Romans 5:5
Hugs are wonderful and you don’t know how wonderful they are until you don’t get them. But hugs are a bit more complicated than we think Not anyone can hug us and make us feel good. There needs to be a relationship of trust and affection if the hug will be meaningful or not. If I had everyone stand up and begin hugging each other, it would be embarrassing for many of us. It is not appropriate to go around hugging everyone indiscriminately. But when a relationship of trust has been established, then a good hug is well received and meets a need deep inside us.
What is a good hug? In his book Caring, Feeling, Touching, Dr Sidney Simon describes five non-hugs:
I. The A-frame hug, in which nothing but the huggers’ heads touch.
2. The half-hug, where the huggers’ upper bodies touch—while the other half twists away.
3. The chest-to-chest burp, in which the huggers pat each other on the back, defusing the physical contact by treating each other like infants being burped.
4. The wallet-rub, in which two people stand side-by-side and touch hips.
5. The jock-twirl, in which the hugger, who is stronger or bigger, lifts the other person off the ground and twirls him.
The real thing, the full body hug, touches all the bases. Dr Simon describes it like this: “The two people coming together take time to really look at each other. There is no evasion or ignoring that they are about to hug… You try as hard as you can to personalize and customize each hug you give… With a full body hug there is a sense of complete giving, communication, uncomplicated by words.
You can be hugged when you are at a party and everyone is in a good mood. You can be hugged at a family reunion. You can be hugged when life is good but the best hugs come when you are in need.
One that stands out in my mind is when I was living in Ohio and was an EMT, Emergency Medical Technician. We took the ambulance to stand by during a horse race where the jockey sat on a cart pulled by the horse. In the course of one of the races, the jockey fell off and was injured by the horses and carts that followed. But his horse kept on running around the track.
The pace car that started the race came up behind us as we pulled the man to the side of the track and began to work on him. This pace car had a metal gate welded on in back of it with iron bars pointed away from the car. The horses came around the track and passed us and then came the horse who was running without his jockey. He was wearing blinders so he could not see and was running with the feel of the track. He came wide and as I was standing in front of the car, he hit the metal gate at the back of the car, the iron bar drove into his chest and his chest imploded. He died almost instantly. It was a horrible sight and when we had loaded the man into the ambulance I went over to the stands where my oldest daughter was sitting. She was just about five years old but she held me for a long time, perhaps five minutes. She hugged me and I was comforted by her.
I needed to be hugged and that hug stands out in my mind as one of the best I have received because I was so much in need.
To be hugged by someone who loves you and whom you trust in that circumstance is a most wonderful thing. A long, sustained, full-body hug.
Jesus told the parable of the prodigal son who left his father, taking his half of the inheritance prematurely. He squandered all he had and came back in humiliation, desperate, hoping that his father would allow him to live as a servant in the house. How did his father greet him?
Luke 15:20
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
That was a hug that was wonderful. He expected he might be allowed back as a servant and the hug told him he was accepted as a son. That was a hug that brought comfort and an assurance of being loved.
The reason I am talking about hugs this morning is that when a friend of mine preached from Romans 5:5-8, he pointed out that this passage speaks of God’s two-fold hug. The first of God’s hugs is in verse 5 and the second in verses 6-8.
We will focus on the first hug this morning and the second next Sunday. But let me start by bringing you up to date on what has happened thus far in Paul’s letter to the Romans.
I began in January 2003 to preach from Romans. My intention is to preach from Romans each year from January up to the beginning of Lent. We did that with seven sermons in 2003 that took us to 3:8 and six sermons last year that took us to 5:4. This year we will take Romans into Lent and I don’t know how far we will get.
Paul wrote his letter to the church in Rome during his three month stay in Corinth, just before his departure for Jerusalem with the collection that had been gathered by the Gentile churches for the poor in Jerusalem.
As Paul contemplated his future, he felt led to take the Gospel to the Iberian Peninsula, what is today Spain. As he had used Antioch as a base for his church planting in what is today Greece and Turkey, so he needed a base for his church planting in Spain and decided that Rome would be the best location.
So Paul wrote this letter to the church there. The church in Rome had not met Paul but they had heard of him and what they had heard was not all positive. So Paul felt the need to explain his Gospel. He needed to set the record straight to defend himself and his Gospel from the accusations made against him. He wanted to establish a personal connection with the church in Rome so they would welcome him and support him.
This letter was one of great importance to him and so he put a lot into it. As a consequence, it stands as the greatest of his letters and the source of much of our theology.
Paul began by writing of the wrath of God. Before he could share the good news of Jesus, the bad news had to be presented. And the bad news is that all of us, every one of us, deserves the wrath of God. Depraved, non-religious society deserves the wrath of God. Critical moralizers who think they are basically good people, better than those around them deserve the wrath of God. Self-righteous religious people who think because of their religion and behavior they are good deserve the wrath of God. And finally Paul summarizes by saying that if you thought you escaped one of the previous categories, the whole human race is sick and deserves the wrath of God.
Then comes the stunning piece of good news in 3:21. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known. We all deserve the wrath of God but then God made known to us a way of escaping the consequences of his wrath. Paul goes on to detail what exactly this righteousness is and then in chapter 5 he begins to describe the benefits that come to the Christian who has been justified by faith alone.
Because we are justified by faith, we have peace with God; we stand in grace; we have hope of the glory of God; and we rejoice in our sufferings.
It is strange to pick rejoicing in our sufferings as a benefit that comes to Christians who have been justified by faith alone, but that was the topic of the last sermon in this series on February 22, 2004.
I’ll put up the thirteen sermons in the series thus far on the church website so if you want to look at them, you can do so.
Rejoicing in our sufferings is a benefit because of what results from sufferings. We all suffer, suffering is a constant in this life, the question is what do we do with our sufferings? Christians are able to rejoice in what happens to all of us because of how God uses suffering in our lives. And Paul explains:
because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope.
Suffering is not a dismal end for a Christian, it is the beginning of a path that leads to hope.
That takes us up to verse 5 where we will focus this morning.
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
This is the first mention of the Holy Spirit in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome and it is the Holy Spirit who gives us the first of God’s two hugs.
To say that it is in the context of suffering that we are most assured of God’s love will be immediately challenged because for many people, it is suffering that makes them think that God does not love or that there is not in fact a God who can love us. “How can God be a god of love if there is so much evil in the world,” is a question used by many to choose not to believe in God at all.
But follow Paul’s argument. Tribulation leads to perseverance and perseverance to character. Character leads to hope and in verse 5 he asserts that hope does not disappoint us and never will. We admire people with character and people who have hope in the midst of suffering. These are the people now in Asia who are being looked to for leadership and a god who can lead us from tribulation to hope is worthy of being followed.
This progression is not automatic. I know many people who faced tribulation and turned to bitterness, cynicism and despair as a consequence. Not all people who face tribulation end up with hope. But those who are justified by faith can make choices that lead them from tribulation to hope. Those who are justified by faith believe that tribulation will lead them to hope and their suffering is redeemed. How is it possible for them to believe this and make the choices that lead to hope rather than to bitterness, cynicism or despair?
How do we who have been justified by faith choose hope as a consequence of tribulation? We do so because of the steadfast love of God. The reason our hope will never let us down is because God will never let us down. But how can we be sure of God’s love?
It is the two-fold of hug of verses 5-8 that reassures us of God’s love. The first hug is an emotional, subjective hug. God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. The second hug is a factual, historical hug. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We will look at the first hug this morning and the second hug next week.
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
What do we learn from this hug?
1. The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to all believers.
Jesus promised this before he ascended into heaven. (John 15:26)
“When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.
One of the tragedies of the last century has been a divisive theology of the Holy Spirit but regardless of whether you have come from a Dispensational, Pentecostal or Reformed tradition, what is clear is that when we become Christians and are justified, when we cross from being God’s enemies to God’s children, when God sees us as perfect and holy because he sees us through the sacrifice of Jesus, when that happens, we are given the Holy Spirit and we become the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith begins Paul’s thought and in his chain that takes us from tribulation to hope, he says hope does not disappoint us because when we are justified, we are given the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to all believers and is given to us when we become God’s children and are taken into his family.
2. One of the Holy Spirit’s roles within the Trinity is to pour out God’s love into our hearts.
This is not a one time pouring. The tense in Greek indicates that it is a continuous pouring. It is not a trickle. It is not a continuous drip, drip, drip. It is like a downpour in a dry land that soaks up every drop of water to be deeply refreshed.
What makes this hug meaningful is that we are being loved by someone who can be trusted. We will not have our pocket picked while we are being hugged. The one hugging us will not later betray us. We are being hugged by someone in whom we can have absolute trust.
We are being loved by someone who loves us and we can be confident of the Holy Spirit’s love for us because the love of the Holy Spirit is the same love that led Jesus to the cross to die for us.
We are being loved by someone who has our best interest at heart. The Holy Spirit does not have any selfish motivation for loving us. The Holy Spirit does not love us so that we can do something the Holy Spirit wants us to do. The love of the Holy Spirit is the unconditional love of God which demands nothing of us and loves regardless of our behavior. There is nothing we can do that will make the Holy Spirit love us more and there is nothing we can do which will make the Holy Spirit love us less.
We are being loved by someone whose intent is to serve us. The Holy Spirit is at work in us to mold us and make us into the holy person the Father sees us to be through the perfection of Jesus. The Holy Spirit comforts us, counsels us, leads us into truth.
To receive the hug of the Holy Spirit is to feel loved, secure, and in the image of Psalm 134, to be like a weaned child in its mother’s arms.
To borrow a bit from verse 6, this hug came to us at just the right time. This hug comes to us when we are in need. And it is because we are in need that this hug will always be so wonderful.
There have been times in my Christian life when I have been worried and anxious about something and have stopped to quiet myself and pray and reflect and I have experienced the peace of God which passes all understanding. It is a deep, meaningful, refreshing hug that changes my world view.
But I do not always feel this way. I am not always at peace. There are times I do not sense God’s presence, let alone his love. If the Holy Spirit is continually pouring out God’s love into my heart, why is it that I do not feel it?
Last week when I talked about responding to the suffering in the tsunami in South Asia, some came up after the sermon a bit perplexed about why I said that we don’t feel the suffering unless we are personally connected. One person told me she saw the news and cried and cried. Another person thanked me for the sermon because he had felt bad about not feeling more about the suffering in South Asia.
This is the difference in personalities. Our youngest daughter Caitlin as a little child would weep and weep when she saw the cartoon about Frosty the Snowman who melted away in the sun. On the other hand, I am able to distance myself from what I observe in the world and not be emotionally grabbed by what I observe. God did not create us all to be alike. We are unique creations and we perceive information from the world and make decisions about the world differently. Differently, not wrongly.
In the same way we experience God differently. Some of us have a much more instinctive feeling for the presence of God in our lives, others of us have to work hard to be open to receive the emotional experience of God’s presence.
But regardless of how we perceive God or feel God’s presence, the Holy Spirit is continually pouring out God’s love into our hearts and that is a reality upon which we can depend. Whether or not you feel loved, you are loved. You are loved deeply. You are receiving deep measures of delightfully satisfying and refreshing love from God through the Holy Spirit.
Would you like to receive a hug from the Holy Spirit this morning? The Holy Spirit is pouring God’s love into your heart. It is up to you to open yourself to receive what the Holy Spirit is doing.
Take some time to be alone with God. Pray and reflect about your life.
Philippians 4:6-7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
When you hold on to worries and anxieties you block your awareness of the Holy Spirit in you. Talk with God about the things that worry you and receive his hug.
But don’t make it just an A-frame hug where just your heads touch. Speak to God about all of your life, even and especially the things you don’t even like to think about yourself. Open up and be completely vulnerable with God. Speak to God about the things that embarrass you. Open up and reveal your weakness and need and you will receive a full-body hug that will reach deep inside you.
Are you living in disobedience to God? Is there some sinful behavior or action or attitude that bugs you and the Holy Spirit brings to your mind?
James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
Confess your sin. Find someone with whom you can talk and who you trust and confess your sin and ask for prayer and you will receive healing and you will experience the Holy Spirit’s hug.
These are very difficult things to do: confessing sin, being vulnerable and revealing your weaknesses. But how fortunate you are that the one who is listening loves you so much. You will not be condemned for what you reveal.
A little later in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome we will come to Romans 8:1
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
You will not be condemned, you will be loved.
You who have received God’s gift of salvation are the most fortunate people on this planet because you are loved, deeply loved and are receiving that love from God through the Holy Spirit who is pouring out his love in your heart. Open yourself and receive the blessing and refreshment of that love.
