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. 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.” He 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, but
was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that
God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him
as righteousness.” 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. (Romans
4:14-25)
Over the past couple days, we’ve been
looking at faith and the Law as the source of righteousness. Sometimes, it
seems as if some people who have faith get all sorts of blessings, all sorts of
assurances. God spoke to Abraham several times, telling him to go out from his
land to a land God would show him. He confirmed the promise several times. If
you read from Genesis 12 to Genesis 21, you see that God and Abraham discuss
this matter several times. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that those ten
chapters cover twenty-five years of Abraham’s life. Since we’re reading about
children being born, it’s easy to forget that the story starts when he was
seventy-five.
Abraham wasn’t given credit for
believing God about something that happens every day. He was trusting God for
the impossible right from the start of the story. He also wasn’t declared
righteous because he was following the example of a righteous family. We have
no evidence to tell us what sort of family he had, He wasn’t given credit for
righteousness when he effectively gave his wife to other men.
In a way, we face some of the same
difficulty that Abraham did. We are credited with righteousness when we believe
God, taking Him at His word about the forgiveness of sins through the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. That happened almost two thousand years ago, and
there are many people who say it never happened at all. We have been promised
eternal life, freedom from sin, the provision of our needs, blessing upon
blessing and more blessing besides. It’s tempting to say, “Um, God? Where’s the
blessing? What good is a blessing going to be if I don’t have an heir, or the
circumstances I think I need to go with the blessing? How about I give you a
hand?” And yet, even with Abraham’s squirming, he kept accepting God’s word.
Again,
this is where I am. I didn’t plan to get a degree in writing, but that’s the
degree I got. Almost immediately, I gave up any hope of getting a story
published. Thirty years later, I have returned to that dream. The road hasn’t
been easy. Even now, I’m tempted to say, “God, you know – this just isn’t
likely to work out. Lots of people write and publishers reject almost all of
it. What chance do I have? Is there a plan B?” One of the big reasons I haven’t
given up is because I decided I wouldn’t until someone who had authority told
me to. Even rejection letters – and I’m expecting them – don’t mean “stop”
because those are part of the process.
The
best blessings that come from faith aren’t the immediate blessings. In fact, if
you read in Hebrews 11, the author says that the people he was writing about
died before the promise was fulfilled. That brings me to what may be the most
important thing about faith and blessing. The biggest blessings are not what we
get for our faith, but what others get because of our faith.
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