Romans 4:13-25 New King James Version
13 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect,
15 because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.
16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all
17 (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;
18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.”
19 And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.
20 He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God,
21 and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.
22 And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
23 Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him,
24 but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead,
25 who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.
Do you want to know what word I am tired of hearing these days? Unprecedented, everything going on now seems like it is happening for the first time with no end in sight. When we think we have something under control here comes something new and improved to add another unprecedented complication to the situation. Unprecedented pandemic, unprecedented economic conditions, unprecedented political conditions, unprecedented weather, unprecedented electrical infrastructure failure, it seems like the hits just keep on coming and each issue is unlike any issues we have ever seen before. The problems keep piling up and the pressure keeps coming and I can't see my way out. I am reminded of the adage "if it isn't one thing it is another." How do you press forward when you cannot see your way out? How do you keep going when it seems like you have run out of road? How do you trust God when everything around you is falling apart? We have to have faith, we all need faith and faith is not this perfect sequence of actions faith is hard, faith is strange, faith is messy.
We find a messy situation in Romans, Romans is Paul's last letter that we know of, Romans is written somewhere around 57-58 AD. Paul was writing to a church that was a community of Jewish-born Christians, people who were born Jewish, followed the Biblical laws and believed Jesus was the Messiah. The other part of the community were the Gentiles, people who were not raised Jewish, but heard about Jesus and decided to follow him. This Roman church was made up of Jews and Gentile coming together into one community to follow Jesus, this was something they had never done before. Two communities coming together who would not normally deal with each other, are now together operating as a church. In this community, the Jewish-born Christians thought they were better than the Gentile Christians because they were descendants of Abraham.
The Roman church was divided, the church folk was trying to decide who is in and who is out. There were people putting barriers up to block others from getting in. People came together to create this church, in Rome, in the middle of Roman oppression. They are trying to start a church, not just any church but a church following the man the Romans crucified, Jesus, in the capital of their oppressors, following someone that could get them all killed, even with all that going on, the church folk still got something to argue about, just messy. A whole bunch of rules put in place that no human being can complete all on their own. How are the people of God going to find their way?
Paul says that even though this church is doing something unprecedented, there is someone else in scripture that did something unprecedented for God and that person is Abraham. Paul is writing Romans, however, Paul is writing this Roman letter with Genesis in mind. God told Abraham in Genesis that he would be the father of many nations, that his descendants would number the stars in the sky. Abraham had to have faith, Abraham had Isaac, then Isaac had Jacob and Esau, Jacob's name was changed to Israel, and Israel had 12 sons, who would later become the 12 tribes of Israel and be a great nation of people, there it is wrap up the story in a nice little bow and everyone can go home...or maybe not.
Abraham wavered when faced with a situation he had never seen before. Yes, we applaud Abraham for his faith now, just like Paul did in Romans, but the situation was not so clear back then. God told Abraham and Sarah they were going to have a child, and from them, many nations would come. On two separate occasions, Abraham was traveling with his family in a foreign land, and while traveling Abraham lied and said that Sarah was his sister, so someone tried to take Sarah from him only to give her back when they found Sarah was already married. Abraham and Sarah's actions could have messed up the promise.
Another time Abraham and Sarah came up with a plan, Abraham and Sarah were going to help God by having Abraham have a child with Hagar instead of Sarah because God must not have meant it when he said Abraham and Sarah because she was "too old." Hagar had Ishmael who goes on to be a great man and nation as well, but he is not who God was talking about when God made the promise to Abraham and Sarah, not Abraham and Hagar.
Another time Abraham laughed when he heard God tell him he was going to have a child. After he finished laughing Sarah laughed too. Abraham knew what was going on in his and Sarah's body when he heard the promise, he was 99 years old and Sarah 90, and even though Abraham stumbled, he didn't stay down, he trusted God in his weakness and it still worked out for his good. In Genesis we see the man mess up over and over again, by the time we get to Romans, it is the result that is remembered over everything else. That is the legacy the people of God are willing to fight over, that is what he is remembered for, that is the legacy and family people want access to. While the people are looking at bloodlines and who begat who, Paul came to let them know that it is faith that gets us in the family, not blood, not laws, not people, faith.
We are heirs of Abraham not by blood but of faith. We are adopted into the family by the work of Jesus Christ and faith. The many nations that Abraham is the father of is not limited by geography, it is unlimited by faith. We are justified by faith through grace. We don't earn this access we are given it by God when we believe. We can have faith even if it is not this picture-perfect example of how to behave in certain situations, even if it is messy. You may be in a Genesis moment in your life right now but keep pressing forward your Roman's victory is on the way. It may look bad right now, it may be very messy right now but, in the end, God wins. What is going on right now is just a snapshot, a single picture, the world hasn't seen the whole album yet. This is just a quarter, we still the rest of the game to play. We just need to keep the faith.
God who brought life out of Abraham when Abraham was as good as dead also raised Jesus from the dead can breathe life into your present situation no matter how dead the situation seems to you. The work is finished through Jesus Christ, the many nations come through Christ, and the barrier between Jew and Gentile was lowered by Jesus. Christ gave himself up for us all. We can have a messy faith in God.
Such faith means that we can trust God to work through us, even when our bodies fail us. It means we can trust Jesus to lead us, even when we wander through a thicket of difficult moral choices. It means we can trust the Holy Spirit to uplift us, even when we disappoint ourselves and others. Being righteous does not come from moral perfection, but it is based on being made right with God through our faith in Jesus.
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