6-14-2020 “The Gift That Is Hope” Romans 5:1-8

Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

Suffering produces perseverance. In other words, sorrow, grief, misery, woe, and anguish produces persistence, determination, grit, insistence, and resolution.

Perseverance produces character. In other words, persistence, determination, grit, insistence, and resolution produces personality, resolve, integrity, soul, and depth.

Character produces hope. In other words, personality, resolve, integrity, soul, and depth produces confidence, expectation, optimism, anticipation, and courage.

There are lots of words here. Lots of ways of saying the same thing. (Can you tell that I broke-out my thesaurus? There will be a test, by the way.)

These are Paul’s words to the Romans to inspire hope during difficult times. Suffering produces perseverance. No one wants to suffer, but suffering teaches us to persevere. There’s a lot of truth to that. Like at that modern cliché states, “What doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” Look back at your own life and think about the trying times and what you learned from them. Think about those lessons and how what you took from them are still with you. Paul says that those lessons help shape our character.

Perseverance produces character. That’s true, too. Our scars tell a lot about us. Part of the reason why we say that older people are wise is because they’ve experienced more. They’ve lived longer. They have more insight. They’ve been wounded and they’ve survived. They have more wisdom. Wisdom helps develop our character.

The interesting shift occurs after this. The character that we develop helps us develop hope. Is this because we have survived hardships and believe that we will survive again? Maybe. Is it because God has seen us through in the past and we believe that he will see us through again? This is probably more likely.

People who do not believe in God often base their disbelief on the fact that they cannot see God. There are other reasons as well. One being that faith does not gel with science for them. Another is that believing in a divine being does not seem logical for them. Most people who are atheists, though, say they cannot believe in what they cannot see.

Believers have seen. They have not seen God in the flesh, per se, but they have seen God at work in their lives. They’ve been able to persevere amid hardship. That has bolstered their character and, in turn, has filled them with hope — hope that God is present for them and that God will be there again.

Hope is not the same as optimism.

It is easy to look around our world and conclude that we have lost hope. You don’t even have to look at the entire world. Just look at our little corner of the planet. Our nation is tremendously divided. We’ve always debated with one another about politics, but never this vociferously. Both sides of the aisle say the nastiest thing about one another. We are also divided on social issues: be it the environment, LGBT rights, immigration, gun control, abortion. In fact, I can’t think of an issue that has not torn us from one another. The COVID-19 has us talking sides. Is this the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu of 1918 or is it much ado about nothing? And then, we have the racial divide that has gripped this nation. Last week at the gathering held outside the Canton Town Hall, one of the students who spoke said, “It’s 2020 — and I can’t believe that we still have to have gatherings such as this.” These were my thoughts exactly. The Civil Rights Movement occurred over 50 years ago — half a century — and racism is still an issue. If we’ve taken two steps forward, it seems as if we’ve taken the same number backwards — maybe more.

Hope inspires us to get up and take another step forward, no matter how hard it is. An optimist is the person who sits back and believes that life will get better on its own, or someone else will improve things. Hope is what enables you to stand back up. It’s exactly what Rocky said.

This might be a first. I quote T.S. Eliot, Immanuel Kant, Karl Barth, and now…Sylvester Stallone. I’ll admit it: I love the Rocky movies. I love boxing. I never could explain why, until I saw the sixth and last film in the Rocky franchise. Rocky, who is much older and owns a restaurant, decides to give it one more try. His adult son comes to see him and talk him out of it, because he (the son) is embarrassed by his has-been Dad trying to prove himself. “Let me tell you something you already know,” he says, “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.” (Terrible line, I’ll admit it.) “It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, nobody is gonna hit as hard as life! But it ain’t about how hard you can hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep movin’ forward, how much you can take…and keep movin’ forward. That’s how winning is done!”

Never in my life did I think I would quote Sylvester Stallone in a sermon, but listen to what these lines say. Life does knock us down, and hope gives us the ability to stand up again. That hope comes to us from God, revealed in his Word. Psalm 130:5 makes it clear: “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.”

The perseverance that comes from suffering and, in turn, helps develop our character is what makes us deeper people. It enables us to be more compassionate, to empathize with others, to look at life realistically, not through rose-colored glasses. Having survived, it also gives us hope: hope that no matter what, our God will see us through. That hope doesn’t also mean that everything will be alright. Sometimes it won’t be. However, hope tells us that no matter how things turn out, we are not alone: God will be with us to guide us through the thicket.

I often laugh when nonbelievers say to Christians who are in the midst of suffering, “At least you have your faith to see you through.” I laugh, because they seem to be saying, “Your faith makes you see things in a happy, optimistic, positive way.” On the other hand, I don’t laugh, because maybe the unbeliever is saying, “I wish I had what you have — the belief that you are accompanied by a higher power; the belief that you don’t have to go it alone.” That’s what hope is my friends.

Yes, it comes by having overcome trying times, by seeing that God has already been at work in our lives. Paul also wrote in 1 Timothy 4:10: “That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.” We do believe — and we do hope, because our God is alive and present, now and forevermore. Amen.