ROMANS 4: 18-25
18 Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become “the father of many nations,” according to what was said, “So numerous shall your descendants be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead (for he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 23 Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. †
For Love of the Law
Israel loved the Law. They loved the fact that God had given it to them and they loved the Law because it made them special. Even more, it gave them something to do—something practical and measurable. They could count the days, watch the sunrise & sunset, line up the animals (knowing which to choose and which to avoid—both for sacrifices and for food). The Law was rules and structure for living. It wasn’t all mystical, immaterial, and spiritual; it was real and in the flesh, practical and measurable. It gives you a kind of security to be able to say, “I ate no pork, I made my temple sacrifice right on time, and we kept the sabbath—mission accomplished!”
We love this kind of thing—a religion that isn’t all misty and ghostly—we so prefer to be able to get our mitts onto things and set our minds at ease with tasks and observances that are observable and doable. We like to be able to count our successes and failures in simple columns, whereby we can tally our spiritual score.
It’s too bad that Jesus—and also Paul—throw all that right out the window.
Israel loved the Law and measured its righteousness based upon the people’s adherence or departure from what the Law called them to do. The prophets only too often had to dress them down for their failure to abide in faith. It seems something about idolatry remained a constant temptation and a perpetual draw. Forget trying to obey ten commandments; they couldn’t keep number one. If God had only given the one great commandment—to love the Lord Your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength—I don’t think their history would have been any different.
We Love Idolatry
We are idolators by nature. We don’t like having to trust God; we’d much rather trust our own devices (and by devices I mean whatever idols we put together for ourselves).
It’s hard to simply trust. Ever had a family member or a friend try to lure you into an activity—perhaps a movie or tasting a new recipe—and all they say is “Come on, trust me.” Sometimes we might be comfortable enough to say yes, but I’d wager that most of the time we dislike the arrangement.
Now I have always loved my big brother, but when he said, “C’mon, Noel, trust me!” I have to say all the red flags went up. He may well have said, “Whatever you do, Noel, do not trust me.” My sisters had a saying: Open your mouth and close your eyes and I’ll give you something to make you grow wise. Me: nope!Know anyone like that? Siblings? “Friends”?
Whenever we are invited to trust, we are likely to engage all of our cautionary mechanisms. What are saying in our heads but, “Watch out, you’re about to be taken for a ride.” We don’t like surrendering that much control to anyone. And that’s trust, and it is what faith is all about.
It isn’t too unfair to say that Israel’s faith had become trusting more in the Law and its observances than in The Lord Who gave them the Law. Jesus called the Pharisees on this time and again, and so does Paul, the ex-Pharisee.
Untrustworthy Works
One of the big New Testament themes is that we shouldn’t put our trust in our works. All of this talk about circumcision—which is the ancient version of identity politics—said that the Jews were special because they were chosen by God. God’s Chosen People—and this is true—but being one of God’s chosen is no substitute for faith. Faith even takes the place of that Chosen People status.
Paul looks to Father Abraham, who was the original chosen person. Abraham was respected—even revered—by all of Israel. He was considered righteous, but we need to consider what that means.
In short, righteousness means “right standing” with God. To be righteous is to be in right relationship with God. This is true of both Old and New Testaments, though another idea of righteousness keeps creeping into the place of faith; namely, good behavior and good works.
Most commonly, when we think of a righteous person, we think of someone who is very well behaved, someone possessing outstanding self-control. This is a problem because it makes us the producers of righteousness. We are in control. We are righteous to the degree we steer our way true. But this is not righteousness; it is works righteousness. It is what happens when we look to ourselves rather than God as the source of righteousness.
Abraham’s righteousness (again: rightness with God) had nothing to do with the Law since the Law was hundreds of years away with Moses. What then constituted Abraham’s righteousness? Just faith. Trust that God would follow through with His promises. That’s it.
That is all faith is for us as well: trusting God to fulfill His promises. But we make it a lot more than that, don’t we? We, like all of God’s Chosen People, add things to it. We, too, like things measurable. We like to get our mitts on things and to be able to say with some certainty that we have accomplished the faith—that we’ve got it right and we’re all okay with God—but that is precisely what we must not do. We must not make idols that minimize the business of trusting.
Trusting is Hard
So yes, trusting can be hard, but that hardly matters.
Question: Did Abraham have good reasons to trust God or did he have good reasons not to trust God? Now if you give me the Sunday School answer, you’ll say, “Oh no—Abraham had every reason to trust God because God’s promises are reliable!” But this doesn’t answer the question.
Did Abraham have good reasons to trust God? I’d say no. If Abraham and Sarah were in their twenties with three or four sons already, then the idea of having offspring like stars in the sky would be reasonable, for there would be a reasonable chance that he and Sarah might have 5, 7, or even 10 more children to begin that great nation. But Abraham and Sarah were in their 90s. NINETIES! They would have even had a reasonable shot in their forties even, but twice that? No, Abraham had little to no reason to trust. Reasonable trust was right out. What is reasonable is for Abraham and Sarah to distrust such a promise.
But when it comes to matters of faith, our trust does not need to be reasonable in our eyes; it only needs to come from the Lord, because we know with the Lord, all things are possible. In fact, it is so much better that Abraham trusts when what he is expected to trust and hope for is so completely beyond reasonable expectations. As the text says, Abraham “hopes against hope,” which is a way of saying that he trusted God to bring what nothing in this world could possibly deliver. So Abraham had good reasons to distrust, but he trusted nonetheless.
How are we—you and I—about trusting what is less than reasonable?
“Fully convinced”
Still, we would like to be “fully convinced,” as Abraham was. Trusting is certainly much easier if we truly believe. But here’s the thing: you can’t tell someone what to believe. I hear you thinking, “What else has the Church taught us to do for 2,000 years?” Yes, the Church has always defined a set of beliefs which constitute orthodoxy—consistency with the tradition of the Apostles—but this is not what I mean. I mean we can’t demand belief from anyone. It doesn’t work that way.
If I were to tell you “You must believe in UFOs!” You might agree to “believe” either because you trust me or in order to belong to the group, but neither of those are the same thing as actually believing. I don’t think we can choose what to believe. We either believe something or we don’t by processes beyond mere choice. I can, however, choose to subscribe to a set of beliefs because I trust in the community that produced them or I trust that their ultimate source is worthy of my commitment, but I can’t throw a switch in my own head from disbelief to belief.
If we say we believe something we don’t truly believe, then we are undermined by our self-delusion. That has no credibility. So how do we become “fully convinced”? Only by the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the convincer/convict-er of all authentic faith. Unless the Holy Spirit act and open our eyes, we remain blind. As such, we need to acknowledge that every conversion is a miracle of God. God acts—belief happens. If God does not act, there can be no belief.
The good news is that we can trust even if we have a hard time with the belief .We can trust Jesus even as we wrestle with the particular set of beliefs we’ve inherited. Even someone with lots of disbelief can step forward and say they are willing to trust nonetheless.
In Mark 9, a man with a possessed son comes to Jesus and asks Him to heal the boy “if He can.” Jesus replies, “IF?!” to which the man says something wonderful:
“I do believe; help my unbelief!”
We can trust even before we believe. This, too, is good news. Belief or unbelief never stands in the way of the opportunity to follow Jesus and become His disciple.
As we come to the table, I invite you to the Christian faith by saying, “Put your trust in Jesus.” You don’t have to have it all worked out. You certainly don’t have to be any kind of saint. Just trust and follow. Bring your unbelief with you.
We have no altar calls (we have no altars!) but hear this “table call.” We gather in Jesus’ name in remembrance of an event 2000 years ago, but also in remembrance of a promised meal yet to come. We remember forward as well as back. We trust in the Lord to fulfill His every promise, and we’ll wait as long as it takes in trust. †