[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered on Sunday morning the 8th of March, 2020 at Pilgrim Reformed Church. Look for the video of our services on our Vimeo channel: http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]
We talk a lot about faith, we Christians. We speak of faith sustaining us during times of turmoil and troubles. We sing of faith in our hymns. We read about it in our Bible, even seeing where Jesus chastised His own disciples as having little faith. Sometimes we treat faith as a catch-all for everything Christian.
But faith is a blessing meant for all who believe in Jesus and follow His life’s example. Please listen and follow along to what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome explaining faith, in chapter 4, verses 1 through 17, reading from the Contemporary English Version of our Holy Bible…
But faith is a blessing meant for all who believe in Jesus and follow His life’s example. Please listen and follow along to what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome explaining faith, in chapter 4, verses 1 through 17, reading from the Contemporary English Version of our Holy Bible…
1 Well then, what can we say about our ancestor Abraham? 2 If he became acceptable to God because of what he did, then he would have something to brag about. But he would never be able to brag about it to God. 3 The Scriptures say, “God accepted Abraham because Abraham had faith in him.”
4 Money paid to workers isn’t a gift. It is something they earn by working. 5 But you cannot make God accept you because of something you do. God accepts sinners only because they have faith in him. 6 In the Scriptures David talks about the blessings that come to people who are acceptable to God, even though they don’t do anything to deserve these blessings. David says,
7 “God blesses people
whose sins are forgiven
and whose evil deeds
are forgotten.
8 The Lord blesses people
whose sins are erased
from his book.”
9 Are these blessings meant for circumcised people or for those who are not circumcised? Well, the Scriptures say that God accepted Abraham because Abraham had faith in him. 10 But when did this happen? Was it before or after Abraham was circumcised? Of course, it was before.
11 Abraham let himself be circumcised to show that he had been accepted because of his faith even before he was circumcised. This makes Abraham the father of all who are acceptable to God because of their faith, even though they are not circumcised. 12 This also makes Abraham the father of everyone who is circumcised and has faith in God, as Abraham did before he was circumcised.
13 God promised Abraham and his descendants that he would give them the world. This promise wasn’t made because Abraham had obeyed a law, but because his faith in God made him acceptable. 14 If Abraham and his descendants were given this promise because they had obeyed a law, then faith would mean nothing, and the promise would be worthless.
15 God becomes angry when his Law is broken. But where there isn’t a law, it cannot be broken. 16 Everything depends on having faith in God, so that God’s promise is assured by his great kindness. This promise isn’t only for Abraham’s descendants who have the Law. It is for all who are Abraham’s descendants because they have faith, just as he did. Abraham is the ancestor of us all. 17 The Scriptures say that Abraham would become the ancestor of many nations. This promise was made to Abraham because he had faith in God, who raises the dead to life and creates new things.
--Romans 4:1-17 (CEV)
Let us pray… Father God, You chose the descendants of Abraham to be Your people. Yet as the centuries rolled by, they failed to obey Your words. They, and all of mankind, sinned. The only way to save us was to send Your Son as a blood sacrifice to atone for our sin. By doing this, You allow all people who believe in Jesus to be included in Your holy family, Jew and Gentile alike. Thank You Father for accepting us blessing us with the wonderful gifts of salvation and faith. Please help us remain true to Your Son and to show Him to the world in all we do. Help us make great use of the faith You have given us.
Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit in our hearts. Write Your message there so it is always before us. Speak to us of death to this world and our sin, and life everlasting. This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Saint Augustine once said:
"Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand so that you may believe, but believe so that you may understand."
Martin Luther may have had that in mind when he noted:
"God our Father has made all things depend on faith so that whoever has faith will have everything, and whoever does not have faith will have nothing."
Understanding is our reward for having faith. We shouldn’t try to understand God so that we might believe in Him and His Son. Instead, we should believe, so that we will be given understanding. For if we have faith, we have everything.
Because, family, it’s all about faith. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it, because of faith? We either have it and we want to exercise it in worship, we have it but it’s weak and we want to strengthen it, or we don’t have it, or don’t think we do, and we’re looking for it. But just what it is we seek to exercise or strengthen or find? What is faith?
We know that the author of the letter to the Hebrews tells us that faith is the substance, the realization, of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. It’s our confidence in those things not seen and for which we have no physical proof.
So where does faith come from? The Apostle Peter opens up his 2nd letter to the early church by addressing “those who have received a faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ”. The author of Hebrews tells us that we all should be “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith”.
Faith comes from God, through Christ Jesus our Lord. It is a gift and everyone has received some measure, some amount of it. What we do with that gift is up to us. If we do follow Jesus, we should indeed do something with this wonderful gift. I’ve seen it written that faith is a tangible response to a spiritual reality. If we believe in the spiritual reality of God, Christ Jesus His Son, and His Holy Spirit, then we should make a tangible response.
Abraham certainly did! He packed up everything, left him lifelong home and everything he knew behind, and set off for parts unknown, simply as a tangible response to the spiritual reality of God. Listen to his story from Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 5…
1 The Lord said to Abram:
Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will bless you and make your descendants into a great nation. You will become famous and be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless anyone who blesses you, but I will put a curse on anyone who puts a curse on you. Everyone on earth will be blessed because of you.
4 Abram was seventy-five years old when the Lord told him to leave the city of Haran. He obeyed and left with his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions and slaves they had gotten while in Haran.
--Genesis 12:1-5 (CEV)
Not according to Paul, who was given special insight into God’s ways by Jesus. Our scripture reading began with Paul asking what can we say about Abraham, our ancestor. Now Paul was a Jew and would have been a descendant of Abraham. But he was writing to the church in Rome, a Gentile location if there ever was one, and most of the believers in the church would have been Gentiles. Were these Gentiles direct descendants of Abraham? No, of course not, so let’s dig a little further.
Paul quotes King David when he says that God blesses all people whose sins are forgiven. Jesus died on the cross as a blood sacrifice in atonement for all our sin, for all of us! When we accept Jesus as our Lord, God accepts us as His children, and we receive His blessing because our sins are forgiven.
Faith is a tangible response to a spiritual reality. Paul notes that Abraham was circumcised after he had been accepted by God because of his faith. He let himself be circumcised as a physical sign of his acceptance by God, as an outward expression of his inner faith. When we choose to be baptized – and I don’t mean as an infant but when we make that decision on our own – this is an outward sign of our inner faith, a tangible response to a spiritual reality.
Of course, there are many other forms of tangible responses we can make. The most visible is how we interact with others on a daily basis. If we strive to follow the example of how Jesus lived, we are showing our faith to the world. We are making a tangible, visible, physical response and showing of our firm belief in what cannot be proved, but only experienced by the gift of faith from God.
God promised much to Abraham’s descendants, and all because of Abraham’s faith. By our faith, we are now descendants of Abraham and heirs of God, equal heirs with Jesus in all the eternal riches of God’s kingdom. And it’s all because of faith: faith in God that comes from God.
It’s all about faith, family. Let’s make a tangible response. In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. Amen.
Let us pray… Father God, You sent Your Son to earth to save us from ourselves, to free us from our sin. Only His blood, shed in sacrifice for us, could atone us of our sin so that we may be seen as righteous in Your eyes. By His sacrifice, we are forgiven, we are blessed. One of our greatest blessings is our faith, our faith in You as God and in Jesus as Your Son. Our faith guides us, strengthens us, sustains us. But Father, we must exercise and make use of our faith to keep it strong. Thank You, Father, for this wonderful gift You have given us. Please help us to use it in service to You. Help us to make a tangible, positive response that the world can see and understand that our service is due to our faith in You, our obedience to Jesus. Help us to live daily just as Jesus lived, loving as He loves.
Please hear us now, Father, as we come to You in the silence, speaking from our hearts, promising to repent of our sinful ways, seeking Your forgiveness and Your help…
Lord Jesus, You came to save us from eternal death by offering Yourself as a sacrifice to atone for our sin. You shed Your blood to wash us clean. But we must accept You as our only Lord and Master before our salvation is assured. Our belief in You as the Son of God must compel us, lead us, to serve You by following Your commands and Your example. By this we show our faith. Thank You, Jesus, for giving so much just for us! Thank You for taking on our sins that we might be seen by God as sinless. Help us, please Lord, to be worthy of Your sacrifice. Help us to better serve You in this life by serving those in need so we can enjoy eternal life with You in heaven. This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior. Amen.
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