Joy, Peace, and Hope Through the Bible

September 20, 2023October 13, 2023

Why Do We Lack Joy, Peace, and Hope? (Study of Romans, Part 2: Romans 1:18–3:19)

Key Thought: a lot of things can take our joy, peace, and hope, but the main problem is our alienation from God.

What is it that keeps us from joy, peace, and hope? Many things. We make many errors in our thinking that cause us to lose these things. We exaggerate threats, make outcomes too important, tie our happiness to the wrong things, don’t see the good that we have, etc.

But Paul saw all these things as rooted in one key problem: our failure to make God central to our thoughts and lives.

We do not do this because we do not know who God is. We do know. He has made Himself clearly known (Rom. 1:19–20). It is because we refuse to take this knowledge into account and give God the glory, praise, and place He deserves. We suppress the truth.

The result is that God gives us over to our own desires. One part of our error and sin is that we want things too much. Because we have given up on that which truly satisfies us (God), we have to try to find satisfaction elsewhere. We become obsessed with other things. We take whatever gives us pleasure and make life all about that.

When we make the pleasures or experiences of life the center of our lives, we will find other people blocking our way. That’s where wars, hatred, envy, jealousy, and rage come from. And that’s where we, as a human race, are stuck.

Into this failure to keep God in our hearts and thoughts as the supreme object of devotion, people offer religion as a way to get God back into our thoughts. God Himself gave a religious system to His people in the Old and New Testaments. However, oftentimes, those who possessed this religion used it to exalt and gratify themselves and clothed their injustice in the righteous claims of their religion. They knew the Words of God. They had them. But they didn’t obey them (see Romans 2).

People will use anything to exalt themselves and place themselves at the center. Ironically, religion can be a means of escaping God and exalting ourselves. We make ourselves bigger by identifying ourselves with the transcendent. This is not a problem simply of the Jewish people, though Paul addresses them. It is a human problem. There is no tool that we use to subdue pride that cannot become a tool of pride.

Why is this? Why do we take the best things and abuse them? Because humans are bent in the wrong direction. They have a sort of acquired allergy to God that keeps them from doing the right thing. Even the people who had the clearest instruction on God went the wrong way, including Paul himself! We cannot not establish righteousness and goodness on our own. We can’t get back to joy, peace, and hope without intervention.

At this point, it is important to remember that our problem is not simply that we cannot be what God has made us to be. God is opposed to what we have become. Sin is offensive to Him. The wrath of God is being revealed against all the bad things people do (Rom. 1:18).

Some people may be offended at this idea, but here is the problem. Would we really want a God who didn’t care that people did bad things? No. We would not want to worship a God like that. We would think He was unjust. The trouble is that we think all the bad things are outside us. Instead, we need to see that they are also inside us. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 and see Paul’s summary of this in Romans 3:1-20).

When we get that, we will understand our need for reconciliation with God and transformation into a new people.

So, what is needed? A righteousness from God. That is what is revealed in the Gospel, the good news. That is what we will explore in the next section.

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Outline for Making Your Own Study of Romans 1–3

Paul sees the basic problem as a failure to acknowledge God, think of God, and thank God.
This failure leads us to try and illegitimately find our satisfaction in things that can’t satisfy us.
This makes us mad at other people and causes all sorts of envy and evil thinking.
Religion seemed to be a help to this, but human pride even used this as a tool to escape God and His claims and look down on others.
The reason religion (even God-given religion) failed was because of human sinfulness, or our basic bent away from God.

Questions for Reflection

Where are you in your relationship with God?
What do you often seek to satisfy you? What happens when you don’t get there?
What can you use to make you feel good about your relationship with God that might hide your real need?
How do you feel about Paul’s evaluation of human beings as sinners?

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Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash

September 13, 2023October 13, 2023

Joy, Peace, and Hope for Everybody – An Introduction to Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Study of Romans, Part 1: Romans 1:1–17)

Key Thought: Joy, Peace, and Hope are possible through reconnecting with God through the good news about Jesus

Joy. Peace. Hope. Aren’t these what all of us want? 1,900 years ago, a Christian missionary named Paul wrote to the new church in the city of Rome, Italy. At the end of this letter, he wrote a blessing or a benediction. In this blessing, he said, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (15:13). This blessing expresses what He wants to see happen in the people He is writing to. He wants them to experience joy, peace, and hope.

Just think about this for a moment. What if we were the type of person who was filled with joy, peace, and hope? What would it be like to have hope for good things no matter what happened? What would it be like if the disappointments in the world could not shake us from a place of joy and peace? That’s what the missionary Paul wanted for the people in his life, indeed, for people all over the world. He dared to dream that joy, hope, and peace could be realities.

How We Get Joy, Peace, and Hope
He also had a very distinct idea of the types of things that would get people there. The main thing was a focus on God. He wanted them to enjoy the blessing of praising and glorifying God. That is generally the missing ingredient that keeps us from joy and peace. We are made to glorify and enjoy God. When we have God in our sights, every other problem, even if it is real, seems a bit smaller. The people who cause us trouble seem a little bit smaller.

But that doesn’t mean that people don’t matter. His blessing or hope was that people would not only glorify God but do it together. He had a sense that humans were made for each other and meant to work together. Humans can do amazing things when they work together, and they are made to work together. That’s the goal for human beings: joy and peace flowing from a focus on God and harmonious working together.

On every point here, the Christian missionary Paul knew that this is not how things generally were. People are filled with grief rather than joy, worry rather than peace, despair rather than hope. They don’t think much about God, and they often don’t work well together.

So, what is to be done? That’s the message that Paul had to share with the world. He called His message the “Gospel.” The Gospel just means an announcement. In the ancient world it referred to an announcement of a victory, the birth of a prince, or a new king.

The Gospel was all those things. It was an announcement of a new King and a victory that would bring us back to joy, peace, and hope. That King’s name was Jesus. Jesus was a Jew who was born 2,000 years ago. He preached and taught about God and what He called God’s Kingdom. He claimed to be God’s promised Savior of the world and indeed in a mysterious way, the very equal of God and the Son of God. Then, the Roman government put Him to death.

That would just be a strange and peculiar story, if something else had not happened. His disciples said that He rose from the dead. That’s what He had told His followers. He said He would be put to death and come back to life. And He pulled it off.

Paul and the Gospel
Originally, Paul did not believe that at all. In fact, He tried to jail and even put to death those who believed what Jesus said about Himself. Then, one day He showed up in Damascus, Syria saying that Jesus was everything He said He was. From there, He went all over the world founding communities or churches that would believe the same.

What happened? Paul said that he was on the way to Damascus to arrest followers of Jesus and there Jesus appeared to Him and spoke to Him from heaven. He was so convinced of this that he never looked back and even gave up his life for the sake of this truth.

Paul, the unbeliever, had become a believer that Jesus was the one that could get people back to glorifying God and living together in harmony and fill them with joy, peace, and hope forever.
That’s what Paul writes about in this letter. Remember that this letter is a letter. It’s not a book written in the abstract. It is a letter written in a particular context.

This book was written to the Roman Christians. Paul had never met them. He had been working for a long time in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. He felt that his work there was done. He wanted to go to the Western part, to Spain in particular. On his way there, he wanted to stop by Rome. He wanted their support and prayers. In a way, Romans is a sort of missionary fundraising letter.

In this letter, Paul explains what he taught all the churches. He wanted to encourage them and wanted them to know what he taught. Of all his letters, this one is the least specific and most general. In that way, it is extremely applicable to us. It does not deal with specific issues in specific churches. It deals with the general issues of humanity and how they are answered in the message about Jesus.

Conclusion
Try to put all this into the context of Paul’s blessing at the end. How do we become people filled with joy, peace, and hope who glorify God and do it in harmony with other people? That’s what this letter is all about. Second, remember that this is a missionary letter. He wants everybody to experience the joy, peace, and hope that come from the Gospel. That should be our focus, too, just as it was that of the Apostle Paul. We should want joy, peace, and hope for everybody.

Questions and Advice for Building Your Own Outline for an Introduction to Romans

Use the benedictions to explain the purpose of this letter and the purpose of the Gospel. What are the five blessings Paul wants people to receive?
What is the means that Paul believes will enable people to become the people His blessing says that they should be?
What did Jesus claim about Himself? What makes His claim plausible?
What is the story of the Apostle Paul and how does it confirm the message about Jesus?
What type of literature is Romans? Who did he write it to? What was the purpose?
How does the missionary focus affect how we read the letter?

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

How are you doing at feeling joy, peace, and hope? What do you think is the way to get to a better place?
Do you think you are glorifying God moment by moment? What does this look for you?
How are your relationships with other people? Can you continue relating to other people when things get tough? Can you help people work to get to a better place?

May 23, 2023May 23, 2023

The Passover and Politics

Without doubt, the guilt of Egypt in oppressing the people of Israel was great. The Egyptians enslaved the people of Israel and even sought to wipe them out as a people. This oppression cried out for God’s judgment and redemption.

In this story, we have clear good guys and bad guys. Israel–the good guys. Egypt–the bad guys.

Only the Passover teaches us something different. When God announced the 10th plague, the death of the firstborn, He said that both the Israelites and the Egyptians were liable to judgment. Any house that did not have the blood of the lamb applied to it would be liable to the judgment of God.

The only way that Israel would avoid the plague was to apply the blood of the lamb. “The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt” (Exodus 12:12). This was the only way that Israel would avoid the plague.

This liability to judgment was so real that after Israel went into the wilderness, they had to “pay” for the redemption of their firstborn. The tribe of the Levites was dedicated to the Lord in the place of the firstborn of all Israel. When a count revealed that there were more firstborn than Levites, God did not say, “close enough.” The Israelites paid the difference.

We must remember that Israel was dealing with a political issue. It was an issue of power and oppression.

When we are dealing with political issues, nothing is easier than to divide the various sides into good guys and bad guys. This is not totally wrong. The oppressor has great guilt, and power can defend evil. When this is the case, it is our duty to stand up against oppression and evil. Continue reading “The Passover and Politics”

May 7, 2022

Psalm 1: A Vision of a Flourishing Life

If you look at the end of the Psalms, you will find a series of Psalms called the “hallel” psalms. They are psalms that focus on praising God. If you think about it, this is how you might expect the book of Psalms to begin. However, the Psalms do not begin that way. They begin, “Blessed is the man . . .” They provide for us a song about a righteous man. If I were to write a book of songs for the church, I’m not sure that I would do that. Yet that is what we have in our Scriptures. It’s remarkable.

Why is this the case? God wants to give us a vision of what it means to live a life rooted in Him. He wants us to see that the way of blessing is rooted in Him. He also wants to warn us that if we go in another direction, then there will be terrible consequences. We and the universe are not made in any other way than to glorify God and rejoice in Him. So, He gives us songs to help keep that vision in front of us. “Blessed is the man . . .”

In this passage, we have two key elements of what that vision is. First, the righteous man is rooted in the law of the Lord. This means that He meditates on it day and night. He is like a tree that is planted by the rivers of water. In every situation, He has a refreshing stream from the law of the Lord that blesses him and provides him with what he needs. Whether he is seeking guidance, is struggling with anxiety or anger, or rejoicing, the law of the Lord is an unlimited resource.

This rootedness leads to activity. “Whatever He does prospers” (1:3). He is active in good works, and these works are blessed just as the righteous man is. “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor, their righteousness endures forever . . .” (Psalm 112:9). As they work, they reflect the goodness and compassion of God and attune themselves to the universe.

This is in contrast to those who do not root themselves in the law of the Lord. They are just like chaff that the wind blows away. Whatever they do is destined to perish, and they are destined to perish. It is only in the rootedness that God provides in His Word that we find the blessing and flourishing life God intends for us.

One interesting thing about this passage is that it says “Blessed is the man . . .” That is the literal rendering, though “they” is not wrong because it refers to any human. But the way the original Hebrew reads make us think of both an original man and all the people who may be like this. As we read this, we recognize that we have not always been fruitful, and we have not delighted ourselves in the law of the Lord as we should. However, there is a man who did! That man is Jesus Christ. He is the truly blessed man, and we are blessed in Him, and we are made active and fruitful in Him.

This is just what Jesus said in John 15. “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (15:7–8). This is the vision that God has for us. He wants it to go deep down in us. He has given us a song to remind us. Let’s keep singing it, praying it, and meditating on it, seeking the fruitfulness that redounds to our Father’s glory through Jesus Christ.

February 16, 2022

Psalm 112 – How the Godly Man Can Live Open-Hearted

[Listen to an audio version here]

When I was in Egypt, I saw over and over again a spirit of generosity that really surprised me. Everywhere I went I had experiences like the ones I had in a restaurant one night. A guy had on a Star Wars shirt, and I really liked it. I told him so. Without any hesitation, he replied, you can have it, if it fits you. This was the sort of response I got everywhere.

Here’s another example. After going to two restaurants, I told our tour manager, this is just too much food. We cannot eat all of this. We can’t even come close! Here’s what he suggested. After you eat, he said, ask for a box. Then, ask them to give it to someone who needs this food or have your tour guide help you give it to someone in need. That way, you will bless someone who needs it, and it will help you build a relationship with the people who see you give.

Everywhere I went, I found this same sort of attitude. It was not just giving to the poor. It was welcoming people with gladness. It was truly valuing people. I came up with a name for this type of living. I call it open-hearted living.

It’s not easy to live open-hearted. We get wrapped up in our own activities. We have anxiety over our own things. We get preoccupied with our own problems. So, here is the question I kept asking myself, how do we find the resources that will enable us to live in an open-hearted way toward others? How can we keep giving, when others don’t give to us? How can we remain gracious when times are tough? What resources do we have to enable us to show kindness when others are unkind? That’s the question that I think this Psalm answers for us. Let’s consider this answer in four steps. First, let’s consider the reaction that we should have to those around us. Second, let’s look at the resources we have to react that way. Third, we’ll look at how we should respond to the resources available to us. Finally, we will look at the amazing results that come from using this resource.

Our Reaction to Those Around Us
How does the blessed man live in relationship to those around him? He is a giver. “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor” (Psalm 112:9). The word used here for “freely scattered” indicates a wide variety and large quantity of gifts. It involves money and material resources but also encouragement, friendship, and emotional support as well.

Let me note on the side here that the person who is truly open-hearted is not only a good giver. He is a good receiver. You build community not only by giving to others, but you also build community by allowing others to do you good. In other words, you build community not only by loving but also by letting others show love to you. Continue reading “Psalm 112 – How the Godly Man Can Live Open-Hearted”

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