We Rejoice... And Know

We Rejoice….. And Know

Psalm 9: 1 - 4

Romans 5: 1 – 5

June 15, 2025

I have been blessed to travel a fair amount as an adult. As a child, my family couldn’t really afford vacations out of the country, but we traveled the U.S. fairly extensively staying in campgrounds, inexpensive roadside hotels, and in the homes of extended family throughout the east.

As a young adult serving in the Marines, we traveled throughout the Far East although I am not sure that our mode of travel, or daily schedule of events would necessarily qualify as vacation ready. 72 guys sleeping and living in an area smaller than many of the master bedrooms I have seen in Laguna, Laguna Niguel, and Dana Point would hardly qualify as a cruise vacation. To say nothing of waiting in line for 3 hours to get powdered eggs and milk, stale toast, or the fruit drink we used to call bug juice.

Since then, I have been on mission sites in the East, Central America, Mexico, the Middle East and, again, across the United States. No matter my age, no matter what my employment or mode of travel, regardless of why I was at a particular place or how I was living as I stayed there; there has been extraordinary beauty, majesty, and glory across those Creation locations.

Nighttime skies that did not have to compete with human lighting were glorious and spellbinding. Sunrises on the ocean spoke to the majesty and eternal nature of God’s glory. The Grand Canyon – whether it be the location in Arizona or Chiang Mai, Thailand’s competing version – spoke to the creative abilities of God.

Just three weeks ago I was standing on the seaside border of Israel and Lebanon and the ocean view from that lookout was stunning. We had just come from Caesarea Maritima - a world heritage site – and another stunning depiction of glory.

And yet, as I think of the breadth of this glory I am also reminded that we live in a very broken world. The news of the past week, the past 72 hours, absolutely breaks my heart. When I think of what humanity, be that particular groups or individuals, when I think about what we are willing and able to do to each other in the name of protection, self-defense, personal or national assertion or just plain orneriness and greed should convince even the most secular amongst us of the essential, broken nature of humankind.

The book of Romans – Paul’s great letter to the church at Rome outlining the human condition - does the same thing. Early in Chapter 1, Paul reminds us that Creation itself speaks to the existence, to the majesty, to the love of God. Just as my travels, and I am sure your as well, has convinced me of the creative workmanship and existence of God, so does life in that majestic world. Paul spends 3 chapters outlining to a devastating, inescapable effect, the reality that all humanity has sinned and fallen short of the glory, or the relationship for which we were created.

The question becomes, “Now what?”

Are we forever doomed to a broken existence, fighting and squabbling, conquering and controlling, ruling and dominating? Philosophers from across the spectrum have argued that this is exactly our course. Other world religions would suggest that perhaps, on our own, out of our own spiritual brilliance we can lift ourselves out of this doom cycle we have created by our own efforts. The testimony of history would suggest that this Work’s Salvation attempt has failed.

But Christianity, a faith based in relationships, a spirituality centered in the goodness of God, not God’s judgement would suggest differently. Romans has established the glory of Creation. The same wisdom has identified our inescapable judgement. But just prior to our second text, Paul tells us that brokenness does not have the final word. Sin and separation is not the final judgement. God, and God’s redemptive love in Jesus Christ is the triumphal conclusion.

Faith – not something we generate for ourselves; faith – not the accumulation of good deeds that somehow tips the judgment scales in our favor; faith as a gift given out of the grace of God has been given to us. As recipients of that grace; as recipients of that faith, even in the broken darkness that surrounds us we stand as redeemed people of light because of the gift of God in Jesus for you and for me.     

THEREFORE, as our text starts; therefore as people of light even in the midst of surrounding darkness we stand as God’s beloved knowing that it is that relationship that defines us. That relationship reminds us that we do not stand alone. The Creator of the Universe – the source of the unspeakable beauty that surrounds us stands with us even when darkness encroaches.

And friends, let’s be clear, we may stand in a redeemed relationship with God through Jesus Christ as a result of God’s grace but that does not mean, in any way shape or form, that we are immune to the evil that assails us in so many ways. In triumphal, powerful America it is easy to talk about victory over evil when we have all of the temporal power. As people of affluence, it is easy to talk about the beauty of life when our idea of roughing it is sleeping on 500 count bed sheets.

Evil still strikes. The most beautiful people we know – and I am not talking abut superficial surface beauty – the most beautiful people we know get eaten alive by cancer. Relationships are broken. Accounts and a lifetime of planning and saving get devastated by market manipulations and crashes. The good get sick, the evil seem to prosper, and sometimes we are left wondering just what is the benefit of this life of faith.

Friends, hear me clearly. THEREFORE, since our relationship with God is secure in the grace and empty tomb of Jesus; since we are no longer eternally defined by the sum total of our actions; since it is the gift of faith and that relationship that ultimately defines who we are, how we live, and where we will spend eternity THEN – THEN, life takes on a new feel, a new purpose, a new direction.

We are no longer defined by our earthly accumulations, our earthly trajectory. When the winds blow, when the skies darken, when the storms rage, we stand – not by ourselves - but with God and God’s people.

It is this certainty of God’s gracious presence that makes all the difference.

As believers we know we are not alone. As believers we know we are recipients of God’s grace and favor. As believer we know who owns the final page – the eternal page – and in that knowledge comes the ability to suffer, knowing that the consequences of these sufferings are not ultimate. God is. When we know the outcome is determined, the ability to endure, to persevere becomes strengthened. And as God proves victorious over our suffering; as God surrounds us and makes it possible for us to endure; then we know that our hope – our faith in God - has been well placed. Securely placed. Eternally placed.

I have taken youth to Thailand, Central America, Mexico, and across the United States on mission trips. We often found ourselves amongst the outcasts, the marginalized, those that have been taken advantage of by the privileged, those living lives of poverty and squalor. It was painful. How could people do this to each other, we would wonder? How can these people live in such poverty and yet seem to live with a joy, a peace, a contentment, an accumulation of Fruits of the Spirit that many of our youth hungered for?

Almost every time, at the beginning of our conversations, our youth wanted to credit poverty – and its enforced simplicity of life – as the reason why these folks seemed to live such abundant lives. They wanted to blame materialism, the accumulation of stuff, the self-definition by consumer brand as the reason why they – our church youth – were seemingly so frenetic, anxious, and discontent.

We would then need to have the conversation around the broken nature of poverty – especially poverty experienced by the oppressed. “There is nothing noble about poverty,” I would tell them. “Well then what is it?”

We would end up talking about the progression of our text from Romans. Then when your faith is secure, when that faith has convincingly defined for you who you are – fully and completely apart from your worldly, physical condition, then darkness, oppression, poverty, and suffering never has the final word. God does.

In the eye of the King of Kings; in the heart of the Creator of the world you are loved beyond measure. It doesn’t matter where you live, what you wear, what job title you labor under. Neither your physical success or failure defines you – God does. Whether you buy your clothes on Rodeo Drive, Nordstrom Rack, at the Blue Light Special at K-Mart, or from the thrift store in Dana Point none of these things say anything about who you are, what your value is, or where you are going.

God’s love has been poured into your heart. It is the presence of that love that helps us to suffer, to endure, to transcend. Transformed by that knowledge, connected irrevocably to God through his grace, filled with love and compelled to serve that is the joy and the hope in which we live. That joy and hope is ours - forever. Amen.