Rest On Grace
Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Second of Lent
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 4:1-17
Theme: The Grace of Salvation
It seems a little involved, doesn’t it?
I mean, HONESTLY, all this talk of Abraham before circumcision or after circumcision, righteousness or unrighteousness being reckoned here or reckoned there … this is, truthfully, one of those places in the Bible where people’s eyes start to glaze over pretty early in the reading.
I don’t blame you.
Mine did.
And yet, it’s there. As part of scripture, it is part of what we hold to be central to our faith, so we have to do something with it. We have to make a good-faith effort (no pun intended) to wrestle with it and try to understand it, trusting that the Holy Spirit with guide our thoughts and enlighten us along the way.
So we take a step back, and take a deep breath and dive in.
The issue Paul is discussing is, in simpler terms: How do we obtain salvation? WHEN do we ‘become eligible’, as it were?
His beginning point is, as was made abundantly clear in our reading this morning, the starting point for any good Hebrew: Abraham. It is critical to begin there because it is through and FROM Abraham that the Hebrew people base their understanding of the covenant between them and God. If it didn’t start with Abraham, it didn’t start. It IS not. It never WAS.
The reason Paul is going back to Abraham is even more precise, more definitive, more finely drawn.
He is asking his listeners at what point within Abraham’s life did he come to righteousness – or in something more like our words: a saving relationship with God?
If we can follow the argument, it goes something like this: Did Abraham have faith in God enough to be considered a child of God BEFORE he lost his foreskin or AFTER?
I don’t mean to be irreverent, I don’t mean to be flippant, and I’m not making light of the matter. But there you have it. When it boils down to it, it seems that that was what Paul spent a LOT of his time fighting against.
We’ve read it time after time. Paul against the Judaizers – those who held that to be fully CHRISTIAN meant that you had to first be fully JEWISH – that to include following the dietary laws, observing the Sabbath laws, and all the rest of the 326 laws, in order to be able to become a follower of Christ.
So Paul goes back to the very foundation of the Hebrew religion to argue his point. Was Abraham, the founding father of the faith, the one who laughed when God told him he would be the father of nations at the robust and fruitful age of … well, over ninety, at the very least – who left his home and traveled to a land he’d never seen before and established himself there based on God’s direction to him, who received the promise from God and entered into the covenant agreement WITH God that would extend even to today, was ABRAHAM in relationship with God BEFORE his circumcision or did he enter into relationship with God AFTER the circumcision?
Paul’s point is pretty clear. Abraham was already in relationship with God before he followed the instructions that God gave him so that anyone who cared to would be able to tell without asking that there was something different about this Abraham fellow – something important enough to make him mark himself in such a permanent way. Humans are not known for growing back parts that get cut off.
The point we would do well to remember this morning is that it was not – and never HAS been – about DOING something to GET to the point of salvation; it is about DOING something BECAUSE of having BEEN GIVEN THE GIFT of salvation. Beginning in verse 13, Paul says,
Those are startling words, freeing words, blessing words, but they are words that, insofar as they empower us with the truth they speak of how we enter into relationship with God, they also call us out of an almost-natural sense of entitlement to salvation – by virtue of what we’ve given, or what we’ve suffered, or how much we’ve been involved in church, or how much TIME we spend in Bible study, or prayer, or in committee meetings, or in associational meetings, or on mission trips, or listening to missionaries speak, or preparing and delivering meals to the community, or shut-ins, or any of that – don’t think I’m saying DON’T do those things – DO do those things—JUST BE CLEAR ON WHY we do them.
WE DO NOT DO THEM IN ORDER TO OBTAIN SALVATION. WE DO THEM IN GRATITUDE FOR THE GRACE BY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN SAVED.
We do them in obedience to God’s command to care for each other. We do them in response to God’s call to be in relationship with each other – and to have that relationship be called a loving one. We do those things as a way of showing our loving response to God because it is THROUGH those things that we draw closer to God and hopefully get to know God better.
So what does it all mean for us here at Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
It means that we acknowledge, we understand, we wrestle against the urge to live in a mindset that says ‘I did this – whatever ‘this’ is, therefore I deserve salvation’ about ANYTHING in our lives. It is truly faith that came first, not action; faith in what God’s promise means to us, for it is the promise of relationship – and not just any relationship, but a relationship with the maker of the universe, who knit us together in our mother’s womb – who knew us before we were born, and who loves us beyond measure.
God God’s self is inviting us to rest on grace. Can we take God at God’s word?
Let’s Pray
Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Second of Lent
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Romans 4:1-17
Theme: The Grace of Salvation
1What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 4Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. 5But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 6So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works: 7“Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.” 9Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only on the circumcised, or also on the uncircumcised? We say, “Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” 10How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, 12and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised. 13For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. 16For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, 17as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. ”
It seems a little involved, doesn’t it?
I mean, HONESTLY, all this talk of Abraham before circumcision or after circumcision, righteousness or unrighteousness being reckoned here or reckoned there … this is, truthfully, one of those places in the Bible where people’s eyes start to glaze over pretty early in the reading.
I don’t blame you.
Mine did.
And yet, it’s there. As part of scripture, it is part of what we hold to be central to our faith, so we have to do something with it. We have to make a good-faith effort (no pun intended) to wrestle with it and try to understand it, trusting that the Holy Spirit with guide our thoughts and enlighten us along the way.
So we take a step back, and take a deep breath and dive in.
The issue Paul is discussing is, in simpler terms: How do we obtain salvation? WHEN do we ‘become eligible’, as it were?
His beginning point is, as was made abundantly clear in our reading this morning, the starting point for any good Hebrew: Abraham. It is critical to begin there because it is through and FROM Abraham that the Hebrew people base their understanding of the covenant between them and God. If it didn’t start with Abraham, it didn’t start. It IS not. It never WAS.
The reason Paul is going back to Abraham is even more precise, more definitive, more finely drawn.
He is asking his listeners at what point within Abraham’s life did he come to righteousness – or in something more like our words: a saving relationship with God?
If we can follow the argument, it goes something like this: Did Abraham have faith in God enough to be considered a child of God BEFORE he lost his foreskin or AFTER?
I don’t mean to be irreverent, I don’t mean to be flippant, and I’m not making light of the matter. But there you have it. When it boils down to it, it seems that that was what Paul spent a LOT of his time fighting against.
We’ve read it time after time. Paul against the Judaizers – those who held that to be fully CHRISTIAN meant that you had to first be fully JEWISH – that to include following the dietary laws, observing the Sabbath laws, and all the rest of the 326 laws, in order to be able to become a follower of Christ.
So Paul goes back to the very foundation of the Hebrew religion to argue his point. Was Abraham, the founding father of the faith, the one who laughed when God told him he would be the father of nations at the robust and fruitful age of … well, over ninety, at the very least – who left his home and traveled to a land he’d never seen before and established himself there based on God’s direction to him, who received the promise from God and entered into the covenant agreement WITH God that would extend even to today, was ABRAHAM in relationship with God BEFORE his circumcision or did he enter into relationship with God AFTER the circumcision?
Paul’s point is pretty clear. Abraham was already in relationship with God before he followed the instructions that God gave him so that anyone who cared to would be able to tell without asking that there was something different about this Abraham fellow – something important enough to make him mark himself in such a permanent way. Humans are not known for growing back parts that get cut off.
The point we would do well to remember this morning is that it was not – and never HAS been – about DOING something to GET to the point of salvation; it is about DOING something BECAUSE of having BEEN GIVEN THE GIFT of salvation. Beginning in verse 13, Paul says,
13For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. 16For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham…”
Those are startling words, freeing words, blessing words, but they are words that, insofar as they empower us with the truth they speak of how we enter into relationship with God, they also call us out of an almost-natural sense of entitlement to salvation – by virtue of what we’ve given, or what we’ve suffered, or how much we’ve been involved in church, or how much TIME we spend in Bible study, or prayer, or in committee meetings, or in associational meetings, or on mission trips, or listening to missionaries speak, or preparing and delivering meals to the community, or shut-ins, or any of that – don’t think I’m saying DON’T do those things – DO do those things—JUST BE CLEAR ON WHY we do them.
WE DO NOT DO THEM IN ORDER TO OBTAIN SALVATION. WE DO THEM IN GRATITUDE FOR THE GRACE BY WHICH WE HAVE BEEN SAVED.
We do them in obedience to God’s command to care for each other. We do them in response to God’s call to be in relationship with each other – and to have that relationship be called a loving one. We do those things as a way of showing our loving response to God because it is THROUGH those things that we draw closer to God and hopefully get to know God better.
So what does it all mean for us here at Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
It means that we acknowledge, we understand, we wrestle against the urge to live in a mindset that says ‘I did this – whatever ‘this’ is, therefore I deserve salvation’ about ANYTHING in our lives. It is truly faith that came first, not action; faith in what God’s promise means to us, for it is the promise of relationship – and not just any relationship, but a relationship with the maker of the universe, who knit us together in our mother’s womb – who knew us before we were born, and who loves us beyond measure.
God God’s self is inviting us to rest on grace. Can we take God at God’s word?
Let’s Pray
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