True Prosperity
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Romans 15:13
Romans 15:13
13 Ὁ δὲ θεὸς τῆς ἐλπίδος ⸂πληρώσαι ὑμᾶς* πάσης χαρᾶς καὶ εἰρήνης⸃ ⸋ἐν τῷ πιστεύειν⸌, ⸋1εἰς τὸ περισσεύειν⸌ ὑμᾶς ἐν τῇ ἐλπίδι ἐν δυνάμει πνεύματος ἁγίου*.
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
OPENING REMARKS
I have the privilege tonight of talking to you of the worlds most precious commodities. No, I’m not talking about gold, fuel or electricity! I’m talking about hope, joy and peace.
If you’ve come here this evening feeling weary from the battle, feeling worn out, burnt out and exhausted then this message tonight is for you.
For many of you, the last two years haven’t been easy. To me it’s felt at times like I’ve been treading water, trying to stay afloat amidst the constant flood of bad news. From the beginning of 2020 through to this present moment we have been given reason after reason after reason to worry. Whether it’s coronavirus, looming lockdowns, fuel shortages, inflation or war turn on the TV, the radio, your phone and your immediately fed with despair.
Over time, if we’re constantly exposed to a barrage of bad news it takes a toll on us. We can begin to feel unsafe, things that once seemed sure and certain to us now don’t seem so certain. That’s disconcerting. Perhaps we had always felt pretty sure and certain about our health and now that faith has been shaken, maybe we had a plan for how our life was supposed to turn out, what we’d be doing and who we’d be doing it with and now that has changed and now we’re struggling to come to terms with that.
The first casualties when difficult times like these come are always peace, joy and hope.
Why is that the case? Well, we have to understand that peace, joy and hope are like symptoms. They don’t just exist in and of themselves, they have a cause. It’s like the flame on a gas hob, it burns because the gas is turned on and ignited. If you turn the gas supply off, the flame goes away. So if whatever was supplying our peace gets shut off, then our peace immediately disappears.
This is precisely what this verse teaches. It teaches that these three commodities exist as a result of a cause. Romans 15:13 teaches us more than that, it teaches us that hope, joy and peace are actually attainable for us, we can have these things, and that if we ground them properly, in the right place they can never be shut off, no matter what happens to us.
I know what it’s like to constantly have your hopes dashed! I grew up supporting Wolves and England in the 90’s! Proverbs 13:12
12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
When the source of your hope is something unreliable it means your joy, peace and hopefullness are tied to that thing, whatever it is. When that thing fails you, your joy and peace fail too. You end up feeling rather hopeless and heart sick.
So what can we do to change that?
Mercifully, Paul doesn’t tell the Romans ‘Listen guys, if you want to abound in hope you need to be joyful, you’ve got to really cultivate peace in your heart. Then you’ll start feeling hopeful. Come on, stop being so dour, get up and do a jig, there’s always something to be happy about!’
That’s not the message of Romans 15:13 at all, but I fear many Christians think that it is. There’s this sort of idea that we are supposed to be positivists, ‘come on, always look on the bright side of life!’
Paul wasn’t saying that by being generally positive we will find a reason to hope, He was praying a prayer. Romans 15:13 is a prayer, asking that the God of all hope would fill them with all joy and peace. However, there is a condition attached, ‘in believing.’ Joy and peace flow from believing. The sense here is; May He fill you with all joy and peace AS you go on believing.
So it is in believing that we find joy and peace. Not the other way around. I think often we have the attitude of; well, I’ll believe God when He actually brings some peace and joy into my life. But the Bible says it’s the other way around, you don’t believe on the condition that God makes your life happy and peaceful, He makes us live in joy and peace on the condition of our believing.
Story of being unwell in Oxford?
Our joy and peace are products of our believing. But believing what? Just general faith? Sometimes we say things like ‘just have a little faith’ as though faith in and of itself was something virtuous. But faith only carries as much virtue as the thing it is believing in.
England vs Argentina ‘Just have a little faith.’
So what was Paul saying our believing should be upon? I think there’s a clue here in the same chapter;
4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.
Our joy and peace are discovered to us as we believe on God as He is revealed in the Bible.
Not a general believe in God, but actually believing God’s word.
The Greek word here for believing is the same root as the word for faith. And it means more than just believing certain facts, what faith essentially boils down to is trust. It is a trust, a reliance, a holding on to the word of God. It’s not just that we believe in God, it’s that we actually believe God according to His word. That’s what Paul is saying produces joy and peace.
It’s as we trust in the God of hope that joy and peace begin to well up in our lives. It’s when we trust His love for us shown through sending His son Jesus Christ to save us our joy begins to rise. It’s when we read that no matter what happens, Our God is working all things together for good for those who love Him that peace begins to reign in our hearts.
And as these two blessed commodities take hold of us we know that they can’t ever be shut down or taken away from us because they are anchored in God. He never changes, He is the same yesterday today and forever. He isn’t about to let us down!
What’s more is, as we go on believing and joy and peace begin to hold sway in our hearts there is something else that Paul says happens. The Holy Spirit causes us to overflow with this thing called hope.
This time, it’s a hope that cannot fail. It’s not founded on things that pass away, but on the unchanging word and promises of God.
Hope is to lean into the future with a confident expectancy that good things are coming. Hope isn’t wishful thinking, it’s having good reason to expect good things.
So here’s my prayer for you tonight, that the God of hope would come, comfort you in your sorrow and your anxieties, that He would fill you with all joy and peace as you believe Him at His word and that the Holy Spirit would come upon you in power and cause your life to overflow with hope.