Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Romans 4:18-25
Pastor: Pastor Berg
Sermon Date:  June 21, 2020

So many times in so many different situations, Jesus does the exact opposite of what we would expect. And that’s not more evident today than in our Gospel. Jesus is still in the process of choosing his apostles. He sees a guy named Matthew, a tax collector. Tax collectors were universally seen as traitors by the Jews. Traitors and swindlers, so much so that the only other people that would dare to associate publicly with the publicans were the other “sinners” of society. And yet, Jesus calls him to be his disciple. How could Jesus choose Matthew, this traitor and swindler, this sinner?

Let’s go back even further. How could God choose the children of Israel to be his chosen people? Our first lesson from Hosea pictures Israel like Hosea’s wife, an unfaithful prostitute. Time and again Israel had cheated on God with false gods. Time and again God would forgive and welcome them back. Time and again Israel would cheat on God. How could God choose this unfaithful nation to be his people?

Let’s make it personal. How could God choose to love you, to love me? How could God choose to continue to bless you and bless me after all of the times we’ve turned our backs on him, for all the times we’ve taken him for granted? How could God choose to love us?

The answer is found in the case study of Abraham. It’s found in our word for today, the word Righteousness. May our time in Romans chapter 4 today lead us to a greater appreciation of the righteousness that is ours through Christ.

We first meet Abraham in Genesis chapter 11, where he moves with his wife and his father and his nephew to Haran. It was while he was in Haran that God called Abraham to pack up his family and move to the land the Lord would show him. Without any questions, we’re told that Abraham packed up and went, without really even knowing where he was going. Abraham had God’s promise and that was enough for him. 

Abraham received some incredible promises from God, one that Paul mentions in our verses today. “Hoping beyond what he could expect, he believed that he would become the father of many nations, just as he was told: “This is how many your descendants will be.” The “how many” was as numerous as the stars in the sky, as many as the sands on the seashore. The problem was Abraham was 75 years old when God made that promise. And he didn’t have any descendants at that time. Not one. Not even the hint of one. Paul continues, “He did not weaken in his faith, even though he considered his own body as good as dead (because he was about one hundred years old), and even though he considered Sarah’s womb to be dead.” 25 years later and still no children. Abraham is past the child bearing years. Sarah was too. It seemed beyond hope. God had made this promise, but everything Abraham saw and new, everything logical made it impossible. 

Humanly speaking, it was impossible. Every obstacle imaginable stood in his way. Every sensible thought screamed that his promise could happen. And yet, “Hoping beyond what he could expect, he believed…He did not weaken in his faith…he did not waver in unbelief with respect to God’s promise…” Abraham wasn’t an irrational optimist. He wasn’t a believer in luck. He wasn’t delusional. Abraham believed God. He took God at his Word. He believed that when God made a promise, it was as good as done. He didn’t let his reason rule the day. God had promised Abraham and Sarah a son. In his mind, it was as good as done. God promised that from that one son would come the promised Savior. In Abraham’s mind, that was also as good as done. Hoping beyond all earthly hope, Abraham believed the promises of God. 

Righteousness, our big word for today, is a synonym for perfect, without fault. And this righteousness puts a mental strain on life. It’s a demand of perfection that we just can’t match. Yesterday, we weren’t perfect. We fell right into the same pet sins we always seem to and perhaps added some new sins too. Even though we may have tried hard to overcome our sins, we failed. But the standard of perfection hasn’t changed. The bar of righteousness wasn’t lowered. 

Abraham wasn’t righteous either. He was an adulterer, having slept with Hagar, Sarah’s servant. He had a child out of wedlock. His marriage was rocky at best. God didn’t overlook these sins in Abraham, instead he focused on his promises to Abraham. God isn’t overlooking your sins either. Your sins, whatever they may be, are obstacles between you and eternal life. They need to be overcome for you to be saved. You and I both know that we can’t overcome them, no matter how hard we try. But the good news is that in Christ they are overcome. Christ removes our sins. Our bodies aren’t destined for hell. God has given us life through Christ. Paul writes: “[Jesus} was handed over to death because of our trespasses and was raised to life because of our justification.” God doesn’t overlook reality. He gives promises of forgiveness because of Jesus. 

Think of it this way. When you buy something with a credit card, you aren’t really paying for those items yourself. You get your goods and services without really paying for them. Sure, someone paid, whether it was VISA or Mastercard or American Express. You didn’t pay, but the payment made was credited to you. God deals with credit too. Abraham was anything but righteous before God. God didn’t overlook Abraham’s sins as if they didn’t matter. Abraham believed God’s promises and God counted that, credited that, as righteousness on Abraham’s account. Abraham received an alien righteousness, a righteousness not his own, a righteousness earned by Christ, credited to his account.

Now we need to be careful not to look at Abraham’s believing as payment or somehow earning Christ’s righteousness. That would be logical and reasonable. Afterall, we do eventually have to pay off those credit cards. But that’s not how this works. Abraham’s belief was not his payment to God. That payment would have been worthless. Sinful Abraham had nothing to offer God that would have been acceptable. Instead, everytime God made a promise and kept his promises, it solidified in Abraham that God was someone who could be trusted. Abraham was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” God’s power and God’s promises were interconnected. The impossible became possible. What was dead was made alive again. Abraham went from sinful to saved, from unrighteous to righteous. Although Abraham had done nothing to be righteous, God counted him as righteous because of Jesus.

I think the application to our lives is clear. Like Abraham, we are facing an impossible situation. Our sins are many. There is no righteousness to be found. We have no payment to offer God and we can’t earn his forgiveness. It’s an impossible situation. And then we hear these words from Paul: “Now the statement “it was credited to him” was not written for him alone, but also for us to whom it would be credited, namely, to us who believe in the one who raised our Lord Jesus from the dead.” Our situation is truly against all hope.  Yet, like Abraham, we believe that God will do what he has promised.  He can and will do the impossible!  He will provide righteousness to the unrighteous.  He will give us life even though by nature we are dead!  Like Abraham, we too have moments of weakness.  We try and help God with his plan to save us by thinking we can somehow help ourselves.  Or sometimes we think that there’s no way that God can possibly save someone as bad as me.  But like Abraham, we never give up hope.  In fact, the more impossible it seems for God to save me, the more I’m going to believe that he will!  When we hold to that belief, when we believe in Jesus as our Savior, we give God glory! 

Christ earned righteousness for himself by living a perfect life. Jesus took that righteousness with him to his death in our place. He hung on the cross bearing the sins of the world, and offered that righteousness as the payment for all sin. But death couldn’t hold him. The payment had been complete. And so Jesus rose from the dead to prove that sin had been paid for, that we were not guilty, justified, righteous in God’s eyes. 

By faith, we are in righteous in God’s eyes.  We are credited with righteousness for Jesus’ sake. What great comfort and appreciation we find in our righteous status!  Appreciation leads us to want to be in God’s Word.  It is there that we read again and again of God’s wondrous plan to save sinners. Appreciation leads us to want to be in God’s House. It is there that we can join our fellow redeemed, blood-bought brothers and sisters in praising God for his goodness, in praying to God for continued guidance, in gathering to experience God’s presence in his Word and sacraments.  Appreciation leads us to share our faith.  We can’t help but share the good news of Jesus with others.  You can’t keep news like this bottled up or stored away!  It must be shouted from the rooftops!

Our first two words in Romans 101 are connected so closely. One described the process of us being justified. The other described the result. Both the process and the result are not things that we accomplish, they are not things we produce. They both come from the work of Jesus. Our Savior-God bids us look at the life of Abraham, and through that illustration look to his finished work of justification in the person of Jesus.  He extends us this invitation, “Accept what I have done for you; trust in it as your hope of righteousness before God!”