How Big Do You Think God Is?
Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we have been rectified by faith, let us enjoy the peace we have with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have entrance to this grace in which we stand. And let us boast in our hope for the coming of God’s glory.
Not only that, but let us boast also in afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance and that endurance produces character and that character produces hope. And hope will not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Translation from Romans: A Commentary by Beverly Roberts Gaventa (Westminster John Knox Press, 2024).
Sermon
How big do you think God is?
One of the very classic children’s sermons is to ask kids that question a few times:
[Gesturing wider and wider] Do you think God is this big? Do you think God loves you this much? Do you think God cares about you this much? Do you think God is THIS big???
The answer of course, is that God is bigger than our wildest imaginations. It’s a minor heresy to think that we will ever wrap our minds around the expansive grace and nature and size of God.
Today on Trinity Sunday, we focus our attention on this idea: that God isn’t this big [gesture] or this big [gesture], but the Triune God is a great mystery of our faith.
Today, this great big idea is expressed in the epistle to the Romans. Paul is asking us again and again, “How big do you think God is?” Though we could spend weeks on these five short verses, we’re going to hone in on verses 1 and 2 and call it a day.
…
We start exploring the “bigness” of God in verse 1. “Since we have been rectified by faith, let us enjoy the peace we have with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have entrance to this grace.” But if you’re scratching your head a little bit, it’s because we’re picking up in chapter five of Romans. We’ve lost a little bit of context. In Paul’s theologies, especially in Romans, “faith” is a nuanced word, in the same way “peace” and “grace” are very particular in his theologies.
In the first four chapters, Paul tells his readers about a faith that’s distinct from belief. This is an important distinction: belief is something intellectual; it’s the “thinking” part of being Presbyterian. In this distinction, belief is related to doctrine and orthodoxy, or subscribing in our hearts or minds to particular ideas and doctrines. This is certainly an important part of what it means to be Presbyterian, and thinking has been a central focus throughout our centuries of practice.
But in Paul’s writings, like today’s, and throughout the gospels, “faith” and “belief” aren’t synonymous. And this goes back to a lexical conundrum: despite this wide-ranging distinction in the theologies and writings of the New Testament, there is a single Greek word with a very large range of meanings. It’s pisteuō (πιστεύω). This word is a huge word—it can be applied to entrusting, reliance, assuming, assurance, fidelity, submission, and on and on. It’s used almost 240 times. We might be tempted to argue these are all summarized by “belief,” but that’s not how the Greek uses it. There is zero lexical evidence that the authors of the New Testament used this word consistently in the same way, in the same way our words rarely mean one thing or are used in the same ways.
“But in Paul’s writings, like today’s, and throughout the gospels, ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ aren’t synonymous. And this goes back to a lexical conundrum.”
There’s more important context we’ve skipped over.
Paul takes us on a bit of a journey in his letters, and in what he writes leading up to today’s passage. He provides a lengthy exposition of faith, and talks at length about Abraham. He uses this word about Abraham—that this πιστεύω—occured. Again and again, Paul states that there is no work, no action, no deed that will ever make us perfect; there’s no deed that can save us. It’s only πιστεύω. Is it heady, rational belief? Or is it that πιστεύω, that great big faith with a capital ”F?” All we know is that Paul wrote this single, expansive, big word. So we might need to take a 10,000-foot view.
Remember what we heard in today’s passage? “We have been rectified by faith… through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have entrance to this grace.”
Through Christ. We hear this echoed again and again in Romans. “By faith… through Christ.”
He says it about Abraham, and he continues saying it over and over.
Paul is constantly delivering the children’s sermon I mentioned. “How big is God? This big? This big?” And he always is pushing us to recognize that God is far bigger than we ever imagined.
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Paul tells us about a cosmic drama as he confronts us with this question. In this drama, Paul tells us about sin and death that use capital letters: Sin and Death are their own characters in this story, stirring about in the universe as forces opposed to God. In this galactic epic, Paul posits that humanity was enslaved by these cosmic forces, but then, it was the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that defeated them, opening the door to us for reconciliation and grace.
So as Paul asks this question “How big is God?” in this morning’s passage, that is the context. And from Paul’s theology, we come to realize this: When Paul says we are “rectified by faith,”—when he uses the word πιστεύω—he is using in the context of this cosmic drama between Jesus Christ, Sin, Death, and humanity. One of the foremost scholars on Romans defined faith this way: “It is God’s faithful action on behalf of humankind that generates human trust.”
How big is God? God is so big, that even our faith—our very salvation—is an act of God. We trust in God’s faithfulness and providence throughout history. We are assured by the faith of Jesus Christ—the faithfulness of Jesus Christ—rather than trying to hold onto belief. Belief matters, doctrine matters, absolutely. But as Presbyterians, we are in the business of asking hard questions, changing our answers as we learn, and always reforming our doctrine and practice according to the Holy Spirit. And as Paul asks us to question how expansively big God is, we discover that even faith itself is not ours to maintain; it is what has already happened; it is the faithfulness not of our doing, or our actions, or our works, but it is the faith of Jesus Christ which brings us into righteousness and peace.
“[Faith] is God’s faithful action on behalf of humankind that generates human trust.”
Before we consider what this means for us today, there’s one last quirk I need to mention. It comes in verse 2: “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have entrance to this grace in which we stand.”
I have read this passage countless times, and I didn’t realize until this week a small detail. Paul says this is grace “in which we stand.” I assumed Paul was saying we are resolved, convicted, or spiritually grounded in this grace. But that’s not what’s being said. Paul was writing about “standing” in a less rhetorical way. “Standing,” in grace that is proximal. Grace that is a location, a place, a home, so to speak. This isn’t a rhetorical flourish; Paul is saying that we enter into a place of grace; it has a door and a front porch, a threshold that we cross. It is Jesus Christ who pulls us across the front porch, through its door, and across its threshold. This is grace that was already prepared for us.
This is important. Because grace is not for our heads. Grace doesn’t magically appear if we believe that it’s real. Grace doesn’t disappear from this universe if we’re bad. Grace doesn’t weaken when we don’t know if it’s there or not. Grace is always alive, always in existence, always beckoning us into its presence, and to walk through the door and into its home. Jesus Christ came to reconcile this world, and to open its door, so to speak. He came to establish grace, make it incarnate, and sustain it eternally. This is why we baptize infants. Because grace isn’t something our heads muster up; it’s a home established in Jesus Christ, and through his work, always keeping its door open.
“God is so big, that even our faith—our very salvation—is an act of God... It is the faith *of* Jesus Christ which brings us into righteousness and peace.”
I know that in this congregation, the past week has been full. When I look at you all, I see what has happened in your lives. There have been weddings. There has been quality time with grandkids. There has also been immense pain. There have been tears and anger spilling out on sleepless nights.
But how big is God? God is big enough for every single second of our lives.
God is big enough to handle the complexity of our humanity, and all those moments. Whether we rejoice or we scream in anger, whether we doubt or believe, whether we get it right or we get it really wrong, whether we praise God or accuse God, God is big enough to handle it.
And the faith of Jesus Christ—that faithful action of God, and the faithful life, death, and resurrection of Christ—that faith doesn’t let us go. Finding peace in our lives or in our pain isn’t predicated on our belief in it. The grace of God isn’t predicated on being on speaking terms with God, or being an adult, or getting everything right.
As Paul says, let us boast in our afflictions. Not because there’s a magic formula that will make us purer or holier. But because God is big enough for our afflictions.
From what I’ve seen in hospital rooms, residential care facilities, homes, or even my office, sometimes the closest we can be to God is when we don’t hold back.
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I wish I had some sort of clearer, more specific, more practical, more relevant piece of insight or charge. But I don’t. I think this is one of the sermons that I leave up to the Holy Spirit.
God is big enough for anything. For everything. God is big enough to turn affliction into hope, pain into healing, and tragedy into promise.
God is big enough for songs of praise and wails of anger.
May each of us perceive what the Spirit is saying. Amen.
Sources
Romans: A Commentary. Beverly Roberts Gaventa. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2024).
J.E. Botha, “The meanings of pisteuō in the greek New Testament: A semantic-lexicographical study,” Neotestamentica 1987, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 225-240.
Teresa Morgan, “Pistis in Galatians, Romans, Philippians, and Philemon,” in Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches. Oxford University Press 2015.
