5th Sunday after Epiphany at
Epiphany on
Romans
It’s all good!
Howard was shipwrecked. He was the only person on
the small island. He prayed every day asking God to send someone to rescue him.
Every day he looked around for God’s help but he couldn’t find it. Tired of
waiting, Howard made a shelter to protect himself and his few possessions. But
then one day, when he returned from foraging for food, he saw his little shelter
on fire. His little hut and his few possessions were gone. He was confused and
mad at God. He angrily asked God, “Why did you do this to me?” Fuming, he fell
asleep on the sand. Early the next morning Howard woke to the sound of a ship’s
horn. A ship carrying rescuers came to the island. Howard asked them how they
knew he was there. The rescuers said that they were passing by the island when
they saw his great smoke signal.
It’s easy to get mad when things go wrong, but we
shouldn’t lose heart because God is working in our lives. The next time your
small house is on fire, it might simply be a smoke signal coming from God. For
every negative thing that happens to us, we should remind ourselves, “God has a
positive answer to this.”
God’s positive answer to the difficulties in our
lives is Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of
those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” It is a very
familiar Bible verse. It is often quoted in hospital rooms or funeral homes.
Romans
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be
conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many
brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called,
he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”
God the Father looks disappointingly upon you,
His fallen creature – His creation that is now subject to death and decay. Your
sin elicits God’s wrath and He is plenty angry. Your sin deserves death and
damnation. Don’t think for a moment that you can weasel out of your deserving
punishment with your little prayers and pious platitudes.
But the Father has a way of loving and embracing
His fallen humanity. Only one way. He loves His fallen creation and embraces it
by sending His one and only Son, His only-begotten from all eternity, to take on
human flesh. The fullness of the Deity dwelling in bodily form.
God’s positive answer to the negative of sin is
Jesus Christ. In Christ, it’s all good. In Christ you were foreknown by the
Father. In Christ, you were predestined. Even before you were conceived, even
before you existed, you were destined to be conformed to the image of Christ.
God had a plan worked out long before you were ever a twinkle in your mother’s
eye. A plan devised in eternity by the Holy Trinity was in place to save the
cosmos. Predestined. God chose you from eternity to be His own. In Christ it’s a
done deal.
Those God predestined, He also called. God called
your name at your baptism. Water and Word washed over you. The sign of the cross
marked you as God’s redeemed child. Or at your conversion God called your name
like Paul on the
Those God called he also justified. You were
justified in Christ, declared before God’s judgment throne to be innocent. Not
innocent until proven guilty. Innocent unto eternity. Not with your own
innocence. You have none. A sentence of innocence was spoken over you when
Christ cried from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what
they are doing.” God declares you innocent and all you can say to this verdict
is “Amen” – “so be it.” If God says it, that settles it. Right now, as we speak,
you stand before the all-holy Judge, you stand before Him spotless and
blameless, clothed with the perfect life and death of Jesus. That’s what it
means to be justified.
There’s more. Those whom God justified He also
glorified. Note these verb tenses. All past tense. Done. Glorified. Even as you
sit here and listen to me, you are already seated at the right hand of the
Father in glory. You are glorified in the glorified flesh of Jesus Christ. On
your own you are anything but glorious. You suffer, you sin, you die. But in
Christ you are glorified, pure, holy.
So there you have it. God has done it all. These
verbs count for eternity. Foreknew, predestined, called, justified, glorified.
He does them all. They are, as we speak here, past and done in Christ. That
takes everything eternal out of your hands. Even before you were, you were known
in Christ and destined in Him. This is not a verse that explains why some are
saved and not others. Predestination is not an explanation for salvation. This
is a statement of boldness, confidence and certainty, that nothing in this world
can rob us of our salvation which was, is and ever shall be a done deal in
Jesus. In Jesus it’s all good.
Though our eternity is a done deal, still this
life seems up in the air. Whether it is Howard angry because his hut burned down
or Job is complaining that he has lost his family, health and wealth or Simon
Peter’s mother-in-law is bed-ridden with a fever, you are in your kitchen
pharmacy dealing with your multiple ailments or your bank account is dwindling
as your debt is rising – there is suffering in our world.
Though our salvation is secure, we still want to
know “Where is God when I’m hurting?” Let all who ask that question consider the
crucifixion of Christ. A trickle of blood down the side of God’s face. The Lord
Almighty come close enough, made small enough, to get hurt. God drawn so near to
a suffering world as to actually ask the same question in the midst of His own
unimaginable torment. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
He shared our flesh. He understands our pain. He
saw the universe through blurring human tears. He even participated with us in
asking, “Why?”
On an old television drama called
Judging Amy, a woman who has given up
on God catches up with her friend on his way into church. “Come inside,” he
says. But she stands on the church steps wanting to know why. When things don’t
work out, when life hurts so badly, it just doesn’t seem to make sense. She
pleads, “I don’t understand! How can you believe in him?” He fumbles for words.
“Sometimes you just have to give God the benefit of the doubt.” She replies,
“Why should I do that?” So he talks
about his baby girl, what it’s like to hold her, what new thoughts come to him
as he’s looking at her. “God gave me this child. There’s a lot I don’t
understand. But I understand this.”
We can follow a similar path of reasoning, not
with our own children, but with Isaiah’s prophecy: “Unto us a child is born,
unto us a Son is given.” Think of the perfect boy born in
While you are suffering, think of Him who did not
deserve to suffer and think of all the reasons that you do. Let the gruesome
reality of Christ’s crucifixion settle into your soul. What sounds would
accompany the driving of a nail through a human hand? What feelings accompanied
His torn flesh rubbing against rough wood? What pain was written across His
face?
There may be a lot you don’t understand about why
God does what He does. But this … this you understand.
You don’t give God the benefit of the doubt. You
trust Him outright. He won that much from you when He saved you. He earned your
trust when He predestined you. Your eyes are focused on Him from the moment He
called you. Because God’s Son suffered so that you would be justified, you know
that you need to turn away from the bitter “Why” questions. You now know to ask
better questions, questions that point ahead to heaven and lead us through this
veil of tears.
So now instead of asking “Why?” we ask, “What
good purposes can God be working out through this suffering?” And the answers
start to come. Suffering reduces us down to our need. Pain turns our faces
around if we had forgotten God. We grip the Word because we have to … or is it
that His Word grips us?
We remember, “Our light and momentary troubles
are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” It is
glistening words like these that make all the difference. Without them we are
prone to make suffering a cause of bitterness and to give in to despair. When we
embrace the Word of God and grip it with all the energy that pain provides, we
receive only good for all our tears.
In his commentary on Romans, Martin Luther wrote:
God exposes His saints to many evils, which are all like grasping hands, and yet
He does not lose His saints.”
A broken body reminds us that our spirit is
whole. Our body is only temporary, our spirit is eternal. The patience you seek
is a by-product of tribulations. Suffering draws you away from worldly cares and
brings you closer to God. You pray for all things so that you may enjoy life.
Yet God gives you life so you may enjoy all things.
We learn more about God and the mystery of His
love when we are in the dark than we ever could in worldly daylight. God’s Word
is the light that shines in our darkness. Faith refined in the fire of suffering
is better than gold. It’s your ticket to heaven.
Pain tells us that we are not home yet. The
aching keeps us from being satisfied with this world. We aren’t in
A well-known speaker
started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked,
“Who would like this $20 bill?” Hands started going up. He said, “I’m going to
give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this. He proceeded to crumple
the $20 dollar bill. He then asked, “Who still wants it?” Still the hands were
up in the air.
“Well,” he said, “What
if I do this?” And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the
floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. “Now who still
wants it?” Still the hands went into the air.
“My friends,” he said,
“we have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money,
you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth
$20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt
by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as
though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen,
you will never lose your value.”
Dirty or clean,
crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to the One who loves you.
The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or whom we know, not in what we
have endured or experienced, but by who we are. We are the predestined, called,
justified, and glorified children of God. Whether in pain or in plenty, whether
in affliction or in affluence, whether in recession or in relief, in Christ it’s
all good. Amen.