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!! *THE FAITH OF OUR FATHER ABRAHAM*
(I have borrowed some thoughts for this message from a sermon preached by Ray Stedman in 1976.)
Today is a very special day!
We celebrate Marcy’s covenant of baptism through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
The step of baptism is a big step of faith.
In baptism we affirm publicly the Christian statement that we hold to be true – that no one comes to the Father, except through Jesus Christ.
This is a claim that we cannot prove with observed evidence – we can’t prove that this is so.
We have to believe it.
And this requires what the theologian Soren Kierkegard called a “Leap of Faith.”
This morning I want to talk about faith -- a simple thing, but hard for many people to understand.
Some people think that faith is nothing but a mental agreement with a truth.
But faith is more than simply believing something is true.
Some people believe that faith is a feeling, a feeling of confidence.
If you happen to have confidence, you have much faith; if you do not have confidence, then you have little or no faith.
If you really want to know what faith is, you have to see it in action.
That is why the Apostle Paul, in Rom. 4, brings in Abraham, the man of faith.
He is preeminently qualified as a man of faith.
Looking at Abraham we can learn what faith is.
In the first part of Chapter 4 Paul writes about the righteousness of Abraham.
Righteousness comes as a gift from God when we believe.
Abraham obtained righteousness by faith.
There are four things that the Apostle Paul points out about Abraham's faith: First, he points out what faith is not.
Sometimes the best way to learn what a thing is, is by learning what it is not.
Second, he talks about what faith does, what it accomplishes.
Thirdly, he explains what faith actually is -- the nature of faith.
And fourth, Paul talks about the beneficiaries of faith, or whom faith helps.
1.
Verses 13-15 deal with what faith is not.
It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.
For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath.
And where there is no law there is no transgression.
{Rom 4:13-15 NIV}
Paul tells us that faith is not trying to obey and fulfill some kind of law.
It is not doing our best to try to live up to a standard that we think we ought to live up to.
If we think that God is going to accept, love, and forgive us because we have tried hard to do what we think is right, we are on the wrong track.
It will never work.
Abraham received the gift, the promise of righteousness, long before the Law ever was given.
If we look at Galatians 3:23-29, we find that Abraham received the gift of righteousness 430 years before the Law was given.
So righteousness could not come by law.
Faith is not works.
2.
Next, Verses 16-17, which tell us what faith does:
Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring -- not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham.
He is the father of us all.
As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations."
{Rom 4:16-17a NIV}
Here is faith in action.
The promise that Abraham received came by faith.
Abraham’s righteousness, that sense of being approved and loved and wanted and accepted before God himself, was given to him because he believed God.
God made him a father of many nations and also the father of our faith.
3.
Verses 17-20 considers what faith actually is.
*/He /*/[Abraham]* is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed -- the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.
*/
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."
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.
Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God," {Rom 4:17b-20a NIV}
Paul gives us three things that tell us what faith is: *First,* Abraham believed God.
*God is the object of our faith.*
What matters the most is who we believe in, and not necessarily how much we believe.
Jesus told us that even if we have a little tiny faith, like a mustard seed, it will work.
The object of your faith is the important thing.
He is the God who gives life to the dead.
He is the God who "calls things that are not, as though they were."
It was that God in whom he fixed his faith.
\\ \\ But, whenever we are called to exercise faith, we come against some *obstacles.*
Abraham teaches us to have faith in God in hopeless circumstances.
"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed..." “he did not wave through unbelief regarding the promise of God..." The promise of God hung on the fact that there must be a child born to Abraham and Sarah.
Through that child would come all the descendants from the nations of the world that would be blessed by Abraham.
And, more important yet, through that child would come Jesus Christ, the Savior.
Abraham looked at the circumstances and saw his hundred-year-old body and the barrenness of Sarah's womb.
Abraham faced the hopelessness of these facts "without weakening in his faith."
Rather, “*he was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God," {Rom 4:20b NIV} *His faith was made strong.
Faith grows.
Jesus said it would.
If you have faith like a tiny little mustard seed, but the object of your faith is trustworthy and has promised to do something, then exercise your faith and it will grow.
Obey.
Abraham did; and as he believed and obeyed, he was strengthened in his faith and he gave glory to God.
In Verse 21 Paul says Abraham also was, *... fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
That is why "it was credited to him as righteousness."
{Rom 4:21-22 NIV} *
Faith grounds us on the truth, as it did Abraham.
He was fully persuaded.
This is the faith that was credited to him as righteousness.
4.
Verses 23-25 deal with the beneficiaries of faith:
The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness -- for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
{Rom 4:23-25 NIV}
Those words were not written for Abraham alone.
They were also written for us today.
We look at the faith of Abraham and say, "That was truly a “leap of faith”.
Paul says it was only an ordinary faith.
Anyone can exercise such faith if they want to.
You and I can benefit from that same righteousness too.
We can be a friend of God, accepted before him, with worth and value in his sight - not just once as we begin our Christian life, but every day, taking it fresh from his hand.
We are forgiven of our sins, restored, every day afresh and anew.
All that Abraham had - the promises of the world, the indwelling of the Spirit - all are ours as well.
The gift of righteousness is for those "who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead."
He is still the God of resurrection, the God who can raise people from the dead.
Now if we believe in God we are ready to live on the basis of his death and his life for us, knowing that his Spirit dwells in us.
\\ *Ordinance of Christian Baptism*
*And Church Membership*
!!!!! June 2, 2002
Introduction
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