A Word of Hope from the God of Hope
7/1/25 Bible Thought (Romans 15)
The Christian life wasn’t ever promised to be easy.
Trials come their way, and beyond this even the standards of Christ aren’t easy. While we’re saved by grace, and kept by God, He still desires for us to live a certain way as His people. Unfortunately, the natural, fleshly desires that we still wrestle with battle against this (Gal. 5:17) and as a result life can be difficult. Just because God gives us the will and desire to do what is pleasing to Him (Phil. 2:13) doesn’t mean that all sinful desire is eradicated.
In the last chapter, we saw one example of God’s desire with the Christian standard of limiting personal liberty for the sake of others and Paul continues this thread in chapter 15.
Specifically, he begins by outlining that,
“We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves” (Rom. 15:1).
The Christian life is to be lived for the service of others, following the example of Jesus Christ (Rom. 15:3).
This is a concept that while easy to understand, it can certainly be hard to follow through on. Yet, along the way, the Christian isn’t alone and has help from God. God is a God of endurance and encouragement (Rom. 15:5) and also a God of hope (Rom. 15:13). This same God has given us His Word so that we might know how we ought to live as we go through our time on earth, it is a help that we can quickly take for granted.
Paul concluded,
“For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4).
From the fall in Eden and the first promise of the gospel (Gen. 3:15), to the channeling of blessing to Abraham and ultimately to the fulfillment found in Christ, the Scriptures are saturated with a message of hope about a God who, although outside of time, has acted in time in order to redeem His corrupted creation.
This knowledge that we are a part of God’s grand story ought to carry us through the present.
The Scripture is given not only for our instruction, but for encouragement and hope. In light of that hope, we can endure hardships and even the difficulties of the Christian life in the present.
It might not always be easy to serve Christ, especially when it requires us to crucify our fleshly desires and to consistently put others and their interests before our own as Paul had been mentioning. Yet, the knowledge that all of this life down here is temporary and that a new creation awaits us (2 Pet. 3:13) makes all the hard aspects of this life a whole lot easier.
Let us then be diligent in the study and application of God’s Word. It’s our chief source of instruction and also our chief source of encouragement. When life isn’t easy, the Scripture reminds us that there’s more to life than meets the eye and that this world and its desires are passing away (1 Jn. 2:17).
This message of hope comes from the God who is the source of all hope, as Paul would pray,
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Rom. 15:13).