"Good News When Life Is Hard"Dr.
James L. Mayfield
April 6, 2003
Text: Romans 8:28 & Jeremiah 31:31-34 There are times when life is hard. Ask the families whose loved ones are fighting in Iraq. Ask those who have been laid off from work. Ask the family and friends of anyone who has been killed or permanently injured in an accident. Ask the parents of a small child with life threatening health problems or ask the parents of a young adult who is involved in self-destructive behavior. There are times when life is hard. Most of us have "been there." And if we have been fortunate enough to have not yet had to endure some of life's disappointments, heartaches or tragedies, it is only a matter of time until we do. What does the Gospel have to say to us in the midst of hard times? In his letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul wrote these profound but often misunderstood words: "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." (8:28) All too often these words are used in was that sound like religious rubbish -- especially when we are struggling through bad times. In hard times it is tempting to try to use our religion to insulate ourselves from the harsh realities by turning our religion into either wishful thinking or superstition or both. In our longing for some sort of quick fix that will give us a happily ever after solution, we all too often trivialize profound statements of the scripture such as this one. Trying to deny the reality bad times and painful truth, we try to keep our lives in the comfortable shallow waters of life. What the Gospel has to offer deals with the deeper realities in both good times and bad. This is certainly true of this statement from Paul: "All things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose (that is, those who understand their fulfillment in life comes from fulfilling the purposes of God)." Remember what Paul and other first century Christians were going through at the time he wrote this. Paul was in prison. Christians were often the object of scorn, and from time to time endured persecution. To be sure, they had their moments of success in sharing the Gospel with others, but they also suffered rejection, were deprived of business, were beaten, stoned by mobs, left for dead, thrown in jail and killed. These early Christians knew what it was to lose loved ones. Whatever Paul was saying when he wrote that for those who love God, all things work together for good, he was not making a superficial or sentimental statement that was blind to how cruel and tragic life can be at times. Paul was saying that for those persons who love God and who understand that their fulfillment in life is inseparable from striving to live as God intends them to live, all things work together for good -- maybe not the good they wanted, but for the good, nonetheless. "All things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose" that is, for those who understand their fulfillment in life comes from living as God intends them to live. Paul was saying that our fulfillment comes from living as God intends, and living as God intends is the essence of loving God, and that when we live loving God, all things work together for good. But how do we live as God intends? How do we discern what God wants us to do? I have found this especially difficult when I am in the midst of hard times and bad times. In such times, there is an insight from Bible that I have found to be helpful. Time and again in the Book of Psalms (which is the prayer book of the Bible) the poets speak of waiting for God or of waiting on the Lord. Whatever else this phrase means or implies, it indicates there were times in the lives of the Psalmists when, although they were striving to be faithful, they were not able to discern God's presence or God's will. They were confident they had not been abandoned by God, but for the present, they were having to wait on the Lord, trusting God's faithfulness. There are times when we must wait on the Lord. Our waiting is similar to the waiting I did when I was a small child, waiting for my Daddy to arrive so we could go fishing in the late afternoon. Our waiting is done with us out on the front lawn of our living, looking up and down the street, confident God's guidance is coming into our lives, but we simply do not know when or from what direction it will come, or in what kind of vehicle it will arrive. In anticipation and expectation, we wait on the Lord, confidently trusting that sooner or later, we will know what we need to know, and what God wants us to do. If loving God means striving to do what God wants, then what did Paul mean when he said that all things work for good for those who love God? Obviously, Paul did not mean that if we love God only nice, good happy things happen to us. Just because we love God does not mean everything will turn out the way we want. Jesus was crucified, even though he had sweat blood praying for "this cup" to pass from him. Sin and evil still bring crucifixions and death. Sin and evil have the power to destroy lives -- the lives of those we love. I find great comfort in remembering that since God was able to take the crucifixion (the very worst we humans can do) and transform it into the saving event for humanity, God is certainly able to take the worst in my life and somehow, someway use it for good. The cross is not the last word; the agonies of injustice are not the last word, the tragedies that happen are not the last word. God's victory proclaimed in Easter is the last word. God is able to transform defeats such as the cross into the kinds of victories Easter celebrates. One other comment about the victory Easter celebrates. If we look closely at the various resurrection stories in the New Testament, we discover there are such significant differences, we are not clear exactly what happened. It is also rather clear that the resurrection of Christ is not like the Old and New Testament stories of the dead being brought back to life. In those stories dead bodies were resucitated, only to have to die again later. The resurrection of Christ was different. And when Paul wrote about the resurrection of the dead in the 15th chapter of I Corinthians, he described the profound mystery of some sort of new creation. He tells us that what is buried, is no more like what is raised than the acorn that is planted looks nothing like the tree that develops. So, when Paul writes that all things work for good for those who love God, he speaks as one who understands that the good God brings into being is always some sort of new creation -- not merely the resuscitation of the way life used to be. There is a new creation. And just as the followers of Jesus were surprised by the resurrection, so too, there is something of surprise, about the good God brings into being out of the hard times we go through. To all of us, but especially to those who are going through hard times. Paul wrote these words: "All things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose." God, enable us to be aware at all times, but especially in the midst of hard times, that you are for us and not against us; that your love never fails; and that even though we cannot discern how it will happen, we are able to live confidently trusting that regardless of what happens, you who transformed the cross into the saving event for humanity will use even our hard times for good. Amen. Pastoral prayer: Let us thank God for our blessings. God, rescue us from mere religious ritual as we come to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. Enable us to be sensitive to the reality, the mystery of grace that is present here. Lead us into the kind of confession and repentance that opens us to receive what you are offering. Help us set aside all the clutter in our brains that makes it difficult for us to focus on you. Motivate us to put aside all the self-centered distractions that keep us from centering our lives in You. Make us aware of the gift you have given in Jesus and make us sensitive to the meaning of that gift. May this sacrament be for each of us a personal means of grace. This is our prayer because we know that until your grace is what shapes our living, we will not be living as you intend. And until we are living as you intend, we are handicapped in helping the world be the world you intended. Fill us with your love so that your love flows through all we say and do so that we are a positive influence on the people we meet and the situations in which we find ourselves. Enable us to be your faithful witnesses wherever we are in life. Longing for your redeeming grace for us and for the world, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
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