What do you think of this question… HARNESSING faith, how to HARNESS faith, how to be HARNESSED by it…
I had the awesome opportunity to go on the giant swing up at the Year 5 school camp last week > you get in a harness around your body and legs, you put on a helmet and you get pulled up to about 15m off the ground, before you let go and swing through over the scrub – good fun! Bit of a thrill, definitely need that harness in place!
Let’s hold that harness image there for a moment as we check out our passage today >
MASSIVE book of the bible for us > Romans 5, Luther calls this book ‘the chief part of the NT’ & ‘the very purest Gospel,’ contains the most important truths about salvation and God’s grace – sounds pretty important!
And this part we come across today is huge > suffering > perseverance > character > hope.
We see this flow in Peter & Paul’s journeys, in what Jesus went through in his earthly life, and in what we go through as Christian people today.
We might have heard this line a million times, but how do we make it stick? How does this famous line stay with us in our everyday life, not in a throw-away ‘she’ll be right mate’ way but a real, purposeful, meaningful way that makes a difference to what we’re going through?
How do we HARNESS our faith, how are we HARNESSED by it > this passage is a blueprint for HARNESSING our faith!
So let’s lean in here, let yourself be washed over by the Gospel, like how we are washed clean in our baptism as we’ve already witnessed this morning!
5 verses to walk through, four key parts to this >
- Justified by faith
Have you ever seen those ‘JUSTIFY YOUR EXISTENCE’ bumper stickers? Make it sound like you need to do something, make it happen!
But God has justified our existence, meaning we’re not just escaping the punishment we deserve, but we’re now in a positive relationship with God.
We get justified, restored, reset again to be who God made us > which is people of peace, people who have received his peace > not just a nice cruisy sense of the word peace, but SERIOUS, LASTING peace FROM GOD that goes with us through the ups and downs of life.
2. Standing in grace
Beautiful image, STANDING IN GRACE.
Standing on solid ground, not shaky ground. The firm, secure grounding God has given us. How do we get there? Again, not by our own efforts but by faith > which as we know is worked in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, for our benefit and the benefit of those around us.
And because we have a firm foundation to stand on, standing in grace, from there we can STEP OUT IN FAITH. We get there by faith, and we can step out with our God alongside us, in faith.
3. Suffering, perseverance, character, hope
REALLY important point here >
“Paul is NOT listing virtues that his readers will achieve by their own will. As God helps us through suffering, He teaches endurance, He develops character in us, and He gives us hope” (Lutheran Study Bible)
We heard this in our Peter and Paul series > Paul is God’s CHOSEN INSTRUMENT, but he’s also going to SUFFER. Both are going on together, not one or the other, both.
The word RESILIENCE comes to mind here > God works resilient hearts and minds in us, through what we go through in life. NOT sending every bad thing upon us, but being with us through it as we are shaped and moulded into his image. Deep, lasting change is the sort of work God’s doing in us, it’s not surface level or head-knowledge only, it’s deep, personal, gets right to our core.
RESILIENCE is NOT pretending things are ok either, it’s not pushing down negative things or feelings so we can try to stay positive at all times > that is NOT what it is.
It’s actually being able to feel the difficulty of life, feeling and processing our emotions – feel it, talk about it, pray about it – so then character is built in us, we learn, grow, change, adapt > and as Christian people this verse tells us God is helping us build that resilience, he is there when we don’t feel resilient at all, and he helps us by telling us again and again through his word that he loves us and cares for us. We have the hope this verse talks about because we are standing in grace.
No clearer example of resilience than the church! It continues, through thick and thin, through chops and changes. It is built not on our efforts but on Christ, on the hope of Christ.
God has a plan for his church, he is with his church, he has not left the building.
4. God’s love poured into our hearts
FILL UP, be filled up with God’s love by the work of the Holy Spirit. That’s what we get to do right here this morning!
This is NOT about generating enough love yourself, working hard enough yourself to make sure you love everyone (because you will fail if you try that).
It’s about resting in God’s love, listening to him, being in relationship with him, returning to him and being sent out by him. And from that intimate, personal relationship comes the flow of love he gives to us, to be given to others as he calls us to share it.
God’s love is not just soft and cuddly > it can be like that, but more importantly it is STRONG.
Strong enough that he would send his Son to die for us > there’s the ultimate picture of suffering producing perseverance, character and hope! He loves us enough to have done that for us.
Just a few verses further on in this same chapter, Paul says:
‘But God shows his love for us in that while we still sinners Christ died for us’ (Rom 5:8)
We weren’t good people who deserved it, we were the worst.
We were the worst, but Jesus was and is the best.
And here are a couple of great lines form another preacher I was checking out through the week:
“The love of God was given as an accomplished act, but it remains in our hearts as a present reality”
“God takes the initiative, reaching across enemy lines to former adversaries”
Who are former adversaries? You and me! But our God has reached across enemy lines to get to us, to bring us home to him.
So this is the blueprint for HARNESSING our faith, how to be HARNESSED by our faith >
Grace is our foundation > like the harness & the helmet you wear on the gaint swing!
Faith is when trust comes in > like trusting the instructor, trusting the equipment is fit for purpose and going to keep you safe!
Suffering > perseverance > character > hope is the journey we go on, sometimes it’s thrilling, sometimes it’s slow, sometimes we’re up and about and other times we’re a bit low, sometimes we’re in-between.
But we are always carried by & always return to our God-given position of STANDING IN GRACE.
Tom Kitson 