the world like Jesus will involve a cross.
And for all these reasons to really dare to hope, the SECOND thing we must see is – why we can be certain of God’s love and our victory through God’s love.
(ILLUST) There’s a story about a woman named Florence Chadwick – perhaps you’ve heard of her – In 1952, she stepped into the waters of the Pacific Ocean off Catalina Island, determined to swim to the shore of mainland California (26 mile swim – imagine, swimming the distance of a marathon).
She’d already been the first woman to swim the English Channel both ways. That day when she attempted the 26 mile swim the weather was foggy and chilly; she could hardly see the boats accompanying her. Despite all that, she swam for fifteen hours. When she began begging to be taken out of the water along the way, her trainer, in a boat alongside, told her she was close and that she could make it. Finally, physically and emotionally exhausted, she stopped swimming and was pulled out. It wasn’t until she was on the boat that she discovered the shore was less than half a mile away.
At a news conference the next day she said, “All I could see was the fog.…I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it.”
2 months Later on a clear day she was able to swim the whole thing. –
If you’re not going to let hardship and suffering turn down the volume on this hope – and if you’re not going to diversify your hope investment out of fear, trying to hedge your bets – it will be because you see with clarity where you are going and headed, where God is taking you!
– Paul writes these closing verses in Romans 8 because he wants you to see the shore – he wants you to know that God has loved you in Jesus and you are victorious, right now, through his love.
Different parts of Scripture and the way they are written lead us to do different things – narrative – put yourself in the story (the exodus event – you’re standing on the banks of the Red Sea, while you see the Egyptian army rushing toward you, then all of a sudden God makes a way through the waters), or Poetry – you are to let the images shape your imagination – Ps 23 – I am a little sheep, and God is my shepherd, leading me, caring for me, bringing me all the way home.
Here – Paul asks a bunch of rhetorical questions – why? Because he wants you to think! He wants you to be ultra-rational! He wants you to consider all the sorts of things that could happen to you (ok, what if that happens to me, what if this happens to me). He wants you, right now, to think it out, do the math, get clarity on how in all those situations and coming up against all sorts of threats and powers – you can be certain and secure in God’s love is for you. Get clarity now, that none of it can cut you off from God’s love and the victory God’s love has accomplished and will accomplish in your life.
He begins v. 31 by saying, “What shall we say to these things?” What things? As many note – this is not just the conclusion of ch. 8, but really you could say the letter up to this point, especially what Paul has been writing in ch. 5-8 – What shall we say to these things – ch. 5 that we live life in the realm of grace, at peace and wholeness of relationship with God – that God loved us while we were enemies and Christ died for us while we were enemies; What shall we say That God’s mercy and grace does more than just match in potency and power the sin and brokenness that came through Adam – but rather this grace is abundant and lavish and overwhelms sin. The guilt of sin has been dealt with.
What shall we say to these things – that we are united to Jesus in his death and resurrection. And we are alive to God and the power of sin has been broken and we can now give ourselves to God, we are not under the law, but under grace and belong to Jesus – we have communion with God – ch. 6 & 7.
And ch. 8 that we are not condemned, we live by the Spirit, we can put sin to death and become more like Jesus, we are Sons in the Son, and everything we were made for we will one day be …..through the power and work of the God who predestined us, called us, justified us, and glorified us…..
What shall we say? We must say – “If God is for us – if this God is for us like this….. who can stand against us?
32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
A number of scholars think that in v. 32 Paul is alluding to Genesis 22 – he’s recalling Genesis 22. That’s the passage where God says to Abraham, take your son, your only son, the son you love, and offer him as a sacrifice to me. It was a profound test of Abraham’s faith, of his trust in God.
Abraham takes Isaac and they journey together. They journey to the place of sacrifice, and when Isaac asks – “Father where is the ram for the sacrifice? Abraham says, “Son, God will provide.” And just as Abraham is about to kill Isaac, God stops him, and God provides a substitute.
But here the roles are reversed. God takes the place of Abraham – God gives up his Son, his only Son, the Son he loves.
You see, Abraham showed he was willing to give up his son and God says at the end of Gen 22 – now I know that you really do trust me.
But here, God is not only willing to give up his son, but actually does it – he does not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – and now we can say…
Now I know he is for me, now I know he loves me.
And this is knowledge you need, this is assurance you must have. We need to know that we are loved and that we are his and that we are victorious despite what might happen in the world, despite what might happen in our lives, despite what troubles or trials or persecutions may arise, despite what forces in this world be they governmental, societal, demonic spiritual forces, anything you can imagine in all creation – despite all that we are super-victorious – we are super-conquerors through the love of God in Jesus.
If God, the creator of all things, was willing to give himself for us in the Son, if the Father was willing to give his Son for us – idolaters, …..sinners – if God has loved us like this – what in all creation could possibly stand against us? What in creation could possibly break the bond of that love? Jesus died and has risen and is in the place of authority interceding for us.
Writing about the importance of knowing and being assured of God’s love – JC Ryle, Anglican pastor from the late 19th and early 20th century said this,
“The strong consolation which [this] assurance can give in the hour of death is a point of great importance…. We shall never think [this] assurance so precious as when our turn comes to die. In that solemn hour there are few believers who do not find out the value and privilege of an ‘assured hope’… General ‘hopes’ and ‘trusts’ are all very well to live upon while the sun shines and the body is strong; but when we come to die, we shall want to be able to say, “I know” and “I feel”. …. [This assurance] enables [one] to feel that the great business of life – is a settled business, the great debt – a paid debt, the great disease – a healed disease, the great work – a finished work; [and so] all other business, diseases, debts and works are then by comparison small.”
If you belong to Jesus, you are meant to know God’s love, to know God is for you. You have the Holy Spirit who reminds you, you are a beloved child and he interceding for you, you have the Son of God who died for you, who has risen and intercedes for you – you have your Father in heaven who loves you and gave his Son for you.
Dare to live as if this is really true. Dare to hope.
Let’s turn now as we do each week to a time of prayer. God speaks to us in his word, and then we turn and speak to God, confessing our sins, bringing our struggles before him, seeking his help and his grace. He calls us and invites us to do this because he loves us. Let’s take a minute or so for silent prayer and then I’ll close our time in prayer.