On a visit to Scotland, back in the late 18 hundreds, General Ulysses Grant was treated to a demonstration of a game that he had never heard of before, something called golf. His host wanted to show Grant how the game was played, even though he was not much of a golfer himself. So while Grant watched, the man placed a ball on a tee, and then he stood back and he took a swing. And he missed, tearing up a patch of grass. So he tried again—same result. Again and again he sent patches of dirt and grass into the air without once hitting the ball. Grant looked from his perspiring host to the ball, and then back to his host. “There seems to be a fair amount of exercise in the game,” he said, “but I fail to see the purpose of the ball.”
Unfortunately, there are some who expend a lot of effort and exercise in their Christian experience, but they fail to see the true purpose that God has called them to. According to the apostle Paul, that purpose in life is to be learned from the life and faith of Abraham. So I invite you to join with me in considering what the apostle Paul says about Abraham in Romans, chapter four.
The Gospel of Romans, shall we say. Chapter four, and verses one through three. “What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?” Verse two. “For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’”
When we come to this chapter, Paul has already laid out his case that only through faith can a person be made right with God. In fact, the book of Romans is all about having a relationship with God, based on faith, in which you trust Him to provide a solution for you. You trust Him to put you in right standing with Himself. And Paul’s case in point is the life of Abraham, and more particularly, Abraham’s faith. It was a friendship with God in which Abraham accepted God’s will and plan for His life, and it was a relationship based on trust.
Notice these glowing terms that Paul uses to describe Abraham’s faith. In verse 19 it says, “Abraham was not weak in faith”. And in verse 20 it says “that he did not waver at the promise of God and that his faith was strengthened.” And in verse 21 “that he was fully convinced.” This overall summation of Abraham’s life is quite positive. Very, very positive.
It’s interesting to go back to the times when the great patriarch did not always act in accordance with his faith. Let’s look at the account of God’s promises to Abraham in the book of Genesis.
We’ll come back to Romans four, but let’s come to Genesis 15 right now and see how God’s word comes to Abraham just as to the prophets of later times. We read this in the scripture reading already, that Abraham had just concluded a military campaign to rescue his kidnapped nephew from enemies. And so God promises protection to Abraham, but Abraham immediately brings up the issue of childlessness. That’s the problem that he was concerned with. And God tells him that this man who he’d picked to be his inheritor was not the one that God was going to bless. But someone from Abraham’s own body. Someone from his own DNA.
Look at verses five and six. “Then He brought him outside and said, ‘Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.”
I can imagine God taking Abraham out of the tent that clear starry night and pointing his attention to all those billions and billions of stars. “Abraham, look up to the sky and try to count the stars, if you can.” Perhaps God allowed Abraham to view the scene, for a moment. And when finally, Abraham is totally awed and humbled at the power of the Creator God, He tells Abraham, “As numerous as the stars in the sky, so will your descendants be.” And so Abraham, completely awed at the magnificence and power and glory of the Creator, “believed” God. Really, the best way, I believe, to translate this word “believe” is “trust.” Abraham trusted God. He didn’t merely believe in something impersonal. Abraham had confidence in a God that he knew. That he had known for many years. And because of that, trusted.
If anyone wants to get a picture of how God desires to relate to His people, this is it. God is the One who promises what He will do, He comes through on His promises, and Abraham, as a result, chooses to trust in God. I believe what God desires in His children is more than just acceptance of historical fact, or mere beliefs as we call them, but a person to person relationship. And that’s what faith is. It’s an attitude. It’s a way of relating to God. Abraham loved and trusted and obeyed God because he knew Him and he was His friend. His faith was a genuine relationship of love, understanding, confidence, and as a natural result, submission to God. And that faith-relationship is what God accounted as righteousness. God went on record saying, “That’s exactly what I want. Very good.”
But time went by and we see how Abraham and Sarah showed themselves to be very, very human. And we can see that in the events of chapter 16, in Genesis.
Sarai as she was called at that time, figured out how the Lord’s will was going to get done. Now, don’t you think that God had in mind from the very beginning that Abraham and Sarah would be the ones who would bear this child that God would bless? And yet somehow Sarah didn’t think that that would happen. And I try to imagine her talking to her husband about this. “The only way to fulfill God’s word”, she might have said, “is to have some common sense here, husband!!!” And then continued, “Take my slave girl, my hand maid, and make her your second wife and have a child by her.” You see, Sarah is a common sense woman. She knows how to get things done. Not by trusting in God to fulfill the promise in God’s own way and timing, but by human decisions. “God said it. We must fulfill it.” And the surprising thing is that old faithful Abraham goes along with her plan.
It reminds me, in a way, of John McNeil, a pastor at a church in the British Isles. The church was heavily in debt. And so this worried him and he was praying about this a lot. And one day a perfect stranger came into his office, saying that he was aware of the church’s financial problems and offering to help. So he put a blank check right there on the pastor’s desk and promised to come back later and sign it. And the pastor couldn’t believe what was happening, and after the man left, he thought about the situation very carefully. “This can’t possibly be true”, he said to himself. “Does this man realize that our debt is thousands of pounds? I don’t think he would pay it in full, if he really knew. Yet he told me to make the check out for the full amount. But that would be taking advantage of him. I’ll just make it out for half.” So that’s what he did. When the stranger returned he signed the check with no hesitation whatsoever. He obviously meant what he’d said. And it turns out this church’s benefactor was actually a well- known philanthropist. When the pastor realized who he was and that he was fully capable of paying all of the church’s debt, he wished that he’d made out the check for the entire amount.
Abraham and Sarah were like that. They were willing to accept something less than what God had provided for them. Their faith faltered.
Now, let’s skip ahead to find another encounter between Abraham and God and it’s in chapter 17, and it’s about 13 years or so after Ishmael was born. Again we find God repeating His promise to Abraham about being the father of many nations. And then the interesting part comes in verse 15. We’ll read verses 15 and 16. “Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; and then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her.’”
At this point I tried to imagine how Abraham is feeling. Ishmael is a young man now. And so Abraham really does have a descendant after his own flesh and blood and now God tells him that Sarah is the one who’s going to have a child that He will bless. And it’s almost too much for Abraham. After all, he’s practically 100 years old and Sarah is 90 years old. “Hello, God, I thought we worked this out? Have a baby by Sarah? God, are you out of your mind!?” Or is it possible that God’s people can have temporary lapses of faith from time to time and still be God’s people?
Look at verses 17 through 19. “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ And Abraham said to God”, as if to say, “Oh come on. That was a good joke, God. The joke is over.” “‘Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!’ Then God said, “No. Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.’” No, Abraham, God is not out of His mind. Definitely not.
But Abraham had an honest conversation with God. I find that to be true in the Bible that true friendship and trust in God doesn’t rule out having honest conversations with God. I believe God is big enough to handle that. But the truth is still there that God is in charge even when He knows our limitations.
A cartoon showed a little boy attempting to lead a huge Saint Bernard dog on a leash. Of course, who was really walking who? The dog was dragging the boy along and the young fellow was bracing his feet and angrily shouting to the dog, “Let’s get this straight! You are my dog. I am not your boy!”
And that’s a major question here in Abraham’s life. Who’s in control? God or Abraham? And so God calmly, gently and ever so patiently names the child that is not even conceived yet. He has such a delightful sense of irony, in fact. Isaac means “he laughs.” Weak in faith, Abraham laughs as if to say, That’s a good joke, God. But He laughs now, and you wait and see Abraham, what God is about to do. Because God will have the last laugh.
Scripture doesn’t explicitly say at this point in time that Abraham believed God, as he did before. But remember, Abraham has this relationship with God, and he’s not going to back out of it now. Abraham laughs now, but after Isaac is born to Sarah, Abraham himself will laugh for entirely different reasons. Out of joy at the fulfillment of God’s wonderful promise. That lesson the patriarch learns is that God often waits to the very end, until the time when human circumstances seem to be the most hopeless.
And this is as much as 25 years since the first promise to Abraham. 25 years! And God acts and fulfills that wonderful promise that Abraham and Sarah be the parents of a child through whom God would raise up a nation. What’s the lesson, Abraham? What have you learned? That perhaps God is serious about fulfilling His promises. And that He does so on His timing, in His own way, and not on our timing.
And we come full circle, back to Romans four. Romans four, verses 16 through 18 it says, “Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed. Not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. (As it is written, ‘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 do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, ‘So shall your descendants be’”.
Of all the many elements in Abraham’s life, the most important was that of trust. And that’s the purpose of life that God wants us to realize. That He fulfills His promise, in His timing, not on ours. And Abraham believed that and trusted God. And that’s why God accepted Abraham. Abraham believed God and God said, “That’s exactly what I want. Very good.”
Are you a child of Abraham? Is your faith like the faith of Abraham? If you are a child of Abraham and have the faith of Abraham, you realize, like your spiritual ancestor, that despite your flaws and your failings, or whatever dark experiences you have gone through, or will go through, the only answer is the God who has demonstrated His trustworthiness to us.
There’s this story from an unknown source about an atheist couple who had a child, and the couple never told their daughter about the Lord. One night when the little girl was five years old, the parents fought with each other and killed each other as she was watching. And then she was sent to a foster home. Fortunately, the foster mother was a Christian and so she took the little girl to church. And in that first experience at church, the foster mother told the teacher that the girl had never heard of Jesus, and to have patience with her. The teacher held up a picture of Jesus and said, “Does anyone know who this is?” The little girl said, “I do. That’s the man who was holding me the night my parents died.”
No matter what we have been through, no matter how we have fallen, God shows us His trustworthiness. Despite the moments of doubt or dark experiences that we’ve been through, we can choose to trust in our God as did Abraham.
The real hero is not Abraham, but it’s God.
“Father Abraham had many sons and daughters, and many sons and daughters had Father Abraham, and I am one of them, and so are you. So let’s just praise the Lord . . .” as we sing hymn number five hundred 32.
Hymn of Praise: #88, I Sing the Mighty Power of God Scripture: Genesis 15:1-4 Hymn of Response: #532, Day By Day
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McDonald Road Sermon transcribed by Steve Foster 6/16/07