When I was single, footloose and fancy free, travel was a real gas. I could pick up and go at a moment’s notice, and I did: hitchhiking the United States and Canada, riding a bicycle to Florida, ferrying a sailboat from Boston to the Bahamas—you name it. When I got married, travel became a tad more complicated as I had to take Nancy into account. But we both had jobs, which opened up possibilities not available as a single vagabond. So we traveled to Venezuela; Israel & Egypt; England, France & Germany; and loads of domestic locations.

Then the kids came along and things really got complicated. Our last trip to London and Paris required a lot of coordination and preplanning: passports, air transportation, shuttle to and from airports, a hotel rooms that could accommodate four, city tourist passes, Chunnel pass between cities, backpacks in lieu of luggage, international cell phones, yada, yada, yada. Everything had to be seamless; otherwise I would hear about it and feel like a failure as a father.

By the time we get to London and venture forth on our first foray—to Shakespeare’s Globe Theater I believe—I am pretty keyed up making sure that we make the most of our time visiting every single tourist destination in London that doesn’t cost extra. But Mary spies a Duncan Donuts. "Ohhh, Duncan Donuts. I want one." And next to the Duncan Donuts is a Starbucks. "Ohhh," Nancy says, "I want Starbucks. And just as Jim Bob is pointing at a Burger King my patience snaps.

I launch into a wild tirade about the stupidity of traveling across the Atlantic ocean to eat food you can get on any American street corner, and how we ought to be eating kidney pie or bangers & mash in a pub called the Whistling Pig or some such thing and washing it all down with a pint of bitter but nooooo, my family will probably ask for a pitcher of Bud Light. Besides all that we have 14 sites to see before we get to lunch time. And I storm off mad as a hornet swearing I will never, ever plan another family vacation.

The title of our message for today is "Family Obligations." For me, planning a family vacation is a family obligation. For you it might be caring for an elderly loved one. For someone else it might be attending your second cousin’s daughter’s wedding in Downtown Detroit while your pals are riding their motorcycles to Labrador. Whatever family obligations fall to you, I guarantee you that patience will be a virtue you want to cultivate. Don’t do as I do and lose your cool until you sheepishly skulk back into the family circle with your tail between your legs while your children imitate your ranting and raving over a pitcher of Bud Light in the middle of London.

Paul is addressing the subject of patience in his verbose, convoluted way as he writes the family of faith about its family obligations. Today’s message is the third in a series of four from Paul’s letter to the Romans (or series of five if you count Reed Fuller’s message on Laity Sunday from the same letter). Today’s text is no different from the two that have gone before. It is a tangled mess of images and theological ramblings, but it is a mess with a message as we will see—a message about a particular obligation incumbent upon every member of the family of faith.

Paul begins: Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation…. Now do you suppose that he tells us what that obligation is? No. He spends the next thirteen verses telling us what it is not. …We have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God (Verses 12-14).

So Paul begins with the fact that we have an obligation, but before he can tell us what we are obligated to his stream of consciousness shifts to our status as children of God and he runs with that for a moment. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. (Verses 15-17).

Once again Paul’s stream of consciousness shifts from our status as children of God to sharing in Christ’s sufferings and glory. Now I know that there are times when I am preaching (and this may be one of them) when you are wondering, "Is he going anywhere with this and, if so, where is he going with it?" That is how I feel about Paul sometimes. But Paul never forgets where he is going. He may weasel around a bit getting there, but he always arrives. And he is just beginning to arrive at our obligation here.

Allow me to summarize. We have a choice: either live according to the sinful nature or live according to what we might call "the Christ nature." If we choose to live like Christ we will share his sufferings--we will take up our crosses and follow him. That will not only make us sons and daughters of God—children of God—together with Jesus as the Son of God (he by natural birth and we by adoption), it will make us co-heirs with Christ of heavenly glory. And as Paul says in our text: I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us (Verse 18).

If we believe that we may even come to rejoice in our crosses and trials and sufferings because of the incomparable glory they have the power to achieve for us. As James puts it in our Call to Worship: Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him (James 1:2-4 & 12).

Folks if we can get to the point where we consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds, then what is left to take away our joy? The answer is "nothing." If we get to the point where we consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds, we are not going to run away from our problems. No, we are going to confront them head on. We are going to take up our crosses and follow the Master. Not so that our lives may be diminished or destroyed, but so that they may be incomparably glorified by the resurrecting power of God.

The children of God are able to carry their crosses and bear their burdens and face their problems and confront their trials because of the resurrection hope. As Paul concludes our text: For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently (Verse 25). At long last Paul has arrived at our obligation as brothers and sisters in the family of faith, and as co-heirs with Christ of his incomparable glory. It is to wait for it patiently. It is to persevere, joyfully if possible, in bearing our crosses with the hope of being resurrected to something new and better and more glorious.

I told you he’d eventually get around to the point. As brothers and sisters in the family of faith, we have an obligation not (and here I am being like Paul in telling you what it is not) to run away from our crosses. What if our brother Jesus had run away from his cross? There would have been no salvation for us, no church for us, no Christian faith for us and no place for us in the family of faith. We have an obligation to take up our crosses and follow the Master in the blessed hope that as Christ was resurrected and glorified, so shall it be for us.

So I continue to plan vacations for our family, and even have a little something in mind for a couple of days off we have together coming up in August. It’s a surprise, so all I will say about it here is that I don’t plan on being Crabby Appleton on that little sojourn. I am going to be patient and persevering the whole time because I know, come-what-may, we will be creating a memory just like we did on that European trip which is now so fondly recalled. That’s just one of my little family obligations. There are other much bigger obligations that require a good deal more patient persevering; I can assure you of that!

But enough about me. What are the crosses you are being called to bear? What crises do you wake up in the morning wishing were only a dream? What problems are you tempted to run away from or to avoid at all costs? Maybe it is a serious physical or mental health threat, or an estranged primary relationship, or a self-destructive habit, or the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a livelihood. I’d like to snap my fingers and make it all go away, but I don’t have that power and neither do you.

But God has the power to redeem all things—especially those things we don’t want to happen but do. I just passed a church sign that said something like: "You never know He’s all you need until He’s all you’ve got." Sometimes we have to lose everything else to realize that God alone remains and that God alone is sufficient to meet our every need. Many people have come to look back upon their crises and crosses and losses as the best thing that ever happened to them because it taught them this surpassing spiritual truth.