ABRAHAM: AN EXAMPLE OF FAITHFULNESS

Romans 4:1-25

INTRODUCTION:           

There are some unique words that the church uses.  These are the sort of words that you normally do not hear anywhere except around the church; you know, words like “fellowship” and “stewardship” and even “salvation”.  Just as an example, can you ever imagine a bunch of guys going to a Cardinals game and saying to their wives, “We’re heading to St. Louis to watch the Cards and have some rich fellowship”?  They wouldn’t say they were going to watch the Cardinals to experience some fellowship; they would say they are going to watch the Cardinals to experience some frustration!  People outside the church just don’t use the word “fellowship” very often.

There are some $5.00 words that theologians use to describe the most important truths about God and I want to share three of those terms with you this morning:

·         Justification comes from the law courts and means to be pardoned from a crime.  To be “justified” is to be “just-as-if-I’d” never sinned.

·         Redemption comes from the slave courts and means to be bought out or ransomed and freed.

·         Atonement comes from the temple courts and means a sacrifice was offered so that we could have access to God.  It means “at-one-ment” with God.

 

In Romans 3:28, Paul wrote, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.”  Then Paul spent the entire fourth chapter of Romans in a survey of the life of Abraham to prove that no one, not even Abraham, is pardoned from his sin by keeping a list of rules. 

 

Do you think that is a message that anyone today needs to hear?  Do you think that people today sometimes try to get right with God by keeping a set of rules?  Do you think there are people who try to be forgiven the old-fashioned way: they try to earn it?

 

Abraham was not pardoned because he kept a list of laws or a set of rules; he was pardoned because of his faith.  And we will be pardoned if we have faith like Abraham’s. 

 

John R. W. Stott says it well when he observes that justification means I was guilty but now I am free to go; atonement means I was guilty but now I am free to come.  Faith like Abraham’s gives you access to both!  Are you interested in developing faith like that?  Well, let’s look at the faith of Abraham and see what it was like.

I.                    THE OBJECT OF HIS FAITH: GOD

One difference between the faith of Abraham and the faith of so many of us is that the object of his faith was God.  Abraham did not trust in his own ability to merit God’s favor; he trusted in God.  Abraham did not count on his own power to accomplish God’s purpose; he counted on God to accomplish it through him.  The object of Abraham’s faith was God.

 

Abraham’s faith was the result of his experience with God.  Seven different times, God spoke to Abraham and established His covenant with him.  Abraham was willing to totally reorder his life around God, God’s word and God’s will.  Abraham was willing to make God the center of his life because:

1)     He believed in God…that is, he believed that God exists.

2)     He believed God…that is, he accepted God’s word as true.

3)     He trusted God…that is, he placed his confidence in God.

 

I often quote from old hymns to illustrate truths in my sermons.  I want to do that this morning, too.  This time, I want to quote from the song number 146.  But to find it, you will have to use the book in the middle of the hymnal rack on the back of the pew in front of you.  It is Psalm 146.  And I want to begin reading from verse 3:

^3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save.

^4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.

^5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God,

^6 the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them— the Lord, who remains faithful forever.

^7 He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free,

^8 the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous.

^9 The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

^10 The Lord reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Doesn't this put things in perspective?  First the Psalmist points out that even great rulers and people we think are our source of help, they all die.  And when they die, they turn into earth, and they no longer plan great things.  But the one who puts his hope in God, he is blessed.  Why?

 

Because He is the one who created the heavens and the earth, and He created the seas and everything in them by simply commanding them to come into existence.  And He remains faithful forever!

 

God upholds the cause of those who are oppressed.  He is the one who gives food to the hungry.  And only He can totally free those held captive by the chains of this world.  God heals the blinded eyes and blinded hearts.  He gives joy and hope to those who are weighed down by sorrows, and when we humble ourselves before Him, He lifts us up in the splendor of righteousness.  God watches over those who in a strange and unfamiliar place, He provides for and sustains those who are without a father or a husband, and those who are the victims of a broken home, He is their father and their strong tower, secure and solid, for He will never leave them nor forsake them, but will be with them until the very end.

 

And the ways of the wicked?  They just become frustrated by God, by His presence, and by His power which they refuse to even acknowledge.  But the Lord reigns forever; the God of Zion reigns for all generations.

 

The Psalmist knew about God because of his experience with God.  Like that Psalmist, Abraham’s faith was the result of his experience with God.  If you would increase your faith, increase your time with God.  If you would strengthen your faith, strengthen your relationship with God.

II.                  THE ROOT OF HIS FAITH: HOPE

A little girl was asked, “What is faith?”  She replied, “Believing in something you know isn’t true.”  That is not faith…and it certainly is not Christian faith.  Christian faith is not blind faith, as some would charge.  Faith is not burying our heads in the sand; it is not mustering up the energy to believe what we know is not true; it is not even whistling through the graveyard to keep our courage up.

 

Christian faith is a reasoning trust.  It is “a whole soul trust in God because of the sufficiency of the evidence.”  In fact, there can be no faith without evidence and there can be no believing without thinking.

 

Abraham’s faith was not only the result of his experience with God but it was also a result of God’s promises to him. 

 

In Genesis 12:1-3, Abram was given a set of seven promises, all of which were contingent upon his fathering a son by his wife, Sarai.

1.      God told Abram that He would make him to become a great nation

2.      God said He would bless Abram

3.      God said He would make Abram’s name great

4.      God said He would make Abram to be a blessing to others

5.      God said He would bless those who bless Abram

6.      God said He would curse those who curse Abram

7.      God said that all the peoples of the earth would be blessed through Abram

 

But the root of Abram’s faith was hope.  The very next verse says that Abram was seventy-five years old and childless when these seven promises came to him.  His wife, Sarai, was about sixty-five when Abram received this promise.  Both would have needed Medicare with maternity benefits!  Common sense told Abram that there was no way he could father a child by Sarai but Abram chose to focus on God’s promise rather than human reason; his faith was grounded in his hope, not in his own ability to reason.

 

In Proverbs 3:5, Solomon, the wisest man in the world, wrote:

^5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding

 

If the object of our faith is God, the root of our faith can be hope.  Then, the goal of our faith will be life.

III.                THE GOAL OF HIS FAITH: LIFE

When Paul wrote to the Romans, he told them that the goal of Abraham’s faith was nothing less than life itself.  Listen to these closing words of Romans 4:

^18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”  ^19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. ^20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, ^21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. ^22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” ^23 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, ^24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. ^25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

Think about it: Abraham was an old man married to an old woman and they had no children.  Abraham, himself, observed that, by virtue of her advanced age, Sarah’s womb was dead.  But Abraham had faith that God could bring a live son out of a dead womb.

 

Paul then looks to more recent history for another illustration of the goal of faith.  Paul says that it was not just a historical fact that God brought forth a son from a dead womb; He brought forth a son from a dead tomb!  When Jesus was crucified, he died.  Completely.  Totally.  Jesus’ broken, battered and lifeless body was laid in a stone cold tomb and it remained there for three days.  He was dead.  But, according to Paul, the God in Whom we have placed our faith, “raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”

 

Now, Paul’s purpose is not just to give us a brief history lesson about occasions when God brought life out of death.  He has reminded us of that history for a reason.  Paul wants you to know that God can bring you life where there is now death.

 

You have sinned (and you know you have) and the consequence of sin is death.  But God can bring life out of the very pit of death into which you sin has cast you. 

·         Your experience may have left you wondering if you will ever enjoy victory over sin but Paul says the testimony of history is that God brings life from death and even from the tomb of your disappointments.

·         Your past may have convinced you that the chance died for you to have a close, endearing and enduring relationship with God.  But Paul says that the goal of faith is life and God can resurrect your relationship with Him.

·         Your failures may have destroyed your dreams of eternal life in heaven.  But Paul says that God can raise those dreams to life and He can raise you to glory through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

·         You may be sitting there this morning and your memory is littered with the gravestones that mark the places of your buried ambitions, aims and aspirations.  But Paul says that the one Who raised Abraham’s son from a lifeless womb and Who raise His own son from a lifeless tomb will bring you nothing less than life and for nothing short of eternity.

 

I know you have knelt beside the lifeless shell of your hope for forgiveness, freedom and a Father in heaven.  But don’t despair.  God has done some of his best work in cemeteries.  I want you to imagine what it will be like when you walk by God’s side, what your eyes will see when His face is before you and how your heart will feel when you are surrounded by His glory.  If only you’ll imagine - - and then place your faith in the One Who brings life from that which was dead.

CONCLUSION:           

You may be looking at Abraham and saying, “well, that worked for him but it won’t work for me.  I’ve already blown it.”  Or, “That was Abraham but I’m not cut from the same cloth as he.  I could never live up to the call of Christ on my life.  Therefore, I won’t even start – I won’t even try.”

 

But Abraham was not a perfect character.  Scripture doesn’t present him as flawless. 

ü     Abraham received the promise when he was 75 and Sarah was 65

ü     Yet later that same year, while they were passing through Egypt, Abraham said she should lie and try to pass herself off as his sister so some Egyptian wouldn’t kill him to get her.

ü     11 years after the promise, Abraham and Sarah became impatient and figured they’d have to help God accomplish His plan so they got Hagar, Sarah’s servant, to sleep with Abraham and bear a child by him.  The boy’s name was Ishmael and he, too, became the father of a great nation (the Arabs) and a great faith (Islam).  But just think how much different the course of history and the condition of our world would be, had Abraham NOT faltered in his faith!

ü     In Genesis 17, God reconfirmed the covenant when Abraham was 99 years old and Sarah was 89.  Abraham reacted by falling on his face laughing (17:17).

ü     Later that year, Abraham again tried to pass Sarah off as his sister because he was afraid that Abimelech, King of Gerar, would kill him to try to take her because she was that beautiful – AT 89!!

 

What Paul is claiming is that Abraham, overall, maintained a firm conviction in God’s promise and acted on it.  He had momentary doubts and temporary lapses, it is true, but he overcame them and moved on.  He practiced what John Maxwell calls “Failing Forward”.  We will all fail at times.  But some people will allow God to make good come, even from their failures.

INVITATION:                        #462 – “Let Jesus Come Into Your Heart”

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