Romans 5:1-5 God blessed us with hope that he loves us!

Gravity is not dad’s best friend. When kids are little, dad can hold, carry, toss, spin, etc. kids around, but big kids are not as easy for dad to pick up. The cooler dad carries to the park, beach, game, etc. starts off with handles he holds, then becomes handles he and someone else hold, and finally the cooler gets wheels. And, over time gravity even pulls his hair down from the top of his head and back into his head so that it comes out of his ears and nose. Gravity may not be dad’s best friend, but when God is dad’s best friend, nothing will bring him down.

Abraham had hope in God, even though God had not sent him a Father’s Day card. All the other fathers at Abraham’s time enjoyed getting Father’s Day card along with a new walking staff or a new pair of sandals or a new flint knife on Father’s Day, but not Abraham. He and his wife Sarah had struggled with infertility for decades. In fact, they had reached the age when hope for a child was gone and replaced with the struggle of living with no possible hope at all of having a child. Though Abraham and his wife Sarah were blessed in so many other ways having great wealth, respect from kings, a private army, good health and faith in God, they did not have a child. Abraham did not struggle because God had not sent him a Father’s Day card, he struggled because God had not allowed him to be a father. And this struggle with hope in God while being childless was also true for his wife Sarah.

As with Abraham and Sarah, our hope in God is tested. Our hope in God is not hope in the sense that we hope God loves us because it sounds nice to have a higher being on our side, rooting for us, making things work out and making us feel good. Hope like that is subjective and deceiving because we might keep our hope in God when we feel good, or our life seems to be going well and in the right direction by our standards and then lose that hope when we do not feel good, and life does not go as we wanted. Rather, our hope in God is the certain and guaranteed reality because his Creation testifies to his existence, Jesus lived, died and rose from the dead and the Holy Spirit lives in us filling us with the assurance of faith in God’s grace, mercy, peace, love, forgiveness, salvation and eternal life. With that kind of hope it would seem like nothing could bring us down or make us feel ashamed of our faith, until we suffer.

Suffering pushes down on our hope and raises up doubt. It could be struggles with infertility. It could also be abuse, divorce, abandonment, being widowed, etc. Or it could be something unrelated to family like depression, sickness or unemployment. And it could be suffering for your faith as classmates or coworkers mock you, or your job celebrates unbiblical policies. When our hope in God is tested, what comes naturally to our sinful nature is to run away from hope in God with discomfort to what feels comfortable even if God is not there. In the long run, being comfortable without God will only bring suffering in this broken world and leave us separated from God in hell.

When suffering causes us to feel ashamed of our hope in God and turn away from him, there is only one place to turn. God is the one we turn to in suffering because he is our hope. We turn to God because he is strong and loving like we run to dad during a storm or after falling off a bike or needing strong arms to wrap us up while we cry. Our New Testament reading from Romans 5 assures us of our hope in God as we read, 1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. God has given us the assurance that we have peace with him through Jesus. We no longer suffer hopelessly trying to get out of suffering until we die in our sins and unbelief to go to hell. Instead, Jesus died for our sins and was raised to life as the guarantee that our sins are forgiven. Every moment of our lives, we look forward to heaven where we will live with God away from any more suffering. Even when we suffer, this is still our future. This means, suffering with hope in God does not bring shame, but allows us to stand firm as we read in Romans 5, 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Suffering pushes down on us, but perseverance is pushing back. And when our pattern is pushing back, that pattern is character. A character made of hope in God. Martin Luther explained it like this, “He who has faith also has all these things, but they are hidden; yet through tribulation they are exercised until they excel.” God has filled you with his Holy Spirit so that the pattern of your life is hope in God. As that hope is exposed and exercised, we experience the peace and joy of God’s love for us and grow more eager to be with him in heaven.

Hope does not put an end to suffering. Our hope in God does not mean we will not suffer, it means we are able to make it through suffering. Fathers with hope in God, we will suffer, but we will make it through with hope in God. As fathers, we are best prepared to meet whatever season or severity of suffering we face when our hope is in God. Jesus encouraged his disciples the night he was betrayed in our Gospel reading from John 16 by saying, 12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” For fathers and for all of us, the good news is that Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts to guide us. The Holy Spirit has given us faith and the ability to live out our faith. When we are young in our faith, hope in what God has done for us fills us with joy and peace. And when we look back on our lives, and we still have hope in what God has done for us we will still have joy and peace. Fathers, bring your family to worship and Bible study, and read the Bible to them, and your family will be ready for suffering. When suffering comes, have ready the unchanging words of the blessing God gave to Israel in our Old Testament reading from Numbers 6, 24 “The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” The truth of this blessing remains firm though it was first spoke thousands of years ago because of the one true God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Hundreds of years before God gave this blessing to the nation of Israel, their childless ancestor Abraham and his wife Sarah suffered with hope in God. And God blessed them with a child who grew into a great nation from which Jesus was born who saved the world. God has called people to faith from the nations of the world, including us. The blessing for Abraham was to know God loved him. As suffering pushes on us, we push back and keep the pattern of hope in God because we know God loves us.

Gravity is not dad’s best friend. Over time gravity and even pulls his hair down from the top of his head and back into his head so that it comes out of his ears and nose. Gravity may not be dad’s best friend, but when dad hopes in God, nothing will bring him down. A dad that stands firm in his hope in God is a gift to his family as he shares his faith and models what it looks like to stand firm in God even when life tries to pull him down. Even when we suffer, we will stand firm because God blessed us with hope that he loves us. Amen.

Gunnar Ledermann, Pastor Divine Peace Church