3/8/20 Romans 4:13-25 “Are You in Your Promised Land?”

06 Mar 3/8/20 Romans 4:13-25 “Are You in Your Promised Land?”

3/8/20      Romans 4:13-25       “Are You in Your Promised Land?”

You may think that today’s reading is a little complex.  And you may be right as I think that Romans is one of the hardest books in the Bible to read and fully understand.  There are passages that I have to read and reread and reread and I’m still not sure if I get it or not.  But all of this rereading will eventually pay off because Paul was writing a great letter on just how to be a Christian.  Now I don’t know about you folks, but I sure need a little reinforcement every day.  When I sit down in the morning with God, it seems that I always have a much better day.  Today we are going to talk a little about faith and how we can achieve more faith than we already have.  There is the distinct possibility that some of you have a full tank of faith but there may be others who need a little refill or need to be topped off a little.

You have heard me say many things about science in the past and I hope that you realize that I know that we need science.  Joel Pankow tells the story of a professor and his student.  “Figures can’t lie,” said the professor earnestly.  “For instance if one man can build a house in 12 days, then 12 men can build it in one.’

“Yes?” interrupted the student.  The student continued, “Then 288 men will build it in one hour, 17,280 in one minute and 1,036, 800 in one second.  And I don’t believe that they could even lay one brick in that time.”

While the professor was still sputtering from this assault, the young ready reckoner went on, “Again, if one ship can cross the Atlantic in 6 days, then six ships can cross it in one day.  And I don’t believe that either.”

This just goes to show that you can’t always trust science and/or math.  Often times we need to sprinkle it with a little realism or common sense.  If we take this a step farther into the religious realm we find that science cannot disprove religion nor can it produce faith.  But still we have many people, and you may even know people like this, who feel we have to find Noah’s ark or prove somehow that there was a great flood or we have to prove everything in the Bible.  This kind of thinking is everywhere.  I remember once in Bible study, one of the guys pointed out in his Bible notes where the editor said in the book of John to the effect that ‘if this incident actually happened.’  This kind of stinkin thinkin is everywhere.  All of these things in the Bible are true but need to be taken on faith.  In Hebrews 11:1 we are told, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

As we begin today, we find that Paul is talking about Abraham.  Paul is telling us that Abraham wasn’t saved by the law.  I believe that the people Paul was talking to are kind of like people of today.  We often times read the Bible but we don’t really think about all of the ramifications of what we have read.  The same was true then.  There was no law when Abraham was alive so therefore he couldn’t be saved by the law.  The law wasn’t established until centuries later.  And if you want to add a little insult to injury, Abraham wasn’t even a Jew.  This was also long before there was any such thing as a Jew.

Paul is telling them and us that no one was ever saved by the law.  It is no different from today when we think that we can be saved if we do good works.  And I know that some of us feel that we are saved but we want to do the good works just in case.  If that is your attitude, then you might be in some trouble because you might not even be saved.  What I mean is that if you are going to do good works, then they will flow naturally from your heart.  It will not have to be a conscious effort.

Let’s make this simple.  Suppose you are in a town and you want to visit someone in assisted living.  If you want to make sure that people know that you were there, then you are doing the visit for the wrong reason.  However, if you just go and enjoy his/her company and fellowship, then you are on the right track.  Just let Jesus flow from you.

This is the faith, the righteousness that Abraham had.  I would like you to just think about his faith for a minute.  Here was a 75 year old man in the beginning of our story who was told by God to pack up and leave.  Remember, there were no churches to tell him who God was or how to behave around God or even if he should obey God.  And as we look at the story, there was no real hesitation.  He basically said ok, let’s go.  So he packed up his wife and Lot and his stuff and he left.  He was perfectly satisfied that God would take care of him and deliver him to a new land hundreds of miles away.  He knew nothing about God.

And not only did God do this but God also said that they would have offspring.  And Abraham would eventually be the father of nations.  Here he was at 75 with his wife Sarah at 65 and God is telling them that they would have children.  They are far beyond child bearing years at this point and God would wait another 25 years to fulfill this promise.  But even at this time, Abraham does not doubt what God can do.  He faith is that huge.

If we have faith half this size today then we would stand out from everyone else.  Most of our faith today is in what we can do or what we can accomplish.  There was a fad a few years back that told us that if we really wanted something or wanted something to happen, all we had to do was really think hard about it.  If we concentrated enough, then it would happen.  I have listened to a certain TV evangelist who tells his listeners basically the same thing.  If you want something, then all you have to do is really pray about it and it will happen.  And this guy makes lots of money because this is the easy way out.  This is cheap grace.  He is telling people what they want to hear.  He even invokes the name of Jesus and God into the equation so it sounds like he is being Scriptural.  Paul is telling us not to be fooled by the world.  There is nothing we can do without God that will save us.  God may not help us if we are trying to use God for our own personal gain.  The only thing that will help us is if we first surrender to God and then let God do the work, not us.

And this is our big sticking point.  This is what separates us from God.  We have way too much me in our lives and not enough He, meaning Jesus.  Just as a little test, I would like you to try this sometime.  Where ever you are, try to monitor what you have been doing for the last say 10 minutes.  After you have done that, then see if you can figure out in what way Jesus was not involved in anything that you did.  If you can find one thing, then let me know.  Because I think that everything we say and do and feel is a part of Jesus.

This stuff is hard for us and we don’t have very good role models to follow.  But if we look at Abraham, maybe we can find some things that may help us in our walk with Jesus.  Remember that our role model here is over 3000 years old.  Let’s see if he is relevant.

Let’s look at verse 18 and remember that Abraham is the 1^st person that we know of that followed God.  He had no one to show him the way or to help him.  He only had his faith.  We read in 18, “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations.”  In 19 we read, “Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead.”  Verse 20 says, “Yet he did not waver through unbelief.”  Verse 21 says, “Being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”  And in verse 22 it says, “it was credited to him as righteousness.”  This is really a powerful group of verses that just show the faith Abraham had.  And you can have it also.

And Paul wasn’t done yet.  Not only was Abraham credited as being righteous, but we are too if believe in Jesus Christ and all that He did.  I don’t know about you but I sure do feel pretty good about being deemed righteous in the eyes of God.  This is special.  You are special.  You are chosen people.

I have known many people who cannot come to grips with this concept of being righteous.  We cannot seem to get over our sinful nature.  It doesn’t seem right that this whole thing is a free gift and we don’t have to work for it at all.  Or maybe we think mistakenly that we are just too sinful or too bad to ever be considered righteous.  But it is true.  This is free.  There are no strings attached.  It is all for us.

Abraham’s world was really not a lot different than ours.  They didn’t have computers but everything else was, well, sort of similar.  Anyway, God had not shown himself yet as part of the human religious scene.  As a matter of fact, there were all kinds of gods that the people worshipped then.  They were also surrounded with sin although it wasn’t nearly as bad as it might have been right before the flood.  This was long before there were city states and most of the people lived in tribes.  They moved from here to there so they were mobile.

Today we are similar.  If you take a look in the phone book you will find pages and pages of churches.  Right here in rural America we are used having only Christian churches.  But when you get to Fargo or Minneapolis or Orlando, you will find all kinds of churches.  And this is thousands of years after God first manifested himself to Abraham.  We still don’t get it.  It seems to me that we search and search to find the right way in life.  We look and look to try to find ourselves.  We try and try to do it on our own.  And Jesus Christ is standing right in front of you all the time, asking that you come to him so He can help you search for the right way of life, help find yourselves and help you to do things.  This is no different than in Abrahams time, except that we have all heard it and Abraham was the first to hear it.  And all we have to do is accept it like Abraham.

We have now learned a little bit about Abraham.  He was all alone in his country when God came to Him and said, “Follow me.”  He had nowhere to turn.  He had no place to get advice.  He probably had every reason in the world to stay where he was and continue to be successful.  But yet he followed God.  I would guess that there was maybe something missing in his life that he hadn’t been able to find in 75 years of living in his land.

We as individuals are just like Abraham.  How many of you are all alone in this world?  How many of you have lived your lives sinning here and sinning there, year after year?  How many of you pay only lip service to Jesus and then go and live your lives the way you want?  And how many of you are just sick and tired of it all?  These are things that you have to ask yourselves.  Abraham lived just like this in the land of Ur before he followed God to the Promised Land.  He was just like all of us were before we came to know Jesus and Jesus led us to our own Promised Land.  You cannot do it according to the Law; you can only do it according to faith.

Today, if you are not in the Promised Land yet, and you are feeling empty, shallow and like something is missing, then ask Jesus to live in your heart.  Let Him transform you into a new person.  Let Him guide you and protect you.  Let Him take you to the Promised Land.  I guarantee you that you will never regret the decision.  Look what happened to Abraham.  He ended up populating the world.  Praise the Lord for his faithfulness.

In closing there is a Russian fable about a master and his servant traveling to a city.  But before they could get there they were caught in a terrible blizzard.  They got lost in the storm and were unable to reach the city.  The next day friends went out to search for the two men.  Finally they found the master, frozen to death, lying face down in the snow.  When they lifted him up, they found the servant underneath, cold but alive.  He then told his rescuers how the master had insisted that he be on top of the servant so he could live.  The master died for his servant.  Jesus Christ died for us.

This is the season of Easter.  This is the time of year when we especially think of what Jesus did for us.  We think of all the pain he went through.  We think of all the suffering he went through.  And He did this for you, so that you can live.  The only thing that you have to do is accept His love the way Abraham did.  You are to accept His love without condition.

Jesus will take you to the Promised Land.  He will grant you grace as only Jesus can do.  He will love you beyond anything you can know or imagine.  He will give you the world if only you will follow.  Go to Him today and place your life in His hands.  All he has ever wanted to do is take care of you.  Come to Jesus and live.  Thank you Jesus for this love that is beyond our reason. And thank you for first loving us.  Let’s pray.