All Roads Lead To Romans: 5 / Abraham Believed

[Music] [Music] our sermon today part 5 in the all roads lead to Roman series is titled one of those two words everyone abraham believed abraham believed we've not mentioned this for a couple weeks but I'll just remind you that the sort of structure or the organization of Romans is that Romans divides nicely and purposefully in terms of authorial intent into four chapters or four parts chapters 1 to 4 chapters 5 to 8 9 to 11 and then finally 12 to 16 we are in part 5 today and we're only up through chapters 1 to 3 today we'll finish up chapter 4 so the way this is kind of shaping up just to give you a feel for what's to come is the next five parts will basically be two sermons in chapters 5 to 8 will be 2 sermons in chapters 9 to 11 and then one large sermon that we'll take in the last several chapters of the book of Romans so today we're gonna finish off part 1 section 1 so chapters 1 to 4 sort of formulate a discrete identifiable section in the writing and thinking and organization of Paul and today we'll finish that up all 25 verses of Romans chapter 4 but let's just review our sermon last week was titled but now what was it titled everyone but now and just six points very quickly a reminder about what we learned last week first of all but now in Romans chapter 3 verse 21 announced it's an amazing turnaround right we're where Paul had been building in chapter 1 verse 18 all the way through to 320 the universal and ubiquitous condemnation of the human race before the law of God and the governments of God and the goodness of God Jew and Gentile alike and then here comes this interposition here comes this announcement but now and the thing that is but now is our second bullet point here God's righteousness said not once not twice not thrice but four times in that short little 11 verse passage God has a solution God has a plan we're gonna talk more about that today but the righteousness of God was the theme of our passage last week we also then noted in Romans chapter 3 verse 23 which fell right inside of our passage from last week a well-known passage to many I probably could begin quoting it and many of you might be able to finish it it goes like this for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and we noted that fallen short is not only faulty performance that's how we often think oh I didn't say what I should have said or conversely I said something I shouldn't have said or I didn't do what I should have done or I did something I shouldn't have done whatever it might be we tend to think of falling short of God's glory in terms of faulty performance but the way that Paul tells the story yes there are performance issues as we might call them but the larger issue is faulty perception of who God actually is and Jesus of course is the solution to that the one who said if you have seen me you have seen the Father fourth bullet point here we learned last week that Jesus is the very place of mercy the place where a holy God and sinners meet can somebody say Amen I had several people come to me last week and say that was a game-changing insight for me Jesus is the mercy seat the very place in the Old Testament sanctuary where he had the courtyard and the holy place in the most holy place and in the most holy place was the Ark of the Covenant and on the lid of the ark of the covenant was the place the place where a holy God and the day of atonement met with sinners and Paul goes so far as to say drawing on this incredible Old Testament background Jesus is the mercy seat he is the place the location or a holy God meets with sinners can somebody say Amen stop it incredible then fifthly there Jesus faithfulness unto death solved the problem of sin and death we're going to talk more about that today and then the pastoral point because we have to remember that Paul is not writing a book to get published by Thomas Nelson publishers or you know some publisher Paul is writing a letter into a specific and unique pastoral situation and the situation that he's riding into in or around about 80 57 in Rome is that there is division there are hostilities within the church at Rome this is one of the many things that he's addressing and so Paul drives at this very important pastoral point that will come back to us again today that the one God has one family and that family is made up of both Jews and what word am I gonna say here Gentiles very good so that's our review from last week moving right along our last slide our second to our last slide from last week was this slide right here but what about Abraham Abraham is going to come up necessarily in any conversation where we're trying to talk about the Messiah and his fulfillment of the Old Testament right and so Paul here and introduces us right out of the gate in fact you can just take a look at it briefly we'll come back to it but look at Romans chapter 4 verse 1 first verse says what shall we say then that Abraham our Father has found according to the flesh so our conversation today the whole of our sermon today titled Abraham believed will be built around the story and if you're unfamiliar with the story that's ok we'll do a little bit of review be built around the story of Abraham and we'll see how central and how essential it is to understand the story of Abraham if we're really going to appreciate the story of Jesus now I know that might have caught some of you by surprise there what I just said if you're going to understand the story of Jesus at some level you're gonna have to familiarize yourself with the story of Abraham if you're going to appreciate the strength and the significance and the profundity of the story of Jesus for all it's worth okay it's not to say that if somebody's not familiar with the Old Testament they can't have Jesus as their Savior of course they can but if you want to understand the sort of 90% of the iceberg that's under the 10% that's that's visible we're gonna have to go back to the Old Testament story and that Old Testament story begins in earnest with the call of Abraham and I've just got six bullet points here again we're going to spend at least five or six or seven minutes on this because I need the story of Abraham whether it's a story you're very familiar with or a story that you're not very familiar with I need it to be very fresh in your mind because Paul is riding into a situation where he is making in his case the very safe assumption that the people to whom he's riding are familiar with the story of Abraham so we're not gonna have any hope of understanding Romans chapter 4 verses 1 to 25 if we don't have fresh in the soil of our mind at least a reminder of the story of Abraham and why that's significant so let's go down these bullet points in order first of all Genesis chapters 1 to 11 gen that's the first book in the bible chapters 1 to 11 tell the story of the early primordial history of mankind right and I've spent quite a lot of time talking about this over the years and my pastor it here at Kings Cliff but in those chapters even though some 2,000 years 2,000 plus years of human history are covered really only four events are described creation the fall of humanity the flood and the Tower of Babel right so so Moses is not setting out to give us a detailed encyclopedic anthropology of early human history that's not what he's doing what he's doing is racing very quickly very speedily through basically four very significant events creation fall flood and the Tower of Babel to get to the story that he really wants to tell and that story becomes the story that will be continued on for the rest of Scripture it's amazing how many well-meaning even veteran Christians don't know that the story that the Bible is telling is the story of Abraham and his descendants so Genesis chapter 1 to 11 sets up that story and when we leave chapter 11 we have this strong sense Moses has painted a picture and it's not a happy picture right it starts off happily if enough of course with creation but he he paints this picture of what we might call vertical and horizontal alienation or sin if you want to just summarize that sin not only alienates us from God sin alienates us from one another this is exemplified in the fact that Adam blamed Eve for his transgression Cain slew Abel and the Tower of Babel dispersed people linguistically and geographically so people are not only broken vertically in terms of my privatized relationship to God people are broken horizontally so that now we're born into a world with ethnic barriers and national barriers and geographical barriers it's the world of us in them okay that's the that's the world of Genesis 1 to 11 so then the solution is Genesis 12 the Abrahamic call and promise God calls Abraham and then over the course of the next 39 chapters there's 50 chapters in the book of Genesis Moses proceeds to tell in great detail in some cases excruciating detail the story of a and his family and his descendants what because Abraham is essential essential to get your mind around the promise that God made to Abraham and Abraham's response so that comes in Genesis chapter 12 we might as well read the passage here it is Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 to 3 now Yahweh said to Abram the Lord said to Abram get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a what word have I underscored there to a land that I will show you I will make you a great nation I will bless you I will make your name great you will be a blessing I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed in many ways this is the beginning of the whole story you can think of Genesis 1 to 11 as like preamble and Genesis 12 to revelation 22 as the story of Scripture it's the story of Abraham Genesis 1 to 11 sets up that story with the vertical and horizontal alienation but the story from Genesis 12 all the way through to the end of the book of Revelation is the story of God making and keeping a promise to a man named Abraham and to his descendants now the heart of that promise the the essence of that promise is God says I will give you land and descendants I want you to say those two words with me if you would land and descendants one more time and very good so land and descendants here we are Genesis chapter 15 verses five and six then he God brought him Abraham outside and said Abraham look look now toward the heaven count the stars if you are able to number them and he said to him so shall your what's our word so shall your descendants be now this is the crucial passage for us today in Romans four Abraham's responds to the promise of God was to believe in a ver and he believed in Yahweh and Yahweh accounted it to him for righteousness we're gonna spend all of our time on that so we will be back okay God makes a promise I'm gonna give you land I'm gonna give you descendants it's great to see you right now the why of the promise it kind of raises the have sort of like maybe gods playing favorites here maybe it's like a sort of genetic elite maybe there was something really special about Abraham Oh contraire Mon frère in fact the reason that Abraham is called within the very text that we just read moments ago is so that in and through Abraham all of the families all of the Nations all of the world will be blessed so it's not just that God is giving something to him so much as he is giving something what word do you think I might say here through Abraham to the whole world God then performs this incredible covenant acts with Abraham where he commits himself and even his life and his own existence to keeping this promise Genesis chapter 15 verse 18 on the same day the Lord made a what's our word everyone covenant that's the first time the word covenant occurs in the whole of the Bible right there that's it he made a covenant with Abram saying to your descendants I have given this land there's our two words land and descendants I make a promise I make a pledge I make a covenant you can use whatever language suits you best Abraham's response to God's promise and pledge and covenant is to believe that Yahweh will do what he says he will do just briefly here very briefly parenthetically we have to exit insofar as it's possible our present knowledge that we have here in Australia in kingscliff in 2019 where we know that there is one true God that he's the creator and that Jesus came as the Saviour that doesn't exist yet in Abraham's frame of reference he doesn't know that in fact when Abraham was called out of a place called ER when he was called out of Earth he would have been leaving not just a place geographically and not just his family and not just a location that he was familiar with he was leaving a way of doing life he was becoming a new person he was going to become a person that he wasn't before this is a new year and a lot of people say new year new you abraham is embarking here not just on a geographical sojourn he's embarking on a spiritual sojourn into something that was so radical so innovative that many of the ancients couldn't even conceive of the notion of there being only one God what an absurdity it would be tantamount to saying there's only one person in this room right people would look around and say are you kidding there's hundreds of people in this room there's not only one person in this room when Abraham begins to announce and his descendants the Jews begin to announce a rigid and committed monotheism means one god they were regarded by their neighbors as saying something that was demonstrably absurd and stupid of course there's the god of that mountain and the god of that river and the god of that clan and the god of those people and the god of those people and it's a wild notion and God has called Abraham out into this radical spiritual innovation that there is only one God this will become hugely important for us and so it would not be an exaggeration and I've said this in this church at least a dozen times before that the way that Moses is constructing the story of Genesis God's call of Abraham is the answer to the sin of Adam Adam has thwarted God's good intent Eve have has thwarted God's good intent for there to be connection and unity and all of those wonderful beautiful things found in Edina Chi in the identic ideal and what we find is that now we have a world of both vertical and horizontal alienation and God's solution is to call Abraham and I love the way that Christopher J H Wright says this in his book the Old Testament in seven sentences I've quoted this here before but it's worth record we're repeating Wright says this and just get this picture in your mind here when God makes the announcement of the plan to the Angels and Wright does a very good job of communicating this sort of incredulity that the Angels would have had he says I've always imagined that the Angels drew in sharp whistles of breath in amazement when God made the announcement I've got this great plan to save the world it will be through that elderly childless couple down there by multiplying their offspring right you can almost imagine that the angelic response would have been like maybe duct tape would be a better idea right like it just seemed a surd but the way that Moses is telling the story and the way that the whole of the Bible writers are telling the story is that in some significant sense and we'll get to the heart of this today Paul's version of it which is the biblical version God calling Abraham and making a promise to Abraham is the way he's gonna fix the problem that was brought about by Adam and Eve okay so God makes this thing called a covenant a promise a pledge okay and that covenant that promised that pledge is he promises to deal it's a commitment to deal with this vertical and horizontal alienation we call it sin and the result of sin which Paul has already discussed in principle but he'll say this expressly in a few chapters the wages of sin is death so God's like I'm gonna fix that I'm gonna fix that and I'm not gonna use duct tape I'm gonna make a promise to this elderly childless couple you're in Romans chapter 1 with me Romans chapter 4 with me that's all the preamble that we're gonna get and buckle your seatbelts if those seats have seat belts you're gonna need them because today is a big awesome brilliant incredible life-changing passage of Scripture with again mmm several incredible punch lines right at the end let's go together Romans chapter 4 verse 1 I've got it up here on the screen what then shall we say that Abraham our Father has found according to the flesh that's one way of rendering this a slightly better way I believe of translating this first verses like this what shall we say then have we found Abraham to be our Father or our ancestor in a human fleshly sense no matter how you translate this the question is how does Abraham fit into this puzzle Paul has just finished saying that the one God has one family Jew and Gentile all along Paul has been hinting at the notion that there is no longer a division no longer a meaningful division between us and them Jew and Gentile and any Jew would have instinctively reflexively respond and they said ok that's all fine and good Paul as you go but what about the promises that God made to Abraham and so at some point if you're going to talk about Jesus being the Messiah and the fulfillment of the Old Testament you're going to talk about the one God having one family made up of Jew and Gentile you're gonna have to come to the question of Abraham and so he asked the question what shall we say then in what sense is Abraham our Father is that in a fleshly sense or is there another sense he continues in verse two after all if Abraham was reckoned in the right on the basis of works well then he would have grounds to boast but not in God's presence now we're just gonna say a couple things here Paul in verses 3 and 4 is gonna introduce a very simple analogy actually 4 and 5 is gonna introduce a simple analogy but before we do that we have to spend at least a moment sort of entering into the first century world of why the word boast would be used here and we don't have to travel very far because we've already been exposed to this several times in the book of Romans let's remind ourselves Romans chapter 2 Paul writing - in this case he's writing to a Jewish and a Gentile audience in the churches in Rome but here he's putting the finger specifically to the his Jewish audience and says indeed you are called a what everyone a Jew and you rest on the Torah that's the Old Testament you rest on Torah you rest on the writings of Moses and you make your boast in God's very simple according to this text where did a Jew make his or her boast according to this text in God we are God's people we have God's words we are the ones with whom God made a covenant with our ancestor and so Paul says you're a Jew I get that and Abraham is your father you make your boast in God you know God's will unlike these Gentiles who don't know anything idolatry immorality you approve the things that are excellent and you are instructed out of the Torah that's Romans - how about Romans 2 verse 23 you Paul writes again to his Jewish audience who make your boast in the Torah do you dishonor God through breaking the Torah now don't worry too much about the individual verses we've already been through these but just I want you to hone in on the idea of boasting in Torah and specifically in the works of Torah and specifically the work of Torah that demarcated or set us apart from them was the Torah of circumcision okay hang on to that we're coming back to it 327 Paul says we looked at this last week where is boasting then okay he says it's excluded by the law of faith we don't do this very often in this series but just momentarily we're gonna just dip briefly into Galatians and just pull out two quick verses just very quickly Galatians chapter six verses 13 and 14 Paul says for not even those who are circumcised to keep the Torah but they desire that you be circumcised that they may boast in your flesh now we're not going to go if you want to know more about relations you can come to our Sabbath School class we're just in Galatians chapter 4 right now but the point is this something about the law something about being a Jew ethnically spiritually theologically and culturally was cause many Jews believed for boasting I just was a-visiting Agnes yesterday as I mentioned and the cricket match was on the cricket match was on an Agnes who were you pulling for in the cricket match New Zealand of course bride she's a good Kiwi she's pulling for New Zealand and I suppose here that there are some Australians that take umbrage at that anybody else watch the cricket match yesterday okay Brenda who are you pulling for the ostrov course because Australians believe right hey we're pretty good at sports and at least we're better than New Zealand and New Zealand's we've nah we're just an island to 4 million people were better than you or whatever it might be see we always have our sort of nationalistic reasons to have a little boast but this isn't just a boast about athletic prowess this is a boast about being God's chosen covenant people we are the ones we have Torah we are circumsized you are not so Paul says hey this boasting thing is not going to work and so here's the sort of pastoral point that Paul is addressing circumcision which as we've mentioned is a Torah work created grounds for an ethnic boast in the house churches in Rome I want you to get this in your mind it created grounds for there to be an inside crew and an outside crew for there to be the cool kids and the not cool kids are the ones that are in and the ones that are not fully in and Paul is deeply concerned so he raises this question about Abraham he raises the question about Abraham and says what about Abraham did Abraham some cause to boast because the natural reflex of the Jew would be to rest on Abraham to lean in to their covenant calling by Yahweh and so Paul is gonna take us through a very complex extry complicated a very controversial but fairly simple argument with Abraham and I tell you the punchline Cobell prepare yourself and if it's a bombshell in Australia in 2019 trust me it would have been double e or triple e that in Rome in 80 57 okay the one God as we've already mentioned several times will have one family Jew and Gentile there will be no hierarchical ISM there will be no class ISM right there's not going to be a caste system of those that are in and those that are really in Paul's gonna make his case but if he's gonna do that he's gonna have to deal with the question of Abraham and the promises that God made any Jew would have said explain that one away Paul and Paul says not only will I explain it away I'll do better than that I'll explain it better than you can explain it we're gonna get there in two seconds no wonder Paul says finishing up Galatians 6 God forbid that I should boast Paul says I do have something to boast about but it's not in my ethnicity it's not in my my being raised or born in a certain context in culture I boast in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world has been crucified to me in I to the world can somebody say Amen if you're gonna boast let it be in Jesus let your boast be in Jesus verse 3 Romans chapter 4 verse 3 for what does scripture say Paul says okay now let's go to the text effectively challenging the churches in Rome and very likely some antagonists that are seeking to undermine Paul's influence in Rome not that Paul has yet been there but he's going to travel there let's he's basically challenging them to a jousting match let's see who reads Genesis more carefully more correctly more accurately what the scriptures say abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness and I've put here in brackets so you can be clear on this because we just read this in Genesis covenant status God entered into a covenant with Abraham where God made promises and Abraham's response to the promises of God was what you got to give you the right answer here we have no hope of making it forward he believed he believed God made a promise and Abraham's response was he believed now you're right Vivian what was the nature of the promise I'll give you land and descendants very good so Abraham believed a way of saying this might be like this this is basically the essence of verse 3 God counted Abraham's belief in the promise of land and descendants as constituting covenant membership and what we might call in the right status Abraham is bringing precious little to the table here in terms of negotiation or bargaining this is the point Paul is gonna make God's bringing everything to the table like God's bringing the power God's bringing the promise God's bringing the plan God's bringing a whole lot to the table and he says I'm gonna do this I'm gonna multiply you and stars in the sky and say into the sea I'm gonna do all this great stuff and what does Abraham bring to the table help me out here one more time what is Abraham's contribution to this this arrangement he believes it he believes that God will do what he says he will do and God effectively says you're just the kind of guy I'm looking for that's the partnership I'm looking for I made promises you believe them that's righteousness or covenant status let's continue here verses 4 & 5 Paul then moves to this illustration that I mentioned just a moment ago he says okay wait wait let's be clear the temptation would be to think of Abraham as being somehow special somehow unique somehow a cut above all of those pagans that he was called out from Paul's gonna say not so much to the one who works who has a job who Labor's his wages pay are not counted as a gift but as his do anybody in this room that has a job gets that basic idea is God in some sense indebted to Abraham is the question he's asking and he's gonna answer that he's gonna say no now I've purposely left a couple things blank here I'm in verse 5 to the one who does not work but and I've made this as easy as can be for you but what what's the opposite of having God be in debt to us we're just going to believe that God will do what he says he will do to the one who believed in him who justifies the ungodly his faith is counted as righteousness I'm going to just drop two quick lines in here for you to see it right who believes in him who justifies that word just means who declares in the right a covenant is an agreement a covenant is a kind of contract a relationally significant contract and God says I'm gonna credit your belief in my promise you're in the right you can come into a covenant with me you get righteousness covenant status relational status hang on to these ideas they're big you've got to hang on now this is key we often hear people saying we're saved by faith righteousness by faith faith faith faith and Christians in their enthusiasm but often in their ignorant enthusiasm mistake the thing they think faith is the thing okay let me tell you right now your faith and your belief is not the thing Jeanine this is getting back to what we talked about last week look at this your faith and your belief is not the thing God's promise is the thing we all good but your faith and your belief is your response to the thing we together so let me just show you how this works it's not righteousness by faith period as if faith has some value in and of itself no its righteousness by faith in the faithfulness of God as shown in Jesus Christ you see how that works faith has as an object Jesus faith in and of itself okay faith so what faith Smith so to speak faith is not the thing God's promise is the thing and what made Abraham the kind of person that God was looking to enter into a covenant with is Abraham's response to God's big promise was to say I believe you'll do what you say you will do so far so good now I love the way that NT Wright says this Abraham's faith was the sign the sure sign right you have you have this this the fire and then you have the smoke the fire is the thing the smoke is the sign we've never saying where there's smoke there's a fire where there's faith in Jesus there was the promise of having given land in the senate's fixing the problem of sin so rights right on point here Abraham's faith was the sign that he was in I like this language what's the language he was in partnership with God righteousness when applied to humans at bottom is not the fact that you've got your act together because you haven't it's not the fact that you have reached some moral virtue or some platform of moral superiority over others we've already dealt with moral superiority complex back in chapters 2 & 3 no no righteousness when applied to human says right is at bottom the status of being a member of the Covenant and faith is the badge or the sign that you wear it's the status and I love this I've italicized it and underlined it so you can't miss it faith is the status because it is the key symptom of the Covenant all you're doing is responding all we're doing is reflecting and Paul's point is that's all Abraham was doing Abraham brought nothing to the table except belief that God would keep his great big promise so far so good so God's not indebted to Abraham now poem and the arguments gonna get even thicker but just hang on for the ride now we could ask the question fairly whoa whoa wait a minute David there have you just described a kind of what some critics of Christianity have called a legal fiction I mean how is this fair how would you be familiar with this Quinton how can God say that someone is righteous when they're not righteous how can God say that someone is is pure and innocent when they're not pure and innocent is this just like as god wink week not not a legal fiction okay this is important how is God able to grant this in the right covenant status to the ungodly I mean no one's really prepared for Paul to announce Abraham is ungodly he says ungodly he he pulls the rug out from underneath the idea that Abraham is something that you would want to lean on you might remember for those of you that are somewhat familiar with Scripture you might remember on one occasion John the Baptist was preaching and some people came Pharisees came to listen to the preaching of John the Baptist John anticipated their posture their attitude and he said do not think to say within yourselves we Abraham as our debt I'm telling you right now John the Baptist said God can raise up children unto Abraham from the rocks so here this gift gives us a little window into the first century Jewish default position of leaning into your genealogical connection to Abraham thinking that that got you something so what Paul is gonna do is he's gonna make it really clear it's not Abraham's faith that's the thing it's God's faithfulness that's the thing and he even goes so far as to call Abraham ungodly it's funny the Old Testament actually says that if you justify a wicked person if you call somebody righteous that's not righteous if you call somebody good that's not good if you wink wink nod nod at a bride that's an abomination look at this he who justifies the wicked is an abomination to Yahweh that's a little weird the Old Testament says do not justify the wicked don't pretend like they've paid for all of what they've not actually paid for don't wink wink nod nod this is an abomination so that raises the question well how can God get away with if it's an abomination for me to justify the wicked to pretend like evil is good and good as evil then how can God get away with it okay this is important being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God set forward as a mercy seat by his blood I know this is thick but just follow me here you'll see the punchline by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness I don't pretend that there's maybe one in ten here that could really unpack that text for all that it's worth but that's not the point the point is is that Paul is saying I can't like me I'm not very mechanically inclined you lift up the hood of the car and I know enough to say this is the engine and it's what makes the car go but I could not as Jared could easily say oh well this does this and this does this and this connects to this I don't know all of that and my point for you here today is you don't have to know it either Paul has not yet explained it but what he has said is this the self sacrificial death of Jesus enables God in some way that he's not yet given us the mechanics on in grace to pass over sins that were previously committed in other words God's playing by the rules God is playing by the rules one more point on this Paul will unpack more of how he does this and the details of it in chapters 5 6 7 & 8 but for now he just says it's so right he just said trust me on this God has not broken any legality God has not crafted a legal fiction God has not said wink wink nod nod people to righteous when they're really not God is able to do this through the self sacrificial death of Jesus now take a look at Romans chapter 4 I think we are up through take a look in your Bible see I didn't put every verse up there we've read through verse 5 Paul then in verses 6 7 & 8 introduces David to the question just briefly verse 7 he's gonna quote here from psalm 32 just as David also describes the happiness or the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness covenant status apart from the works of Torah including an especially circumcision verse 7 saying happy are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven is anybody here today happy to be forgiven raise your hand if you're happy to be forgiven in the new year me too and whose sins are covered blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin again the mechanics of it not described here a little bit of the mechanics were described last week but but Paul wants the point he's not really driving at a point of how to be saved that's not his point really at all at this point that's a tangential point to the main point that he's going to make which we haven't even gotten to yet but we're headed there now verse 9 here's where Paul is going to get to the actual point that he's trying to make everything else up to this point it's been largely preamble to the punchline we're just gonna start laying the groundwork here is this blessing then only for the circumcised own or is it also for the uncircumcised is this blessing only for the Jew or is it also for the Gentile I've purposely left that blank there because I want to ask the church here what blessing what is it okay certainly that forgiveness the thing you just talked about grace forgiveness in covenant status you're right you're right melts up their covenant so so what he's saying is David talks about being forgiven and and and Abraham was justified freely and so then he asked a very important question he's writing in to the situation in the house churches in Rome where there's this possibility that an ethnic boast could begin to take root between those that are in and those that are really in the cool kids and the super cool kids the haves and the have-nots and so we ask this very important question is this incredible blessing that Yahweh gave to David to Abraham and to their descendants is that only for the Jew for the circumcised or is it also for the uncircumcised and then he quotes Genesis again he says I can read Genesis better than you to his detractors Abraham we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness quoting Genesis 15:6 again or covenant status now here's where the noose begins to tighten this is incredible and I'm going through each of these in order Palvin says now that he's led people as Jesus often did Jesus often would say how do you read the scriptures and then when they would actually quote the text they would find that they had fallen into a trap that they themselves had not perceived so Paul says oh okay how then was this blessing counted how was this the status this covenant status counted to Abraham okay that's the first question second question was it before or after he had been circumcised now I'll just do the math here for you the promise was made in Genesis 12 circumcision doesn't happen until Genesis 17 so what comes first 12 or 17 you can almost hear through the years Paul's opponents swallow really hard on this question just when was it that Abraham had his covenant status just when was it that that he was reckoned in the right in partnership with God before or after he was circumcised what's the answer before it was not after but before he was circumcised and friends I just got to say this I gotta say this Paul is hinting at a rather daring proposition here especially for somebody who wasn't a Jew a passionate Jew of the Pharisee achill persuasion Paul is driving at Paul is hinting at a very daring proposition here and that is that believing Gentiles are the more obvious family of Abraham tell me how you think that's gonna go over I'm not gonna go over particularly well you see the challenges but what about Abraham but what about Genesis but what about the what about the promises and Paul's like let's go back and read those promises exactly when was it that Abraham received his covenant status his partnership with Yahweh was it before or after he was circumcised the answer is before incredible now take a look here in verse 11 and he Abraham received a sign the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the faith that he had while he was still uncircumcised that he might be the father of all those who believed even though they are uncircumcised that covenant status might be given to them as well okay now there's just one thing I'm going to say here parenthetically briefly I don't have any time to expand on it but I'm gonna just say this briefly Paul does not do what I would have done I would have spent a little time looking into the specific circumstances and the theology of circumcision which basically goes like this the only reason that you have Genesis 17 circumcision is because you have Genesis 16 Abraham under Sarah's advising sleeping with Hagar trying to fulfill the promise for God that God said he would fulfill for Abraham God never desired there to be circumcision circumcision was a symbol it was a sign it was an accommodation that Abraham tried to do by his flesh by his ingenuity and by his masculinity what God had promised to do by his grace Paul doesn't do this I would do it Paul just skips over the sort of context of circumcision and the theology of circumcision but what he does say is this circumcision was the sign of the faith that he already had so just a question what comes first first the faith the belief that he had or the circumcision that's the sign of the faith in the belief what comes first yea the faith now if the faith comes first and the belief comes first and guess what else comes first the covenant status you can see where Paul is going with this now to state the point I just had up on the screen a moment ago Paul is driving at a fairly daring point here that it's actually the uncircumcised Gentiles who are more obviously descendants of Abraham Paul then introduces this idea over and over again and I've just written them up here for you here of the father the father so verse 11 we just read it the father of all who believed verse 12 the father our father verse 16 the father of us all verse 17 the father of many nations quoting Genesis 17:5 verse 18 the father of many nations father father father father father father over and again let me just remind you of when it is that Abraham had his name changed from Abram to Abraham maybe some of you noticed that when we quoted there in Genesis chapter 12 verse 3 God said to Abram get out of your land from your country from your people but then later speaks to Abraham this is the passage where his name has changed and I want you to see the significance of the name change why the change from Abram to Abraham 17 20 17 to 2 8 of Genesis I will make my covenant between me and you God speaking I will multiply you exceedingly be fruitful and multiply then Abraham fell on his face and God talked to them and said as for me behold my covenant Abraham takes a posture of belief a posture of obedience a posture of submission God is making promises and Abraham is receiving those promises he believes that Yahweh is a more powerful God a more powerful deity than the other regional deities that were around so when God makes a promise Abraham goes on to his face to receive that promise by the way that's a good posture go on your face tomorrow morning or tonight and receive the promises of God as for me behold my covenant is with you and you will be a father of many nations no longer will your name be called Abram which in the Hebrew means exalted father revered father your name will now be called Abraham very similar fans very similar but Abraham is not exalted father or revered father it's father of many or father of a multitude ah a father wow this is incredible just like last week Paul went to Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4 the Shema hear o Israel the Lord our God the Lord he is one and he said well wait a minute if there's only one God then he has to be the God of the Jews and the Gentiles he took the most central and sacred text and all of holy scripture to the Jews and turned it to make the point of Gentile inclusion Paul here now says remember Jews his name is not just a Brahm exalted father it's Abraham its father of a multitude lots and lots and lots of people I have made you a father of many nations I will make you exceedingly fruitful I will make nations out of you Kings will come from you parenthetical statement including the king of King another sermon I will establish my covenant between me and you you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you and I give to you and your descendants after you the land there it is of which you are us in which you are a stranger all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession and I will be their God his name here is changed from revered father to a father of all nations to a father of many suppossed roke again of incredible rhetorical brilliance says don't think of Abraham don't turn Abraham back into Abram Abram he's not just an exalted father that you earthly genealogically culturally lean into he's a father of many this gets justice gets so good Gentile inclusion was not an afterthought that Paul is shoehorning into the ancient text got to get Gentiles in there somewhere will just shove him in no he's saying that this was God's plan all along to bless the nation's through the call of Abraham then verse 13 or motoring along now for the promise that he would be the heir of the world he says it's the world God promised Abraham the world well that's got to include Gentiles that was not to Abraham or to his seed sperma through the law his descendants through Torah but it was through the righteousness of faith Abraham's call and his covenant standing were entirely by what's our word there everyone Grace and I didn't just make that up take a look at verse 14 for of those who are of the Torah are heirs well then faith would be void and the promise that God made would be without effect verse 15 because the law what the Torah does is it brings about wrath but where there is no law but where there is no law there is no transgression just a little parenthetical statement here about what Torah was for and what what it wasn't for we talked about this last week the correct use of the law verse 16 therefore it is of faith that it might be according to what's our word grace so that the promise might be sure to all of the seed not only those who are of the law Jews but also those who are of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us what's the word all verse 17 as it is written and now he quotes from Genesis he's saying I can read Genesis better than you 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 they do not exist as though they did okay I'm getting running ahead a little bit Paul does two things now right at the close of the chapter he's basically made his point and his point is is very easy to understand the family of Abraham is not just those that are circumcised like Abraham was circumcised even before circumcision Abraham had a belief in God's covenant promise and those that have the kind of belief that Abraham had whether or not they are circumcised ie Jew or Gentile they can be the descendants of Abraham they can be the children of Abraham does that make sense so I want you just to embrace so we often think of the Old Testament story as the Jewish story the Old Testament story is their story the way that Paul is telling the story is the Old Testaments your story the Old Testament is your story right because the Old Testament anticipates the promise that God made to you of fixing the problem of sin not just sin in general but your sin the Old Testament is your story the Old Testament narratives are your narratives Paul wants you to feel not in some qualified sense not in some selective sense not in some lesser than sense that you are the children of Abraham you are the very ones to whom God made his promise to fix the world and to put it right now Paul then does this this is quite fascinating I'm in verse 18 I want you especially if you're familiar with the story of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar and that mess that was a mess at times I want you to tell me if you feel like Paul is very kind to Abraham in the way he tells the story here we go verse 18 who contrary to hope in hope believed abraham believed so that he became the father of many nations according to what was spoken so shall your descendants be like the stars of the sky and not being weak in faith abraham did not consider his own body already dead since he was about a hundred years old and the deadness of Sarah's womb he did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief but was strengthened by faith and gave glory to God and being fully convinced that he that what he promised he was able to perform and therefore he believed God anybody who's familiar with the story of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar is that a fairly generous telling of the story he didn't doubt he never questioned he fully believed his age never came into it watch this Paul's account of Abraham's faith is not generous in the revisionist history sense he's not making up stuff what he's doing is he's actually steeping the story of Abraham in the power of the gospel to rewrite our story as if we had done better than we actually had see this is what Jesus does he doesn't just rewrite your present and he doesn't just rewrite your future Jesus rewrites your history so that if you have read the Old Testament story of Abraham Abraham was vacillating and he was halting and sometimes he did lack faith and yet when Paul tells his story through the lens of the gospel of Jesus he tells that story in the most beautiful way possible because the gospel not only writes your future and your present the gospel rewrites your history in the nuts in the knots of recent past I found myself asking God forgiveness for a sin that I had committed years before that I had confessed years before and the point is it's difficult to embrace the truth that when we come to Jesus we not only get a new future and we not only get a new present we get a new past God gives you a new past that past is incorporated into Jesus you say well how's that work how do I get a new past well the short version is Jesus is the new Israel and he's the new Adam and so he represents you and his past let me tell you I've read the I've read the book Matthew Mark Luke and John his past was spotless beautiful kind covenant-keeping and that covenant-keeping past is given to you as covenant status and not because you're circumcised and not because you're a Christian are not because you keep Sabbath or some other marker of faith it's given to you because you believe that God will do what he says he will do that's the faith of Abraham oh I love this now another thing if you if you pay attention here Abraham's faith is not unimportant okay Abraham's faith matters Abraham's faith is important but it is God's faithfulness that matters most the simplest way to say this is one is the moon and the other is the Sun don't make a buret don't make the story of Abraham the story of incredible intrepid unwavering faith there are certainly elements of that but there are also elements of vacillating and lying about his relationship to Sarah and doubting whether or not God would ever give and sleeping with Hagar it's a mixed story your story is the mixed story - your story is the mixed story - your story has tremendous highs and tremendous lows and our fault our folly as humans is that we over identify with one or the other we either over identify with our highs in we think we're really something special which we deceive ourselves or we over identify with our lows and we think we're worse off than everybody else and we think we're unsavable no God knows what you are all of your highs and all of your lows and God in Christ rewrites your story ah yes your faith does matter but it's the moon to the faithfulness of God's son can somebody say Amen I love how tongs dad says this Abraham's trust is important but it is God's faithfulness not Abraham's faith that creates the possibilities and makes the difference I mean this is the God who said let there be light and there was light that's the faithfulness that matters your faith is a mere flicker a mere reflection of response to the to the so it's a symptom of God's great promises whenever we see Abraham's faith extolled therefore it's grounding is in God's faithfulness it where's I love this a translucent veil I like this God's right making faithfulness counts for more than right making faith on the human side ah that's just that's just great writing now Paul does something very clever here in the last few moments Paul does this fascinating thing we're in the telling of the story of Abraham he has actually purposefully contrasted it with with his diagnosis of fallen humanity back in Romans chapter 1 verses 18 to 31 where the creator was ignored Abraham believes the crater where there was idolatry and immorality rampant Abraham believes in the one true God where humanity had not glorified God Paul's expressly says that Abraham gave God glory God was not worshiped by fallen humanity but Abraham recognizes God's power fallen humanity dishonored their bodies in non-sexually non-reproductive ways and abraham's dead body was given the ability to produce life in Romans 1 the reversal of Genesis 1 and 2 happens and in the fulfillment of God's keeping a promise to an old man who says he Paul says was as good as dead and Sarah's womb was dead life happens now this is so cool dead dead dead dead dead occurs five times in this last little bit oh this is huge trust faith and belief in God creator is how human beings were created to function now Adam and Eva created a functions how you were created a function Abraham did this and thus showed what being truly human looks like in this way it would not be an exaggeration to say Abraham becomes a kind of new Adam to show us how to live you don't live in absolute moral perfection there's not a person in this room that even approximates that but we live in response to God's amazing promises and when we fail and when we fall we trust that God can rewrite our history and put a beautiful not a spin on it but a beautiful take on it as seen through the lens of Jesus can somebody say Amen five times Abraham Paul says they were dead they were dead they were dead they were dead they were dead but you know what happened life came watch this out of death you know the point Paul's gonna make life comes out of a dead thing can anyone say resurrection Abraham and Sarah's dead bodies bring unexpected life the promised and loved son Isaac this anticipates Jesus own unexpected resurrection can somebody say Amen pots incredible can God do the hard thing can he bring freedom out of slavery life out of death fertility out of barrenness rivers out of deserts cypress out of thorns joys out of sorrow can a sojourner Abraham and his family receive an eternal possession the issue turns not on Abraham's faith but on the power and the fidelity or the faithfulness of Yahweh God can do the hard thing he did it historically in Abraham he did it historically in Sarah he did it historically in Jesus the resurrection was Jesus own coming from life to death and his resurrection can bring your dead things to life and then here's the third and final punchline but the words it was counted to him were not written for Abraham's sake alone but for and Paul does something brilliant and beautiful and pastoral and incredible he switched - these inclusive plural possessive pronouns but for what's the word ours also it will be counted to us who believe covenant status will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus who believed he believed Jesus was raised from the dead then you're a part of that us and you're a part of that our he continues Jesus our Lord who was delivered for our trespasses and raised for our justification Paul's point is us not them there is in us Paul says in the house churches of Rome and there is in us in kingscliff there is an us in the global church there is an us in the global kingdom not an us and of em not those that are really in and those that are kind of in know Abraham is the father of us all because it wasn't that Abraham was so special it's that God's promise was so special and Abraham simply believed as a symptom of God's amazing power and promise that God would do what he said he would do and in Jesus and especially in his death and resurrection God did the unexpected the unanticipated God did that thing that rewrites not only futures and not only presence but God did that thing that rewrites histories I wonder if there's anybody here today who needs covenant status with the one true God who needs to have not only a promise of a bright future and not only the the blessing of a strong and satisfying present but I wonder if there's anybody here today who needs to have their past rewritten and recraft it and reimagine through the lens of the resurrection of Jesus a God who brings living things out of dead things anybody else out there - god I need a I need you to rewrite recraft refashion my past Father in heaven [Music] [Music]

Channel: Kingscliff Church

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Id: 1J75jGPienI

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 04 2020