Rejoicing in Hope—patient in Tribulation (Romans 12:11), Part 7

We have been unpacking this biblical text little by little, and it has proven extremely rich for our edification. Let us go to verse 9, and then we will continue from there. Let me offer a brief word of prayer so that we may once again gather our thoughts and focus them on what God has for us this morning.

Father, now center our spirits on your Word and remove every distraction from our minds and emotions. It is beautiful to be able to meditate on your teaching. We want to do so with an understanding heart, Father, with a mind illuminated by you, always giving you the glory and honor, and knowing that what we are processing is not a neutral word, but the very life of God manifested through his revelation; and so we receive it with open, humble, simple hearts, submitted to your truth. Guide us, Lord, and center us on you now, and give us rest so that we may be in the Spirit as we listen to your teaching. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Verse 9, Romans 12. “...let love be without hypocrisy, without pretense”—love without pretense—“...abhor what is evil; cling to what is good”; that is, abhor what is evil and hold on tooth and nail to what is good—that is the most accurate translation. “...Love one another with brotherly affection”; in other words, let brotherly love be affectionate. As we were saying, express tenderness to one another, express affection, treat one another warmly, show warmth to one another. We have to be an affectionate congregation, a congregation filled with affection, a warm congregation where the stranger feels comfortable and the visitor feels welcomed—where they do not feel like an outsider who has no place, but feel loved and received; where the sick person has someone who will pray for him or her; where the person with a material need knows that he or she is not alone in the struggle; where the person who needs moral support and encouragement receives a hand on the back that blesses them and tells them to keep moving forward. That is, love one another with brotherly love, with affection. In showing honor, put one another first; in other words, give preference to one another.

It seems you took me very seriously about this, because I have been to a couple of meals lately and the brothers and sisters are being very careful not to go ahead and serve themselves first when there is a buffet. It seems they heard what I said about putting the other person first, instead of immediately going to get the first plate for yourself. And I thank God because it seems to be having an effect. At least two or three people listen to me. How wonderful, how wonderful! “...Preferring one another,” that is, giving preference to one another. In what requires diligence, do not be lazy, okay? In what requires effort, do not be slow; be diligent. Last Sunday we talked about the diligent servant. Be fervent in spirit. Where does the word fervent come from? From fire: fervent. There is the word fever; there is the word boiling—fervor, fire. And in the original Greek in which this passage was written, that is the idea: reaching the point of ardor, fervor, and fire. God does not want lukewarm people; God wants people who are passionate in spirit. God wants the passion of a... in terms of the causes of the Lord. He wants people to be clear, for a person to be resolute in spiritual matters, to be courageous, devoted to the Lord, red-hot, and passionate about praise, the Word of God, the values of the Kingdom of God, the cause of the Kingdom of God, and the values of the church. It is that fervor in all those areas. Passionate people bring joy to God’s heart. In spiritual things, let us be fervent—never lukewarm or indecisive.

Then we were talking about that expression, “serving the Lord,” which is very problematic. In the original Greek, it lends itself to the interpretation “serving at every opportunity”: when an opportunity presents itself, we serve the Lord. Whenever there is an occasion for you to be useful to the Kingdom of God, be useful. Do not let an opportunity to serve God, to serve the Kingdom of God, or to serve a brother or sister pass you by. When there is an opportunity—the kairos—whenever any opportunity arises for you to be of service, say, “Present!” Say amen to that, okay? Wherever you see a need, meet it yourself. Wherever you see an opportunity to show mercy to someone, to give someone a word of encouragement, to bless someone in some way, to slip a dollar into the pocket of someone in need, or to give a plate of food to a hungry person, do it. When there is an opportunity to do something, seize it in Jesus’ name. Do not be indifferent; do not let the opportunity pass you by. We were also saying this in a positive sense, right? Because God wants people who dare to do things in his name. That also means an opportunity to study, to improve yourself, or to invest in something. Dare to do it, and God will bring you through. “Serving the Lord at every opportunity.”

Now we come to verse 12 and the subject that concerns us. There are two concepts here that are very beautiful for us as Christians. What are those two concepts? The apostle Paul says: “...rejoicing in hope,” it says here, “patient in tribulation.” I am going to stop there, with just those two, and if I do not have time for the third, it says, “...continuing steadfastly in prayer.”

Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation. Let us take the first concept: joy in hope. In the original Greek it says, “te elpidi jairontes”; in other words, joyful in hope—that is the idea. Do you know anyone named Elpidio? It is one of those old-fashioned names. In the Dominican Republic, they sometimes saddled poor boys with the name Elpidio. Do you know anyone named Elpido? Raise your hand if you have ever known anyone. Do you know where the word Elpidio comes from? From there—from elpidi, which means joyful. Elpidio comes from the idea of joy, so there was some logic to our ancestors; their craziness had logic. When a person was named Elpidio, it meant that he was a joyful person; it was not simply that they wanted to give the boy an ugly name. “Te elpidi jairontes”: let us be joyful in hope. What a beautiful idea! God calls us to have hope and joy. More specifically, regarding hope, he calls us to be joyful, to be glad. The first thing I can tell you, brothers and sisters, is the following: the origin of hope in the believer.

Let me go back a little. Every Christian should be a person—a man or a woman—of hope. There is no room for despair in Christianity; rebuke despair. When despair, discouragement, and pessimism try to take over your life, cast them out like a mangy dog. Drive them away from your life. Rebuke despair; do not give it lodging or a place to stay in your mind. Do not give room to discouragement, depression, or negativity. Brothers and sisters, we children of God have every reason in the world to be people of hope and joy. And when you get the Monday-morning blues, rebuke them in Jesus’ name. Drink an extra cup of coffee, put Marcos... on the radio, do something—but do not sink into despair; do not remain mired in hopelessness, because that is not from God. And when despair enters your life, tell it, “In Jesus’ name, get out of my mind. I do not receive you. This is no place for you, devil.” Because God calls us to joy and hope. Now, do you know where... For me, the root of joy... Ángela, God bless you. Ángela Santos, who is visiting us from Ocala, God bless you, Ángela. This sister blessed us greatly, and so did her husband, Miguel, there in Ocala. They hosted us and treated us so well, and she is here visiting this morning.

Brothers and sisters, what is the root of the believer’s joy? Ultimately, when we go right to the heart of the matter, what is the root of the believer’s joy? Do you know what it is? It is what has been called the blessed hope: hope in the second coming of Jesus Christ. Why? Because, brothers and sisters, there is something that keeps me joyful, and it is that suffering will not last forever. The agony of this world will not last forever. The Word says that a day is coming when God will wipe every tear from our eyes, when every illness will disappear, and when we will no longer have to pay IRS and tax bills. Glory to God for that! We will not have to worry about the VISA credit card bill arriving at the end of the month, about having to pay for gas, or about the price of heating oil going up this winter. All of that will come to an end one day. God will bring a new order to the universe and the world. We know that this world will not last forever, that suffering will not last forever, and that God has better things for us one day. And even if life does not go well for us, ultimately a glorious reward awaits us if we remain steadfast in the Lord. And that, brothers and sisters, puts the world into perspective. It takes the edge off the fallen life in which we live and allows us to envision a better place and a better time that God has for us. That is why the Bible tells us, “Do not lose your hope; do not cease longing and waiting for the second coming of the Lord.”

In 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4, the apostle Paul tells the Thessalonians in verse 13: “...we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, concerning those who sleep”—that is, those who are dead—“so that you do not grieve like the others who have no hope.” In other words, when Christians cry or grieve, they do not grieve like those who have no hope. We have hope even concerning our dead. When a loved one passes away, we know that we will see that person again if he or she died in Christ Jesus. And that takes the edge off our pain. That is why we do not despair when we mourn the loss of a loved one, or even amid the sorrow of this world, because we know that we have a faithful God. It says: “...for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord: that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who died, because the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpets of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we will always be with the Lord.” And look at what it says: “...therefore encourage one another with these words.”

In other words, when we begin to meditate on the fact that Christ is coming one day and that he is going to redeem this fallen world from all its madness and distortion, that should encourage us to keep moving forward, because we know that we are not... We are like slaves who know that one day we will receive our liberation, and we long for that day and wait for that day and say, “Come, Lord Jesus,” as the apostle John says in the Book of Revelation. And I believe that this is like a subconscious root; it is the subconscious foundation of the attitude of everyday hope that we have. The hope of the Lord’s coming is a cosmic, sublime, immense, all-encompassing hope. But within that foundation there is also an everyday, daily hope. When we get up in the morning and look outside, and the winter mist is pressed against our window, and we feel that chill we do not like, hope nevertheless rises within us because we know that with God all things are possible. We have hope and joy in the Lord; we take heart.

Brothers and sisters, God’s love within us gives us that emotional vitality to keep moving forward in life. The words of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 7, came to mind. It says: “...love bears all things”—that is, the idea is that it puts up with everything; it puts up with everything—“...believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” When you have the love of God in your heart, when love has made its nest within your breast, you believe that all things are possible.

Brothers and sisters, some people are cynical by nature and always see the glass as half empty. They do not see it as half full; they see it as half empty. They are always looking at the speck in someone else’s eye, always seeing the flaw in the person, the activity, the preaching, or whatever it may be, and they do not see the good. They are so full of what is bad that they cannot see what is good, and sometimes we can be that way in life. God has given us so many good things in our family, our marriage, our health, or some other area, and we are so absorbed in what we do not have that we cannot see the good things. But the person who has God’s goodness and God’s love believes all things, hopes all things, puts up with all things, endures all things, believes that all things are possible, and believes that something good can come out of a situation that appears to be completely negative. A person who has the Spirit of God is a hopeful person. Such a person believes that there is a possibility of moving forward and that within that person who seems to have nothing good—yes, there is something of God there. I am going to pray for that to come to light, and I am going to bless the good that is present in an individual or a situation.

The believer never despairs, brothers and sisters; the child of God must never despair. There must always be a seed of hope. I always remember my father’s words. He used to say, “I can’t fall any lower than the floor.” What he meant was, “Look, no matter what happens to me, I won’t fall any lower than the floor; if I fall, that’s where my fall ends.” And that was the idea: it was a word of defiance in the face of life, saying that no matter what happens in your life, look, there is always a possibility of moving forward. Receive that word this morning, my brother. God never leaves you alone. And you must rejoice in the things that have to do with hope; be joyful.

Look there in Second Corinthians, chapter 4, verses 8 and 9. Even in verse 7, the apostle Paul, who was a man of hope—if anyone was a man of hope, it was the apostle Paul—says, “...but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us; we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” You see, the apostle Paul was not like the ostrich that sticks its head in the sand and says there is no danger. No, he acknowledges that in life there are problems, there are difficulties, there are struggles, there are burdens, there are challenges—yes, Lord, there are failures—but you know what? The believer is never without options, never without hope, never without a way out.

The Word says that, along with the temptation, along with the trial, God also provides the way out. And that should encourage us to keep moving forward. When he said here, for example, “...we are troubled, yet not distressed,” the idea is that we are in a tight spot, but we are not without options. That is the idea of the original language. We may be in a tight spot, yes, says the apostle Paul, but you know what? We are not without some possible way out. I always believe that. I always say that in any crisis in life, in any difficult situation, there is always a possibility of moving forward. Never throw your gloves down on the floor; never tell yourself, “There is no hope left for me; I can’t do anything anymore; all the doors are already closed.” Look for a way—even if it is only through a tiny crack, you can escape. And sometimes God brings water out of a rock, and from a dead end, when God comes, an immense crane appears and breaks everything apart, and you can get through to the other side. Because the believer has the courage and the power of God with him or her, there are always options; there is always a way out.

And the apostle Paul says, “...in hope, let us be joyful.” There is a connection there between hope and joy. If you have no hope, you cannot have joy. And the believer is called to be joyful; that is something else. Joy is a source of health, mental health, and vitality. The Word of the Lord says, “...the joy of the Lord is our strength.” And you know what? Many times, when you look at your life and look around you, you will not find many reasons to be joyful, because you will see everything negatively. You will have problems here, problems there, difficulties here, difficulties there—but you know what? You still have the possibility of deciding how you are going to react to that.

Someone has said, “I cannot control my circumstances, but I can control how I react to them.” Notice that. Do you know where human freedom lies? It lies in that powerful fact that perhaps you cannot control whether or not they put you in a cage, but you can control how you are going to react to the cage in which you have been placed. In the Nazi concentration camps in Germany during World War II and Hitler’s time, many people suffered terribly and were oppressed and abused in a terrible way. Many succumbed and died, or left the concentration camps embittered and depressed for the rest of their lives. And yet there are stories of inconceivable greatness from within those concentration camps, of people who somehow found something in that concentration camp that gave them the courage to rise to another moral or spiritual level.

Víctor Frank, one of the great psychiatrists of the twentieth century, talks about that in his book. He was one of those victims of the Nazi Holocaust, and he speaks of how he saw people who gave up and lay down to die in the concentration camps, or who lived only for themselves, to eat the little piece of bread that remained, sharing it with no one. And he saw others who rose to a very high level of nobility, who shared with others, who cared for those who were sick, and whose faith gave them strength. He says that he noticed something interesting: those who thought only of themselves and centered everything on themselves succumbed very easily to sickness and death. But those who cared for others, drew upon their faith, and clung to it survived more successfully. Why? Because when there is hope in a person, when there is nobility of spirit, when you control how you react to the bad thing that has happened to you, God gives you strength. When many of us have problems, when we are mistreated, when we fail, when we suffer a defeat, what do we do? We give up and act as though we were dying; we become depressed, throw down our gloves, go into a dark alley, and say, “I will never fight again; I will never struggle again.” But at that moment, when tragedy visits your life, you can say, “No, in the name of the Lord, I am going to believe that my Redeemer lives. I am going to keep moving forward. I am not going to let go of the sword. I am going to confess the Word of God.” And you say to your soul, “Soul, rejoice; bless the Lord, O my soul.” And you command your mind and your emotions to go beyond the depression and beyond the moment. The Lord Jesus Christ said, “The spirit is always willing; the flesh is weak, but the spirit is always willing.” Make sure that your reaction comes first from the spirit and not from the flesh when tragedy comes into your life.

In Philippians, chapter 4, verse 4, the apostle Paul says, “...rejoice; again I say, rejoice in the Lord.” And you know that Paul wrote that epistle from a prison, from a Roman dungeon, and Paul did not know whether he would survive or not. There was a strong possibility that they were going to cut off his head, and yet Paul wrote one of the most joyful letters in the entire Bible while shut up there in that Roman dungeon. And he wrote that letter in which he says again and again, “Rejoice; be joyful.”

Everything depends on the perspective you adopt toward life’s problems. Everything depends on how you interpret what happened to you. If you interpret what happened to you by saying, “Ah, look, another example of the world’s injustice, of the fact that God does not love me, that I am good for nothing, and that all people are evil”—you know that if you adopt that interpretation, you will become bitter, sink, and grow weak. But if you say, “No, in the name of the Lord, I am going to use this to become stronger, to grow more, to become more like Christ, to know my God better, and to see how God is going to bring me through,” and you force yourself to interpret that event in life in a different way, you get back on the road. I tell you this in the name of the Lord. Those are the overcomers; those are the winners; those are the people whom, when they reach 70 or 80 years of age, you see so healthy, so strong, and so clear-minded. And you say, “Why has this old woman reached that level? Why is she so strong?” It is because of that, you know—because she decided not to give up when she was 50, 40, or 30 years old, and she developed habits of struggle, endurance, and strength. And that is why her mind remained collected when she reached old age, and her body obeyed the dictates of her spirit and her emotions and also remained strong, because the spirit rules over the body and the mind. I am already giving myself mental massages now so that, when I reach 80 years of age, if God permits, I will be strong and vigorous in the Lord in order to serve Him. But I am beginning to train myself now, you know? I am telling the devil, “You are not going to have even one inch of my mind, my emotions, or my body.”

We have to fight, brothers and sisters.

We have to struggle; we have to resist; we have to take the sword in our hand and remain strong in the Lord, because the spirit will always rule over the body and matter. You have the right to choose what you will do with the tragedy life brings your way: whether you will allow it to depress you, sink you, defeat you, and weaken you, or allow it to make you stronger, more vigorous, nobler, and better able to counsel and encourage others and say, “Look, girl, get up, because I went through that, and here I am, still alive. So keep moving forward in the name of the Lord.” And when you speak, you will speak with the voice of authority, because you will speak as someone who was there on the battlefield and emerged victorious. “And if I did it, you can do it too,” says the Lord. He overcame on the cross everything that men and the devil hurled at Him. He emerged victorious over it all, and He says, “You can do it too, with My help, with My presence in your life.” Never allow defeat to make you bitter or weak. Use life’s struggle to become stronger and to go farther and higher in the Lord. In hope, how does God want us to be? Joyful. Let us be aggressive; let us be abundant. And then it also says here, in tribulation, how must we be? Long-suffering. Notice, I have never liked the word “long-suffering,” because when I hear that word, what I see is a person with a shawl over her head, whimpering on the floor, shedding tears—long-suffering. “Oh, she is such a long-suffering person!” I do not like long-suffering people, because that is not what I see in the Word of God. That is why it is so wonderful to be able to go back to the original and understand these passages.

The word used for “long-suffering” is upomenontes. Everyone say, “Upomenontes.” Say, “I am upomenonte.” That is, the word actually means “resisting.” It says, “In tribulation, resisting.” In tribulation, steadfast. That is the original idea. When you are in tribulation, be steadfast. That is a much better interpretation than saying “long-suffering,” because a long-suffering person is someone who simply throws himself down there and says, “Well, oh, bless his heart,” as Puerto Ricans say. That kind of spineless, boneless resignation. No, God wants you to be steadfast in tribulation, to be resilient in tribulation. That is what the Word of the Lord is saying. In every tribulation, remain upright; remain strong in the Lord. There is an active sense of defiance there. When struggle and trial visit your life, when tribulation comes, stand firm in the Lord. Stand upright and rise up in the Lord. Look there in Ephesians, chapter 6, and you will see what I mean. I was just reminded of what the Word of the Lord says when struggle comes into our lives. What is the believer’s stance? It is a stance of warfare; it is a stance of resistance, brothers and sisters. In the Gospel there is no room for demoniacs, no room for microbes, no room for spiritual insects; there is room only for giants. Giants are the ones who survive in the Gospel, because we have an enemy who is a giant and who has no mercy.

Ephesians, chapter 6, verse 10, says, “...finally, my brothers, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.” That is why, brothers and sisters, we have to be continually strengthening ourselves in the Lord, feeding ourselves spiritually, reading the Word, worshiping the Lord, and eating spiritual protein so that we can remain strong. “...Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil, because we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly realms.”

Brothers and sisters, the struggle we have as children of God is no easy thing. We have an enemy who is far too powerful; he is the one who governs everything that is—the spiritual mafia of darkness. They are the ones who have complete control over all evil, all crimes, all violence, and all the tragedy in the world. That demonic mafia controls it, and everything has to pass through that mafioso called Satan—may the Lord rebuke him—and all his demons who are beneath him. And that is our struggle, and that is why we have to be strong. That is why, as the saying goes, “The shrimp that falls asleep is swept away by the current.” As for the Christian who is not strong in the Lord, forget it: he will be weak and open to every kind of spiritual infection that comes into his life. And we have to be strong, because when tragedy comes into your life, when tribulation comes into your life, what are you going to do? If you are weak, you will fall; you will fall flat on your face. Then it says, “...therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.” When the evil day comes into your life, when tribulation comes into your life, when a cancer diagnosis comes, or your daughter becomes pregnant, or they tell you that the money you had for your retirement has just become worthless because the economy changed and you lost all that money; when your marriage is entering a crisis or problems come upon your flesh, what are you going to do? You have to resist, says the Word of the Lord. You have to strengthen yourself in the Lord when the evil day comes. Be filled with the Holy Spirit—or, before the evil day comes, be filled with the power of God; be filled with the Word of God, so that you can resist when tribulation comes, so that you can stand firm in the midst of tribulation.

One of the most beautiful values found in the Word of God is patience. God calls us to be patient, and patience can mean being patient with others, but there is a very important kind of patience: patience when we are in the midst of tribulation.

Turn there—and I am almost finished—to James chapter 5. It is one of the most beautiful passages about patience. Verse 8, James 5:8, says: “... you also, be patient and”—look here again at this idea—“establish your hearts.” Be patient and establish your hearts, because the coming of the Lord is near. Look here at the mysterious connection with what I was saying earlier, between the coming of the Lord and strength, vigor, endurance. In the mind of the Holy Spirit there is a connection between those two things. As the coming of the Lord becomes a reality in our lives, it will give us patience and strength. It says: “... brothers, do not complain against one another.” Well, that already.... In verse 10 it says: “... my brothers, take as an example of suffering and patience the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we count those who endure as blessed. You have heard of the patience of Job, and you have seen the Lord’s purpose, that the Lord is very merciful and compassionate. Glory to the Lord.” In the trial, brothers and sisters, we must establish our hearts. It says: establish your hearts. When we have prayed, brothers and sisters, when we have anointed, when we have fasted, when we have rebuked all the demons of hell, and when we have declared everything we know about the power of God in our lives, and the trial still continues, do you know the only card you have left to play? Patience, steadfastness, and enduring in the name of the Lord without giving up. Don’t crack, as the Mexicans say; never give up. Simply endure, stand firm, brace your knees, and let no one walk all over you until the evil day has passed. There will be times in life when the only thing you will be able to do is say, “Lord, give me strength until the storm passes. Give me steadfastness until this spell of evil in my life passes,” because there will be situations in life when, no matter how much you pray and do everything you know how to do, God will still tell you, “Look, for reasons that only He knows, you have to endure it. I cannot take you out of it.” The apostle Paul says that three times he came before the Lord so that He would remove a thorn in his flesh—three times. And what did the Lord tell him? “My grace is sufficient for you, Paul. I am very sorry. I have answered many other prayers and have given you many answers to your prayers, but in this matter, forgive Me, but I cannot take you out of it, so let My grace be sufficient for you.”

Brothers and sisters, there are times in life, there are trials in life, when the only thing that will sustain us is the grace of the Lord. I do not like giving people easy answers. Some preachers tell people, “Everything is going to be all right. Don’t worry: if you are in the Lord, everything will go well for you. You will not have problems; you will not have financial trials. Everything will be health and prosperity and success.” That is a lie from the devil. Sometimes trials arise in a believer’s life, and difficulties come, tribulation comes, wounds come, failures come, financial shortages come, discouragement and betrayals come. There will be moments, there will be seasons in the believer’s life that will be stormy, and no matter how much you pray, God in His grace will say, “No, I cannot take you out of it. You need to go through it; you need to drink that cup.” As our Lord Jesus Christ said: “If it is Your will, let this cup pass from Me.” And the Father said: “No, You have to go through it; You have to drink it.” And there are times when God, in His sovereign and mysterious mercy, will say, “My son, My daughter, I am very sorry, but you have to go through this storm. I am not going to take it away from you.” And the only thing you will be able to do in that case is endure, resist, stand firm, not give up, not curse God, not stop praying, not stop fasting, not stop reading the Word, and not stop coming to church. Many people leave the church because things are going badly for them, and they supposedly return when things are going well. Brothers and sisters, the place to be when there is trial and tribulation is in the church, in the house of God. Do not run off somewhere else, because then the devil will hit you even harder. Do not turn your back on the devil. You have to look the devil in the face, in the name of the Lord, and say to him: “You are not going to destroy me, because He who is in me is more powerful than you....” We must resist; it is the only solution to the problem.

When Job was immersed in his greatest tribulation, which had lasted longer than he thought it should, do you know what he said? “Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him.” That is the bottom line, as they say in English. Even if God kills me, I will continue trusting in Him. The devil cannot enter that territory. That is an inviolable territory; it is a territory of invincibility. It is the idea that even if things do not go well for me, and even if everything apparently fails, I will still continue trusting in the Lord, because He is faithful and He knows what He is doing in my life.

I will finish with this word from Habakkuk chapter 3, verses 17 and 18. It says: “... though the fig tree does not blossom”—that is, even if the economy collapses, even if oil costs too much, even if the winter is too cold, or whatever it may be—“... though the fig tree does not blossom, nor there be fruit on the vines, though the produce of the olive fails and the fields provide no sustenance, and the sheep are taken from the fold and there are no cows in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in Jehovah and take joy in the God of my salvation. Hallelujah! Jehovah the Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like those of a doe, and He makes me walk upon my high places. Glory to the name of the Lord.” Even if everything goes badly, even if a spell of evil and difficulty and problems comes into my life, even if everything seems negative and there is no sign of hope, in spite of all that I will rejoice and be glad in the Lord. Do you see the idea? It is that you have the option of deciding what your attitude in life will be: whether it will be a stance of joy and aggressive hope, or whether it will be a victim mentality that becomes depressed because something is going wrong, so that you give up and immediately lie down to die. What philosophy will inspire your life, my brother, my sister? What outlook on life will govern your response when difficult days come into your life, when tragedy comes, when tribulation comes into your life? Will you let the world walk all over you, or will you say, “No, the Lord is more powerful in me. God will bring me through. I know that my Redeemer lives. I know that God is good, and I know that God is faithful. Perhaps I cannot explain what has happened, but I know that God knows, and He is coherent and consistent in His ways. He does not contradict Himself.” May the Lord give us the strength to go one step further, brothers and sisters, and always be those people who are joyful in hope and steadfast in tribulation.

Let us bow our heads and receive that word from the Lord into our lives. Let us embrace the ethic of joy. There is the title of this sermon: the ethic of joy, the ethic of joy. I choose joy. Say to yourself: “I choose joy. I choose hope. I choose victory. I choose the identity of a warrior and not the identity of a victim. I choose praise, and I reject depression this morning. I will not let my memories of the past, my negative experiences from the past, weaken me, distort me, and twist me. No, I am going to use the past as firewood for an even greater fire. I am going to burn all the experiences from the past that have destroyed me. If I was raped when I was a little girl, or my parents did not affirm me or encourage me to keep moving forward, that will be firewood for my fire. I will not let myself become depressed because of it. If I was betrayed in the past, if I suffered a financial failure and had to declare bankruptcy, I will not stop longing for something and expecting something good that God has for me. I will not stop undertaking good things. I will not stop laughing. I will not stop enjoying life. Instead, I choose joy.” The ethic of joy: that is the ethic that will govern my life. When I reach old age and my bones creak whenever I move, even then I will rejoice in the Lord. When I have to take 10 or 12 pills every morning, I will still say: “Thank You, Lord, because at least I am alive, and because one day all of this will cease to matter, because one day You will deliver me from this fallen condition.” Glory to the name of the Lord. Thank You, Father. We gather up joy this morning, Lord. We receive Your joy; we receive Your hope. We establish ourselves in You. Thank You because there is always a reason to live, Father. As long as You are present, everything else is possible. Hallelujah! Bless my brothers and my sisters this morning.

Lord, we choose hope, and we choose joy, and we choose victory over depression and defeat and hopelessness. Thank You because You are present in our lives, and therefore everything is well, and we can know that good things are coming right around the corner because You are victorious in us; You are powerful in us.