Challenge, products, hope (Ro. 5:1–5)
The Holy Trinity is probably the greatest mystery of the Christian church. Ever since the beginning of the church, Christians have discussed and debated how God can be three but one. God consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is clear from the Bible. They are often mentioned together and in that order, but we have to read more widely and delve more deeply to understand how these three actually work.
But regardless of whether you understand how the Trinity works, we have to ask: • What does the Holy Trinity have to do with us? Why does it matter that God is Triune, three in one? What difference does it make?
In Romans 5, Paul talks about the Trinity by talking about our daily lives. He explains why the Triune God matters for us. He says that life has its challenges and those challenges produce something in us called hope, among other things. So let’s focus on that today: the Challenge, the Product, the Hope.
The challenge
I had my own challenging experience as most of you know. I thought I did pretty well to get this far into a pandemic without catching the dreaded virus, but my turn came last week. I’m usually pretty good at bearing the odd cold and getting the rest I need without too much fuss. At least, that’s my own impression. This was basically a pretty bad cold, probably the worst I’d ever had for a couple of days there.
But even if I wanted to have a whinge to someone, which would be completely unlike me, I couldn’t—it just so happened that Olivia was off in Adelaide for work last week. So it turned out to be a bit of a double whammy: a week of feeling pretty dreadful as well as lonely. This time was a challenging time and I would’ve much preferred to be off at work, doing the things I am here to do. I felt pretty useless. I’m sure you get where I’m coming from.
But my challenges in recent times are nothing compared to what others are facing. If we look outside of ourselves for a moment:
The long-suffering American people who deal with deadly shootings almost weekly it seems • The Ukrainians who have lost everything they ever knew to be home
The people of Shanghai who, despite being released from their record-length COVID lockdown, have lost whatever sense of freedom they used to have
Those who are facing extreme financial difficulty and who will have to somehow battle with the implications of rising interest rates and the costs of power and gas
I don’t pretend to know what any of these people feel like right now. We all face daily challenges— some publicly, some very, very privately. These are just the examples that we can see publicly.
This life is full of challenges, difficulties, problems. We tend to live our lives ignoring the fact that we live in a broken world full of broken people, but we experience a sobering reality check when those problems come to the surface. This is something we deal with every day, whether big or small.
The products
The challenges we face bring about change in us. That change can be negative. Think about veterans of war who have seen horrendous and violent things. Think about children who were physically abused by their parents. Trauma is something that is coming into the light more and more these days, with child abuse cases coming out from 40 years ago and stories of the lasting effects of trauma from those experiences. We can’t ignore the negative products of challenging experiences.
What challenges have we faced in the past as a church? What challenges do we face now? As a church, we can never totally agree on absolutely everything. Sometimes decisions can be made that we don’t agree with. That’s a challenge. We have multiple arms to this community that we don’t always quite know how to relate with: our College, our Kindy, the Millicent/Mount Gambier congregations. These are challenges we face as a church.
How do we deal with these challenges? By resenting those we disagree with? By being stubborn and not willing to listen? By blaming the other side?
As Christians, Paul says, we have had the love of God poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. As baptised his baptised children, God has given us his whole self in Father, Son and Spirit.
Out of love for his creation, he gave us his only Son to forgive us our sin and restore us to a good relationship with the Father.
Out of love for his people, he gave us his Spirit to constantly remind us of Jesus and his Word. Out of love for us, he gave us himself.
And this love now lives in us because God lives in us through his Spirit, and God is love. This Spirit transforms our challenges and produces good things in us. We live with the Challenge every day, but it’s the Spirit who brings about the Products.
Not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that afflictions produce endurance, and endurance character, and character hope.
The best way to learn patience is to be forced to exercise it. Some of us naturally have more patience than others. To some, being stuck in a hospital bed for a week sounds like hell. To others, it’s an opportunity to get into that book you’ve been meaning to read.
If we stick with the hospital analogy: what does a week in hospital do to someone? What happens when your patient endurance is rewarded? Seeing a familiar face brightens your day. Arriving home feels somehow sweeter.
Patient endurance produces character. Having gone through a week of loneliness and boredom, now you have a story to tell, an experience to share. You can empathise with others who are going through similar struggles. Your character is a little bit more developed and resolute.
Sometimes, the best people you meet are the ones that have faced serious struggles and pain in their lives. Somehow, they seem more real and more caring. They somehow get you in a way others just don’t. That’s their character shining through. The Spirit has produced that in them through their challenging experience.
The hope
The greatest PRODUCT of the CHALLENGE is HOPE.
We tend to use the word “hope” in a different way than what is meant here. When we hope for something, this hope tends to have an element of uncertainty to it. We’re hoping something happens, but we won’t be sure until that hope is proven. There’s always a chance of that thing failing us, but we hope it won’t.
The hope Paul is speaking about here is better explained as expectation, or even better, anticipation.
When we anticipate something, it changes how we act now. Let’s go back to the hospital bed. The surgeon said that recovery will take about a week. All reports have been good and you’ve been told you’re on track. You anticipate that you’ll leave soon, so it’s easier to be patient. When there’s an end in sight, the load becomes a little bit lighter. With a lighter load, you’re a bit nicer to be around. You don’t snap at the nurses because you’re not under the same stress anymore.
What does that mean for us as a church? What does it mean for the challenges we face together? It means that the Spirit will produce patience in us when we become resentful and stubborn. It means that our challenges build our character and makes us more grounded people who live in the real world. It means we live our lives in anticipation, in hope, of what is to come for us.
As Christians, our whole lives are lived in anticipation. Anticipation of what? “The glory of God,” Paul says. Eternal life.
We can be certain of this because we have been justified. The Son has carried out the Father’s will by going to the cross. The Son has delivered on his promise to give us the Spirit, from the Father, to live in us and help us. The Spirit works in us as we live each day with faith in the Son. This is the hope of the Holy Trinity.
The Trinity is not just a difficult theological concept to work out.
The Trinity is not just an excuse to use fancy, complicated words in church.
The Trinity is not something that people have made up for the sake of it.
The Trinity is the community of God.
The Trinity is how the whole process of our salvation works.
The Trinity is where our hope lies. And that hope will not put us to shame.
