Over the next six weeks we are going to look at 6 character traits that will help us stay positive, and if we can live these out not only will our lives be healthier and stronger but we can be a beacon of light for our community and world. The 6 traits we will look at are
Gratitude
Encouragement
Generosity
Enthusiasm
Confidence
and today - Optimism.
An optimists see the glass as half full while the pessimist sees it as half empty. Here’s another way to look at it. The optimist sees a cup literally running over and says, My cup runneth over! The pessimist says, look at the mess I now have to clean up. For many of us, negativity is easy. It’s easy to see problems and the problems in other people. It’s easy to look at decisions others have made and think, I would have done it differently and better. People love to criticize and critique and second guess those around them, and that road is often the easy one. The harder road, and the road less travelled, is to be optimistic, and it is optimism, and the vision that comes with it, that will lead us through this moment with faith, strength, and even joy.
Optimism really is about vision. It’s not just what we see but what we go out looking for. If we set out looking for problems, we will find them - a buzzard and a vulture will always find the dead carcass rotting in the sun. They not only see them, they can smell them. It is all that they search for. When they search for death they find it. A hummingbird, on the other hand, looks for life. They are looking for new life in fresh flowers so they can draw out the nectar which gives them the energy they need to keep going. So if we look for road kill - we will find it, and if we look for fresh flowers we will find that too. What’s interesting is that we often find both rod kill and fresh flowers along the very same road, so the choice of what we look for and focus on is really up to us. We can be negative or we can be optimistic.
Now, before you think this is just a self help, feel good, mind over matter kind of message, let me be clear. Optimism doesn’t come from feeling good - it comes from the truth that God is good, and the Bible is full of good words for us to hear and trust. Staying positive isn’t the result of things going well, it comes from remembering what it is we believe about a good and loving God, and what we remember about God comes to us from God’s word. Today we are going to look at 4 reasons why we should be optimistic and we find these reasons in just one half of one chapter in the book of Romans.
In just 21 verses found in Romans 8, we will see 4 reasons for us to be optimistic. So let’s start with Romans 8:18. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
When the Apostle Paul talked about present sufferings, he knew what he was talking about. Paul had been shipwrecked, beaten, sent to prison, and suffered all kinds of disease and distress, yet he never focused on the problems but the future glory that was going to come through those problems. Paul believed that God was using each and every situation to bring about something good. Earlier in his letter to the Romans Paul said, suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope.
So through our sufferings and problems comes character and hope, and our hope isn’t just wishful thinking that things will go well but a confidence and assurance that the future will be better, more glorious, because of God. We know that God can make something good out of the situation we are facing today.
Last week we heard that God delights in redeeming bad situations. God always seems to make a way where we see no way forward, so what we are going through today is the road map God will use to lead us into his future. This is why it says in James, consider it pure joy, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Struggling through difficult situations is never easy. We have all gone through periods of pain and uncertainty only to look back and see how God used that time to shape and mold us. 20/20 hindsight often shows us how our problems became the process through which God led us to a better place. Paul goes on in Romans 8 and says, God works for the good in all things. We have said many times that this doesn’t mean all things are good - not at all - but God can work for good in all things because what we go through today can produce something good in us tomorrow. I can be optimistic because God says my future will be better and more glorious if I will look to him.
We can also be optimistic because it is in difficult times that God helps us. Romans 8:26, The spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
In our weakness, the spirit of God is praying for us. In our times of need, Jesus is at the right hand of God praying for us. This is driven home later in Romans 8 when Paul says, Christ Jesus, who died, and more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God, and is also interceding for us.
We are not alone in our struggles and problems - Jesus is praying for us. We are not helpless in times of need because the spirit of God is with us and helps us. When I am at a loss for words in my prayer - God picks it up and prays for me. I have to say that when I look at where we are as a society right now, it’s hard to know what to do and what to pray for. I’m glad when I just sit before God with no real clear direction of how to pray, somehow the spirit of God is praying. When I have no words - God’s words come through. When I am weak - Jesus is my strength.
In the old children’s song, Jesus Loves Me, my favorite line is this, little ones to him belong, we are weak but he is strong. It doesn’t say he makes us strong, it says he is strong. Jesus is our strength. God is the one praying for us and helping us when we can’t do anything more and it is Jesus’ strength in us that helps us persevere in every situation.
The third reason we can stay positive is found in Romans 8:31, If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not graciously give us all things.
If God is for me, who can be against me? Well, the answer is that many people can be against me, and at times it can feel like the entire world is against me. We all face criticism and critique. At times if feels like everything we say and do is under a microscope and it’s easy to get discouraged and bitter when all we hear is criticism. In these moment we can once again focus on the road kill or the roses. Because God is for us, we can choose to be the hummingbird and go out looking for life.
We can be optimistic about our lives, our situation, and our future because God has our back. God is on our side and God said, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and give you a future. It’s important to know that God gave this message to his people not when things were going well, but when Israel was living in captivity. They were completely defeated and living in despair, but God was still for them. God still had a plan for them and it was a good plan. Through the pain God was leading them into a good future. No matter what, God is still for us and God always will be because he loves us. And that is the fourth reason we can be optimistic. God loves us. Romans 8:37-39. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
It is because God loves us that we know God is for us, and helps us, and intercedes for us, and works all things out for our good and for a good future. God loves us and nothing can separate us from that love and nothing can change the power of that love. Our optimism doesn’t come from circumstances going our way. It doesn’t come from feeling like we are doing well, or from being strong, smart, talented, or lucky, our optimism comes from knowing that God loves us right where we are and for who we are today. In this moment, and in every difficult situation, God lifts us up and carries us home.
This image of being carried by God when we are weak is one of the most enduring images found in the Bible. God is the good shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep in the flock to go out and look for the one lamb that got away - and when God finds us he lifts us into his arms and carries us home.
God loves us. It is the story of the Bible. God created the world in love. God breathed life into human beings in love. God redeemed the world with his love and in this book we find many wonderful images of what God’s love looks like. God’s love is like...
A mother hen gathering her chicks for protection.
A father running out to welcome home a wayward son.
A brother or sister giving what they have to someone in need.
A friend laying down his life for another.
A shepherd leaving the flock to find the one lost sheep.
This is what the love of God looks like and it is this love that allows us to be optimistic and stay positive because there is nothing - nothing - that can take this love from us. God loves us, which means that no matter what, we can stay positive.
