The Book of Romans: “Three Habits For Hard Days”

The Book of Romans 

Introduction:

Good morning, and welcome to Eastern Shore Baptist Church. My name is Stuart Davidson, and I’m the pastor here, and I’m grateful that you’re worshiping with us today. Whether this is your church home or you are visiting with us, we are thankful that you’re here and that you’ve chosen to gather with us as we open God’s Word together.

If you are a guest with us this morning, we want to extend a special welcome to you. We’re honored that you would spend part of your Sunday with us, and we hope you feel comfortable, encouraged, and welcomed. To those who are joining us online, thank you for being a part of our service today. Wherever you’re watching from, we’re glad you’re with us.

I also want to remind everyone, both here in the room and those watching online, about our prayer line. The number is 251-222-8977. You can text that number at any time. It doesn’t matter if you’re a member or a guest. If you have a prayer need, a burden, or even a praise, send it in. The moment that message comes through, a member of our prayer team begins praying for you, and if possible, they’ll even reach out to you personally. 

Introduction of Message:

Let me start with a question this morning. 

Do you have any bad habits? 

I’m not asking you to point at your spouse or your kids right now. I’m asking you personally. Most of us do. 

For example, procrastination, scientists call it chronic avoidance behavior, putting off what we know we should do. 

There’s confirmation bias, our tendency to only listen to voices that already agree with us. 

There’s negativity bias, where our minds naturally dwell longer on what’s wrong than on what’s right. 

And then there’s rumination, that habit of replaying hurts, failures, and worries over and over again in our minds. Those are just a few, but they remind us of something important. All of us are creatures of habit.

Scripture always tells the truth. We are not just people with bad habits, we are people with sinful habits. The Bible reminds us that sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve chose disobedience over trust. Sadly, ever since that moment, sin has affected every part of our lives, our thoughts, our relationships, our emotions, and our decisions. Because we are habitually sinful, we often find ourselves walking through habitually hard days.

So, what does a hard day look like? A hard day can feel like brokenness that won’t mend. 

A hard day can bring discouragement, depression, or  disillusionment. 

A hard day might show up as tension in your marriage, a fight with your spouse, distance between you and your child, or a relationship that feels strained beyond repair. A hard day could be a doctor’s call, a pink slip at work, a financial setback, or the weight of feeling like you’ve failed. We’ve all had those days. If you trace them far enough back, they always connect to the reality of sin and the habits that flow from it.

That’s why today I want to talk to you about something practical. The title of today’s message is Three Habits for Hard Days. From Romans 12:12, we’re going to see how God calls us to live when life is heavy, hope feels thin, and the days are harder than expected.

Today’s Message:

“Three Habits For Hard Days”

Introduction of Today’s Thought:

When we have bad days, most people don’t stop and ask, “what does God want to do in this moment”? Instead, we look for relief. We look for something that will take the edge off, quiet the noise, help us forget what we’re feeling. Here’s the irony friends, the very thing that caused the brokenness in the first place is often what we turn to when life hurts. Sin ends up being both the problem and the so called solution.

So we turn to alcohol because it numbs the mind and dulls the pain, even if just for a little while. 

We turn to drugs because they promise a temporary high, a moment of escape from anxiety, stress, and fear. 

We turn to empty relationships. Hookup culture has convinced an entire generation that pleasure of the body can somehow heal the brokenness of the soul. But it never does. 

It only leaves people more hollow than before. When hard days come, our natural instinct is to focus inward. Self becomes the center of the universe. We become the god we serve, demanding comfort, control, and relief on our own terms.

We have to face the truth, sin never fixes anything. All sin ever does is produce more sin. It multiplies the pain, it deepens the brokenness, and pushes us further from the very hope we’re searching for. That’s why today’s thought matters so much. 

Do me a favor and fill in the blanks under today’s thought. When life is difficult, when depression enters, when discouragement arrives, we are not called to turn inward or give in to the flesh. We are called to remain devoted to Christ.

Here’s the thought again,

When Life Is Difficult, When Depression Enters, When Discouragement Arrives, Remain Devoted To Christ!

Today’s Thought:

When Life Is Difficult, When Depression Enters, When Discouragement Arrives, Remain Devoted To Christ!

Introduction of Today’s Quote:

Jesus guarantees that we are going to have hard days. In John 16:33, Jesus says, “You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.” He does not say if trouble comes. He says when it comes. Hard days are not a surprise to God, and they are not a failure of faith. They are part of living in a fallen world, and Jesus is honest with us about that reality.

Scripture is filled with examples of faithful people who endured their share of hard days. 

Joseph was betrayed by his brothers. 

David was hunted by Saul. 

Job lost his health, his wealth, and his family. 

Elijah stood boldly and then collapsed in despair. 

Jeremiah wept over a rebellious nation. Peter denied the Lord he loved. 

Paul was beaten, imprisoned, and shipwrecked. 

Jesus Himself was mocked, beaten, rejected, and crucified. 

Hard days do not mean God has stepped away. They remind us that this world is broken and in desperate need of redemption. Hard days remind us that sin still infects every part of this fallen world. 

That’s why I love this quote by Paul David Tripp from his devotional New Morning Mercies. He writes,

“God is not asking you to understand everything that is happening in your life. He is not calling you to figure out every detail or solve every mystery. He is calling you to trust Him. Even when life feels confusing, overwhelming, or unbearably heavy, God is near. He has not abandoned you. He is present in your suffering, active in your waiting, and faithful in ways you may not yet see.”

Today’s Quote:

“God is not asking you to understand everything that is happening in your life. He is not calling you to figure out every detail or solve every mystery. He is calling you to trust Him. Even when life feels confusing, overwhelming, or unbearably heavy, God is near. He has not abandoned you. He is present in your suffering, active in your waiting, and faithful in ways you may not yet see.”

Paul David Tripp’s “New Morning Mercies”

Introduction of Today’s Scripture:

Now let’s turn our attention to our focal passage, Romans 12:12. Paul is writing to believers who are facing real pressure, opposition, and uncertainty, and he offers guidance that is meant to be lived out when life is hard.

For the record, Paul did not write these words from a place of comfort. While he was not imprisoned YET he knew suffering was ahead. In fact, if you read Romans 15, Paul asks the church to pray for him as he prepares to travel to Jerusalem. He was fully aware that danger and opposition awaited him there. He had already endured beatings, rejection, persecution, and hardship for the sake of the gospel, and he expected more to come. When Paul tells us to rejoice in hope, be patient in affliction, and be persistent in prayer, he is speaking from experience.

I want to remind you friends that…

Statement of Belief:

“We are opening the living and powerful Word of God…truth without error, breathed out by Him, and fully sufficient for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. It is our authority, our guide, and our hope. In honor of the God who gave us His perfect Word, I invite you to stand with me as we read it together.”

Today’s Scripture:

Romans 12:12 CSB

Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer.

Pastor: “This is the Word of the Lord.”

Congregation: “Praise His name. Praise His Holy name.”

Three Habits For Hard Days!

Habit One: Choose Hope “Rejoice in hope”

Now let’s jump into the heart of the message. Romans 12:12 gives us a simple framework for living faithfully when life is hard. It is a very natural three point passage. These are not complicated commands, but they are challenging habits, especially on hard days.

Habit One: Choose Hope. Paul begins by saying, “Rejoice in hope.” When the days are heavy, when sin feels persistent, and when the pressures of this world seem overwhelming, the first habit God calls us to is hope. Hope is not something we fall into accidentally. We don’t just fall into being hopeful or bump into hope on our way to the gym. Hopefulness is an attitude that we choose intentionally.

There on your outline is an explanation of this point. “Even on hard days, believers intentionally anchor their joy, not in circumstances, but in the sure promises of God.”

Wednesday morning, I was writing this very sermon upstairs at my home. It was early and the house was quiet. Angela had left for work and the boys were at school. Early that morning I woke up and looked outside. It was wet, rainy, and gloomy. The clouds were dark, everything was sort of depressing and cold, and it honestly looked like it was going to be a miserable day. Nothing about what I saw gave me much optimism. That’s how a lot of us feel on hard days. We wake up, look at our circumstances, and it feels like the clouds will never break. There doesn’t seem to be any sunlight on the horizon.

But then I opened up the weather app. Even though it was still raining in the moment, the forecast said the clouds were going to part. The sun was coming out. Blue skies were ahead. Nothing had changed outside yet, but something changed inside because I trusted what was coming. That’s hope. Psalm 30:5 puts it this way, “Weeping may stay overnight, but there is joy in the morning.” Rejoicing in hope does not deny the storm. It trusts the forecast of a faithful God.

Hope works the same way when you order something online. You get on Amazon, you find what you need, and you hit “buy it now.” When you click that button, the package does not instantly appear in your hands. You have to wait. Sometimes longer than you’d like. But you wait differently because you know it’s coming. You’ve seen the confirmation. You’ve got the tracking information. The delivery date might change, but the promise does not. That’s what biblical hope looks like. God’s promises are on the way, even when they haven’t arrived yet.

That’s why Paul says, “Rejoice in hope.” The Greek word for rejoice is chaírō, pronounced KAI roh. It means to be glad or to delight. This kind of joy is not rooted in circumstances. It is a settled decision of the heart to trust God. Paul is not saying feel happy. He is saying choose joy because of what you know to be true about who God is and what God has promised.

So how do we rejoice when the skies are dark? We rejoice by remembering what God has already done. We rejoice by resting in what God has promised. We rejoice by redirecting our focus from the storm to the Savior. That’s exactly what Paul prays for the church in Romans 15:13 (CSB), “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Choosing hope means trusting God’s promises over our present pain and believing that the same God who brought the morning before will do it again.

Three Habits For Hard Days!

Habit One: Choose Hope “Rejoice in hope”

Habit Two: Cultivate Endurance “Be patient in affliction”

Friends, let’s move on to our second habit. In Romans 12:12, Paul continues to build on this foundation. Habit one is to choose hope. Paul tells us to rejoice in hope.

Habit two is to cultivate endurance. Paul goes on to say, “be patient in affliction.” When hard days come, hope must be followed by endurance. Hard days do not just require optimism. They require staying power.

Look there on your outline at the explanation of this point. “Hard days require endurance that trusts God’s timing and purpose rather than demanding immediate relief.”

Friends in seven days, I’ll be running my second marathon. I’ve run two marathons and one ultra marathon, and I can tell you, marathons make a powerful metaphor for the Christian life. Paul even uses this language himself when he reminds us in 1 Corinthians 9:24 that “in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize. Run in such a way to win the prize.” Whether we realize it or not, every single one of us is running a race. Some run it well. Some struggle. Some want to quit. But none of us get to opt out.

Here’s what I’ve learned about running a marathon. Everyone feels great at the starting line. Your muscles are warm. There’s excitement in the air. Adrenaline is pumping. You start looking around you so that you can judge the other people in your gate. There are always a lot of people who are wearing the running apparel. They have the hat, the dri-fit tops and shorts. They have the expensive shoes. They are wearing the compression socks. They have the look of a runner but let me tell you something about marathons. Marathons have the ability to weed out people who look like they run from the true runners. 

When the gun goes off and you start running, you feel strong, confident, and maybe even a little euphoric. Runners talk about a runner’s high, and early on, it feels real. The first mile feels good. The early miles feel manageable. You think to yourself, I’ve got this.

Then reality sets in. Somewhere around miles ten to fifteen, you become painfully aware that the human body was not designed to run 26.2 miles. Cars were made for that. Humans were not. Your legs start talking back. Your breathing gets heavier. Fatigue creeps in. 

That is the moment of separation. Folks pretending to be runners are quickly weeded out. They quit. They give up. They get swept off the course. Maybe they didn’t train enough. Maybe they didn’t get enough sleep or eat the right things. No matter, the marathon hits the posers hard. 

At that point, running becomes less about the body and more about the mind. It becomes willpower. It becomes endurance.

Runners talk about hitting the wall. That moment when your body is demanding that you stop. For me, that wall has always been around mile twenty. Every long race I’ve run, mile twenty is where my hips ache, my ankles throb, my lungs burn, and my mind starts asking serious questions. Why am I doing this? Why didn’t I stop at a half marathon? That wall is real, and unless something carries you through it, you will quit.

Affliction works the same way in life. It is universal. Every person in this room will face it. No one gets a pass. Hardship is not reserved for the unfaithful or the immature. Scripture tells us this clearly in James 1:2–4 (CSB), “Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.” Affliction is not wasted when God is involved. It is doing something in us, even when it hurts.

So how do we cultivate endurance when affliction comes? We endure by staying close to God through prayer. We endure by anchoring ourselves in God’s Word. We endure by worshiping, even when we do not feel like it. We endure by leaning on others and sharing the burden. No one was meant to run this race alone. Christianity was never designed to be a solo sport.

That’s why one of my favorite running stories is about the Kenyan runner Eliud Kipchoge, who broke the world record for the marathon. He did not do it alone. Throughout the race, other runners came alongside him to set the pace. They would run four or five miles, then peel off, and new runners would step in. They carried the burden with him so he could keep moving forward. He achieved something historic because he was surrounded by others who helped him endure.

The same is true in the Christian life. The best way to remain patient in affliction is through brotherhood and sisterhood. God often strengthens us through the people around us. When the race gets hard and the wall feels real, endurance grows best when we refuse to run alone.

Three Habits For Hard Days!

Habit One: Choose Hope “Rejoice in hope”

Habit Two: Cultivate Endurance “Be patient in affliction”

Habit Three: Continue in Prayer “Be persistent in prayer”

Well folks, we’ve finally arrived at our last point, our last habit. Habit one is to choose hope. Paul tells us to rejoice in hope. Habit two is to cultivate endurance, like Eliud Kipchoge, to be patient in affliction. Paul now concludes the verse with habit three, continue in prayer.

Paul says to “be persistent in prayer.” When strength is low and answers seem distant, prayer becomes the lifeline that keeps our hearts connected to God. Prayer is not a last resort when everything else has failed. Prayer is the steady rhythm that sustains us when the days are long and the road is hard. On hard days, prayer keeps us anchored, reminds us that we are not alone, and keeps us dependent on the God who hears, cares, and responds in His perfect time.

Recent research helps us understand why this point matters so much. According to the Pew Research Center, only about 44 percent of Americans say they pray daily, and that number has steadily declined over the past several years. What makes this especially sobering is that many of those same people still identify as Christians. They attend church. They sing worship songs. They read Scripture from time to time. Yet prayer, the very lifeline of the Christian faith, is often neglected. The data confirms what many pastors already sense. There is an overall decline in consistent, persistent prayer among believers.

That’s a problem, because prayer is not optional for the Christian life. Prayer is to the believer what air is to breathing. You can try to live without it for a short time, but eventually you will suffocate. Prayer is to the soul what electricity is to a light bulb. You can have the bulb, the fixture, and the switch, but without power, nothing shines. Prayer is what fuel is to an engine. You can have a beautiful car, but without fuel, it goes nowhere. Prayer is what connection is to a phone. Without it, communication stops, direction is lost, and power drains quickly.

That’s why Paul says to “be persistent in prayer.”

The Greek word for persistent literally means to devote oneself to, to continue steadfastly, or to hold fast with strength and consistency. It carries the idea of sticking with something even when it is difficult, not giving up, not letting go, and not walking away when answers are slow or circumstances are hard.

Why does Paul tell us to be persistent in prayer? The answer is actually pretty simple. Because the temptation is to stop praying. Persistence is hard, especially when prayers feel unanswered, delayed, or ignored. It can be frustrating to bring the same request to God again and again and feel like nothing is changing. God’s timing rarely matches our timing, and waiting can wear us down if we are not careful.

Think about it this way. You do not go to the gym one day, look in the mirror, and expect eighty pounds to be gone. When you walk out and nothing has changed yet, you do not throw your hands up and quit. You show up the next day. Then the next. Then the next. Over time, discipline produces results. Prayer works the same way. God can move in a day, and sometimes He does. Scripture shows us that. But more often than not, God is not only working in us, He is working around us and in other people involved in the situation. That takes time. Persistence keeps us in the process long enough to see what God is doing.

Here is something else that matters. We are not persistent in prayer so that God will finally hear us. God hears us the first time. Persistence in prayer changes us. It clarifies our hearts. It refines our desires. It helps us understand what we truly need and what we are really asking for. When Paul says to be persistent in prayer, he is reminding us not to quit the very practice God uses to shape us, steady us, and keep us dependent on Him while He is at work.

Let me close this point, and really this whole message, with a powerful reminder of why persistence in prayer matters so much.

Years ago, Jim Cymbala became the pastor of a small church in New York City called Brooklyn Tabernacle. At the time, the church was struggling, small, and honestly on the verge of dying. There were very few people attending. Resources were limited. Nothing about the situation looked promising. Jim Cymbala has said that he quickly realized that clever strategies, good music, or strong personalities were not going to save that church. So he made a decision. He chose to hinge the entire future of the church on prayer.

He started prayer meetings. Not flashy services. Not big programs. Just prayer. Week after week, people gathered to cry out to God together. And slowly, something began to happen. The Holy Spirit began to move in powerful and unmistakable ways. Lives were changed. Marriages were restored. People came to faith in Christ. The church didn’t grow because of a personality or a performance. It grew because God’s people sought Him persistently. Today, God has used Jim Cymbala and that church to impact people all over the world, not because they had everything figured out, but because they refused to give up on prayer.

That’s why Paul’s simple command matters so much. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (NLT) says it plainly, “Never stop praying.” Prayer is not something we fit in when life is easy. It is what sustains us when life is hard. It is how God strengthens us, shapes us, and keeps us close to Him.

So church family, take Paul’s practical wisdom and win with Christ. Choose hope. Cultivate endurance. Continue in prayer. Trust that the God who meets us on hard days is faithful to carry us all the way to the finish line.

Take Paul’s Practical Wisdom And Win With Christ!

Closing Prayer:

Folks, will you bow your heads and pray with me.

Father God,

Thank You for speaking to us through Your Word today. You know our hard days, our struggles, and the weight we carry. Help us choose hope, cultivate endurance, and remain faithful in prayer, trusting You even when answers feel slow.

Father, for anyone here who does not know You, draw them to Yourself today. Give them the faith to trust Jesus as Savior. For those You are leading to join this church family, give them clarity and courage to take that step.

And Lord, teach us to pray. Let this moment be a fresh beginning, a first step toward a consistent prayer life as we place our lives fully in Your hands.

And all God’s people said, Amen.