First Sunday after Pentecost

First Sunday after Pentecost
Romans 5:1-5
June 3^rd, 2007
Rev. Philip A. Bouknight 

When I was preparing for the ministry, I had to endure session after session with a group called the candidacy committee.  Their sole purpose for existence is to discern whether or not a candidate for the ministry is fit to be in the ministry.  They offer words of encouragement and are there to support you, but a far greater amount of time is spent in interrogation.  I choose my words intentionally.  They examine you very closely; how you live your life, how you view leadership, what you believe, and what you profess to be the beliefs of the Church.  You are examined before you enter the seminary.  You are examined after your first year.  In your second year, this examination will determine if you are allowed to go on internship, where you will spend the entire year immersed in a particular community of faith.  When you return from internship, you are debriefed and then undergo a final examination, which will determine whether or not you may be considered as a candidate for ordained ministry in the Church. 

It is this final barrage of questions that is the toughest and rightfully so.  You can be guaranteed that one of the many questions that you will have to answer is this. 

How are we saved? 

The answer is found in our passage from Romans. 

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.  Romans 5:1-2 

We are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and when we look at Romans chapter three we add….apart from works.  Paul also makes it clear that when we talk of faith, what we really mean is our faith in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.  In other words, we believe that Jesus Christ came down to earth and went throughout the region teaching, preaching, and healing.  This same Jesus Christ suffered on the cross, died, and was raised.  He and only He was completely faithful to God the Father.  Through our baptism into His death and resurrection, we live forever in His presence.  The only reason that we can stand before God is because of Christ who stands for us. 

Notice that Paul does not stop there.  There is much more to a life of faith than the promise of God that brought you eternal life.  After Paul makes it clear that we are able to stand before God only through Jesus Christ, He says, and not only that….. 

And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,

 Romans 5:3-4 

Now let us look at ourselves as if we were standing before that great and terrible interrogation table of the candidacy committee.  We have correctly defined through Romans how we are able to stand before God.  We were a good scholar and remembered to quote Paul.  They have heard us say, “We are justified by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.”  Then you hear them say….so what. 

So what. 

Now that you recognize that you are saved, what does that mean to you?  So often we move from verses one and two of Romans 5 to verse 5. 

and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Romans 5:5 

We go from the knowledge of our salvation through Jesus Christ to our hope for eternal life in Jesus Christ.  We see the beginning and the end.  But then there are those verses in the middle that talk of suffering, endurance and character.  They are the “so what” of faith. 

Faith is not a commodity to have and to hold.  It is a means by which we live.  If we can boast that we have been saved through Jesus Christ, then so what?  What does faith look like?  If faith is not lived, then it is not seen. 

So how do we live out our faith? 

Take a look at the author of our salvation for that answer.  How was Jesus faithful?  If we were to outline four points of faithfulness through our witness of Jesus’ life, they would be this.  Faithfulness means that we must go, suffer, die and be raised.  Jesus’ entire life was an example for us.  Last week I said that every worship is a sending service where we are sent into the world to go about the work of the kingdom.  That is what it means to go.  Are we going?  If we answer no to this first and most basic of questions, then we do not even have to ask “Are we suffering?” 

When we go into the world to proclaim Christ, we are exhibiting the first mark of discipleship.  That mark of discipleship immediately welcomes suffering, the first part of Paul’s list which leads us to hope.  When we go, we come up against the ways of the world and these ways are often the exact opposite of the ways of God. 

Let us now define suffering.  I don’t want you to think only of the things that faced the early Church martyrs.  Suffering can mean isolation.  If people know that you worship God, then you may not be invited into certain social circles.  You may not be welcomed in and you may even be shunned.  Your faith could keep you from being promoted if your boss is a non Christian.  Your faith may bring ridicule from others and if you lived in other countries, it could bring you abuse and death. 

If we don’t know the answer to “Are we going?” then ask yourself “Have I suffered?”  If we have spent our entire life witnessing to the Church alone, then we never have run up against the crowd that we are truly sent to.  Paul says that suffering leads to endurance.  If we have never suffered for Christ, then we do not know what it means to endure the trials of this world for Christ.  Endurance is an ever growing quality.  There are very few plateaus.  Each challenge that we face leads to a greater level of endurance.  The more we struggle with fighting the ways of the world, the more we are able to endure them. 

Paul says that endurance leads to character.  If we have not struggled and if we have not learned to endure, then we have not built upon our character.  Character is the quality of a person that is exhibited when they face opposition.  If we do not believe in anything, then we do not ever have to defend it.  If we believe strongly in Christ, then we will face opposition.  That opposition will teach us endurance and each challenge will build our character. 

Paul says that it is character that leads to hope.  What do we hope in if we have never thought about the substance of our hope?  How significant is our hope if it has never meant enough to us to speak about it?  How convicted are we if we have never had to defend our convictions?  Finally, if there is no character in our lives based on faith, then our hope must be in an undefined, thoughtless proposition.  I guarantee that our hope in salvation is neither undefined, nor is it thoughtless, nor is it a simple proposition.  It is the greatest gift that we have ever received. 

If you find yourself looking upon the hope that we have in Christ and begin to realize that you have trouble defining that hope, then I ask you to answer the question put before me by my candidacy committee. 

You are saved.  So what?  What does that mean to you?  As you dare to understand this hope, I challenge you to go in the name of Christ and proclaim Him to the world.  As you suffer the consequences of being a disciple, you will learn endurance.  As you build upon your endurance, you will build upon your character.  As your character becomes defined, then you will begin to hope in the significant gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. 

Suffering, endurance, character and only then hope; these mark the road to discipleship and discipleship is the “so what” of faith.  It is in the living out of our faith that the world sees our savior. 

So what has never mattered so much.