Sermon Tone Analysis

Mark Airey

Text:  Romans 15:4-13

Our Hope in Christ

Advent 2

 

*Focus:  *God gives us joyful hope in Christ through endurance and encouragement in the Scriptures.

*Function:  *That my hearers would abound in hope in Christ through endurance and encouragement in the Scriptures.

*Sermon Structure:  *Propositional~/Thematic Structure

 

Hope…my wife and I learned something about the origin of hope during my wife’s second pregnancy and she said it would be alright to share about it.

She had to endure the usual nausea and incredible discomfort for nine months and basically having her body taken over by another being.

Her abdomen was stretched to new limits, even double its size.

But along with all of this she was diagnosed with “preclampsia.”

I had no idea what this condition was, but, it turned out that the pregnancy had triggered a High Blood Pressure disorder that put her in the danger zone much more than I, or the doctor, would have liked.

She had to cope with all of this nausea and the changes in her body, but more importantly, she had to prepare herself for the upcoming trauma of birth with this new threat of a stroke.

The doctors were worried that her blood pressure would rise to levels that would endanger both her and the baby during the birth.

She needed inner strength at this time in her life.

Through the enduring of this pregnancy her faith was strengthened.

God worked through the pregnancy and in the end her hope in God was stronger.

This was quite something for me to watch.

She was given a stronger hope, and then faith, in Christ through a difficult time in her life because of the character that was built as she endured the hardships brought on by the pregnancy.

[DS1] This pregnancy was a gift from God in more ways than she, or I, could have ever imagined.

He gave my wife the gift of endurance, which in turn gave her the gift of character, which then gave her the gift of hope.

Paul is asking /us/ to learn something about this same Christian hope today as well.

Not through a pregnancy, but he invites us in verse four of our text that, “through endurance and the encouragement of Scriptures we might have hope.”

First of all the hope he is talking about is a specific, /Christian/ hope.

This is the Christian hope that is given to us through our hardships and the endurance of them.

Now, what does Paul mean by “through endurance?”

Well, not only did the Roman Christians endure hardship during this time but Christians have been enduring throughout history.

The Roman Christians were enduring persecution under the Roman empire when Paul wrote this text and through the entire Old Testament is a story of a people who endured incredible hardship.

They withstood devastation, even an almost complete annihilation…/multiple times/!

The Israelites endured slavery under the Egyptians.

But Paul tells us that our God is a God of endurance.

He gives us endurance to enable us to withstand what may come our way and through it that we might have hope.

God gave the Israelites endurance through this extremely long period of slavery that they suffered.

They were being prepared for His servant Moses to present a hope they would accept.

After this they barely escaped and after being pushed into a corner between the sea and a huge army they made it to the desert.

They then underwent forty years in this bleak desert.

This was a refinement of the character of the people of Israel and through it they again had hope.

You see, suffering and being delivered by God causes one to enter the next situation sure of God’s care.

For example, the first pregnancy of my wife caused her to enter into the second with a different character, a sense that God would also bring her through.

After all the persecution in Egypt the Israelites fought every -/ite/ people there was, including; the Hittites, Ammonites, Canaanites…you name ‘em.

This was /only/ to be overrun by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and then the Romans.

They bore persecution and enslavement under most of these peoples.

The /only/ thing that the remnants of the Israelites came away with was a hope that came from having to endure the long hardship of captivity and persecution.

They were given this hope through God’s mercy; God remained faithful to His people.

He acted as the God that is the “Great Keeper of Promises.”

Even through all of the oppression, even when they turned away from Him He remained faithful to them.

Through this faithfulness God gifted His people with hope.

He gifts /us/ with this same hope through endurance but do we respond to it?

We are often put to the test in our lives, do we shirk the responsibility?

Do we quit when the going gets tough?

I must admit that I have done this.

We sometimes look for the easier route, or just stop going forward at all, instead of pushing on in the direction God would have us go.

This gift isn’t always utilized in our lives to bring the hope that God is trying to give to us.

God gives us the gift of endurance so that we can grow in our Christian faith through character and hope.

Even when we quit God still gives us endurance and even hope.

Despite our unworthiness God is gracious and gifts us with hope through endurance.

He is a gracious and merciful God and loves us enough to pull us through even the deepest despair or hardship.

He kept His promise to us when He didn’t shirk His responsibility by dying on the cross for us and by his work we are saved.

Our Lord and Savior pushed on all the way to the cross for us and for our redemption.

In our text Paul tells us that we also have hope through the encouragement of the Scriptures.

The Israelites had the prophets, and they were encouraged through the telling of a savior.

As did the Romans have the promise of the final Day of Judgment revealed through the Scriptures.

The Roman Christians had the gift of the scriptures in their day of persecution to know they would be saved just as God told the Israelites, “When you pass through the waters I will be with you,” before they escaped from the Egyptians.

He gave them an incredible hope through the scriptures as it is written, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

They had this same God who had delivered them from each and every one of the earlier mentioned calamities.

He acted as that keeper of promises.

He rescued them from the Egyptians.

He provided them with manna in the desert.

He was with them in battle after battle in which He defeated their foes.

They always had a merciful God with them.

He would send prophets to help them see the truth even after they deserted Him.

Even when they had broken through all the boundaries of sin, God would forgive them and save them.

These accounts were written down on scrolls and then they had the prophets.

These are the scriptures that gave the Old Testament Israelites hope.

Now imagine another pregnancy in which the encouragement of the scriptures gave hope.

Mary, a fourteen year old girl going through all of the physical changes /along/ with the overwhelming nature of her /particular/ pregnancy.

Mary is pregnant by the spirit of God, but she was betrothed to Joseph.

This was in a society that is not very tolerant of pregnancy out of wedlock.

She is looking at some pretty rough repercussions as a result of God’s gift to her.

But there it is.

This was /God’s/ gift!

How does she react to the announcement of the coming hardship for herself?

She reacted out of the faith that God gave her through the scriptures and the hope given to her people.

She said, “May it be to me as you have said” to the One that who had always kept His word.

Then she sang a hymn of praise recounting how God had extended His mercy from generation to generation.

Instead of taking the stance of, “Oh whoa is me,” she sang joyfully!

Her words were, “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

She sang of all the things God had done for her found in the scriptures.

She sang of the mighty deeds He has done with His arm, the rulers He has brought down, and how “He has helped His servant Israel,” all of this fulfilling His promise to Abraham and his descendants.

This is a faithful hope and the result of a gift from God.

We have these same scriptures.

Do we allow them to permeate /our/ lives to the extent that we abound with hope?

In the world today there is so much to busy us.

We can get caught up in our everyday tasks and to-do-lists so easily.

We are so involved in getting life /done/, that we forget about the gift that has been given to us.

We forget the joy that is ours as a gift from God.

This hope is only possible because of the incredible hope of the Christmas gift that is given to us in God’s Child and the sacrifice that the Son of God made for us.

Through this gift, of a Savior, He has forgiven us any forgetfulness we might display.

He has forgiven us our oversights, or “undersights,” of this loving gift of the hope he brings to our lives.