Sermon Excerpt: Hold on to Hope Romans 5:1-5 by Rev. Dr. David Rogne

Several years ago the Los Angeles Times carried the story of a lady who was traveling with her husband on a cruise ship.  One evening, unknown to anyone else, she fell overboard. It was more than an hour before she was missed.  When her disappearance was confirmed, the captain turned the ship around and, several hours after she had fallen overboard, she was dis­covered alive, out in the middle of the ocean. When she was brought on board she was asked how she managed to stay alive. She said, "I never lost hope."

Emil Brunner, the twentieth century theologian, says that hope is as neces­sary to life as oxygen. "What oxygen is for the lungs, such is hope for the meaning of human life.  Take oxygen away and death occurs through suf­focation; take hope away and humanity is constricted through lack of breath." Martin Luther said centuries before, "Everything that is done in the world is done by the hopeful."

The problem for each of us is how to find that hope which will sustain us-especially when the lamp flickers and we are afraid of the dark.  In the passage which was read this morning, Paul gives a formula for how we are to arrive at hope. He said, "Let us rejoice in suffering, for we know that suf­fering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope." (RSV) Let's consider that formula this morning and see if it will help us.

The first thing Paul says is that hope begins in suffering or trouble.

It occurs to me that most of us have a rather different impression of where hope begins. If we are hopeful, it is because we are surrounded by hopeful circumstances.