The Nature of Faith

 

Last week we looked at the first half of Rom. 4, where we found two examples of heroes of the OT who were righteous according to faith, not according to their works. The prime example of a man who was saved by faith is Abraham. Paul reminds us in v. 3, that Abraham “believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.”  Today, I want to consider the second half of Rom. 4 as Paul continues to use the example of Abraham to help us understand what faith is. Let’s read Rom. 4:13-25 together. From this passage I want you to see two things about the nature of faith: the direction of faith and the definition of faith.

First, let’s consider the direction of faith from v. 13-15. Paul points out here that the promise of God to Abraham and his offspring did not come through the law but through faith. Remember, the Jews believed that Abraham was a supreme example of righteousness. But, Abraham wasn’t considered righteous because he had done good works that made him worthy. He was considered righteous because he believed God. He believed something very specific about God, as well. He believed that God would keep his promise to make him into a great nation and to bless the world through him.

It is popular in our society to view faith as its own special power. As George Michael sang, “You gotta have faith.” When people say this, it’s as though they think just believing something will make it so. In the 1980s you had the positivist movement of Norman Vincent Peale, who taught that one could think positively and obtain his goals. Now, young people talk about “manifesting”, which is the idea that if you just wish for something hard enough, you will cause it to manifest. Boy, can you tell that we’ve had a whole generation that was raised by Disney, or what! But, true saving faith is not faith for faith’s sake. True, saving faith is directed towards something – or more precisely, someone. Abraham didn’t believe in himself or have wishful thinking. He believed that God would keep his promises. 

This leads me to my second point: the definition of faith. In verses 16-25, Paul uses the life of Abraham to provide for us a definition of what faith is. First, notice that faith rests on grace. Paul says that the promise depends on faith so that it might rest in grace. Understand, faith is not a work that you do to gain God’s favor. It is not as though God just made things easier by saying, “OK, I’ll get rid of all of these laws and now I only expect you to say that you believe in me.” Faith is not something we give to God that causes him to accept us. Rather, as John Calvin has said, “Faith is an empty hand reaching out to receive a gift.” Imagine that you have been tossed out of a boat into a raging river. You flail around, screaming for help, doing your best to swim to shore, but all is hopeless. And, just as you are ready to give up and sink to your death, someone from shore tosses out a life-preserver attached to a rope. With your last bit of energy, you reach out and take hold of the preserver, and your hero on shore pulls you in. No one in his right mind, after having been rescued from such an ordeal, would stand up on the shore and say, “Wow, look at how I saved myself by reaching out and taking that preserver!” No! It would be the person on shore who would receive all the praise for the rescue. You simply received the rescue. You didn’t participate in it. In a similar way, faith receives the grace that God shows to us.

Second, faith requires hope. In verses 17-22, Paul reminds us of some hard facts about Abraham’s life. First, he reminds us in verse 19, that Abraham was as good as dead. At the point that he conceived Isaac, he was 100 years old.  In the same verse, he also reminds us that Sarah was barren. The word that Paul uses here for “barren” actually means “deadness.” So catch this: God took a dead man and a dead womb, and from that he brought life. Paul puts it this way at the end of verse 17: “He gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” In order for Abraham to have faith in the promise, he had to hope against hope. There was no physical reason to believe this promise. He was too old and Sarah was too barren. And yet, Abraham placed his hope in the Lord.

Finally, faith rejoices in the hope of resurrection. In verses 23-24, Paul says that Abraham’s faith defines our faith. Remember, Abraham was as good as dead, and Sarah’s womb was dead. But, God caused life to come from death. In the same way, we are as good as dead. Everything about our lives communicates death to us. Our seasons are a cycle of life and death. In order for us to survive, something else must die. We age and lose abilities that we once had, all while we lose loved ones to death. And then, we too ultimately face death. Like Abraham, there is no physical reason to believe that we can be saved from death. Yet, God has promised, and we believe him. We hope against hope that God will be faithful to his promise, and one day, whether it be tomorrow or 10,000 years from now, he will cause our bodies to rise again and we will live with him for all of eternity. And, just as God proved himself faithful to Abraham by giving him the son of promise, so too God has proven himself faithful to us by causing Jesus to rise again from the dead. Because Jesus has risen, we have a sure hope that we will rise too.

Friend, if you stare long enough into the death and decay of this world, you can’t help but long for something more. If you watch the senseless war in Ukraine, or the violence on the streets of our cities, you can’t help but want things to be made right. God has promised that he is going to make things right through his Son, Jesus Christ. He has promised that Christ will return to judge the world and give eternal life to all who rest in his promise. Won’t you trust Christ today?

Brothers and sisters, our hope is in Christ alone. Our hope is not in our faith. Oh brothers and sisters, do not measure your standing before God based on how much faith you have, or how faithful you have been. You are not saved by how tightly you cling to the cross. You are saved by the cross to which you cling.