To illustrate the blessed doctrine of justification by faith, the apostle chooses to use Abraham
from the Old Testament.
That was a good choice because Abraham, of course, is the great patriarch of the Jews,
and many of those to whom Paul is writing this epistle are Jewish in their background.
So he wants to explain to them that this matter of justification by faith runs as a thread
throughout the entire Bible.
Whether before the law or under law or in this age in which we live, God has always
saved by grace.
He explains to us in the first 17 verses how Abraham was not justified.
He tells us in verses 1 through 8 that Abraham was not justified by his works.
That was the common and popular teaching of that day.
The rabbis taught that Abraham was faithful and obedient, and therefore God called him
righteous.
The apostle makes it clear, though, that if one is to be justified by works, then his
justification comes not by grace but as an obligation on God's part, and that can never
be.
Furthermore, he quotes from the Old Testament where it clearly says that Abraham believed
God and it was counted to him for righteousness.
So Abraham was justified by faith, he says, not by works.
And then in verses 9 through 12 he explains that Abraham was not justified by his circumcision.
That of course was a very important mark to the Jews.
It was the seal and sign of the covenant which they had with God.
The Jews therefore felt that if one was circumcised that that was all that was required of him,
that surely God would accept him.
They emphasized the sign over the reality of faith.
There are many who do that today with baptism, for example.
For them baptism becomes the important work of salvation, and by that water one is regenerated,
and yet that teaching is foreign to God's word.
Abraham was not justified by circumcision.
In fact, the Bible says he was justified or saved, we may implant that New Testament term.
He was saved by faith 13 years before he was ever circumcised.
So it doesn't make much sense to say he was saved by circumcision.
And then it explains in verses 13 through 17 that Abraham was not saved by keeping the
law.
As a matter of fact, the law was not given until 600 years later.
So it was rather impossible for him to be justified by obeying the Ten Commandments
when God hadn't even delivered them to this point.
So Abraham is justified not by the law again, but by believing the promise that God gave
to him.
Now we're going to begin reading in verse 17 and conclude with verse 25 for our text
today.
I'm going to pick it up in the middle of verse 17 where it speaks about God, the one in whom
Abraham believed.
It says, Furthermore, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does
not exist?
In hope against hope he believed.
In order that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been
spoken so shall your descendants be.
And without becoming weak in faith, he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead, since he
was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb.
Yet with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong
in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what he had promised he was able
also to perform.
Therefore also it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
Now not for his sake only was it written that it was reckoned to him, but for our sake also
to whom it will be reckoned as those who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the
dead, him who was delivered up because of our transgressions and was raised because
of our justification.
Let's bow together in prayer and ask God to teach us his word.
Now we recognize the miraculous source of the words that we are reading.
These words were inspired and the apostle wrote them inherently by the Spirit.
They have been wonderfully preserved for us so that we today may have a revelation from
you.
Our prayer, Father, is that the Holy Spirit who inspired these words would now illuminate
our hearts to be our teacher so that we may understand what is said here and how it applies
to our lives.
In Jesus' name we ask for this.
Amen.
The specific promise that Abraham believed was the promise of a son.
Later on that was expanded to include many nations.
Hence we find the name change for this man, a name change that was ordered by God.
First he was called Abram, which means exalted father.
Later he was called Abraham, which means the father of a multitude.
Abraham is an example to us of how practical and vital faith is to every one of us.
By observing Abraham in the text before us today, we can learn three simple facts about
faith.
God wants each of us to live on that plane.
It is very easy for us in our particular society to live on the plane of self-sufficiency.
When we choose to live on that level, we cannot please God according to Hebrews 11.6, because
without faith it is impossible to please Him.
Furthermore, if we choose to live on the level of self-sufficiency, it is not very long before
we come to the end of our resources and we become frustrated and disillusioned with life.
How important it is therefore that you and I learn to live on the level of faith.
We often think that faith was for Abraham and Moses and Daniel and all those great giants.
Not so.
Faith is for every one of us.
Each of us needs to learn what it means to trust God for the big things and the little
things in life.
The first fact about faith that we see in our text today in verses 17 through 19 is
faith's choice.
You notice it says in verse 18 that in hope, against hope, he believed.
What that really means is that the situation he was facing, humanly speaking, was beyond
hope.
And yet Abraham rested upon hope in God and therefore he believed.
You see confronting Abraham was a choice.
Life is filled with choices.
The more mature that one gets, the more choices that he has the privilege of making.
An infant has no choice in life.
He gets up when the parent wants him to get up, usually.
Sometimes he makes a suggestion as to when that hour might come.
But the parent decides when to get the baby up.
The parent decides what kind of food the baby is going to eat.
Is it going to be pears today or is it going to be carrots or is it going to be some kind
of pudding or smashed up bananas?
Mom decides that.
He has no choice in it.
What time is the baby going to bed?
Well, not his choice.
It's when mom sees that he needs to go to bed.
So you see an infant has very few choices.
In fact, none.
But the older the baby gets, the more choices he can make.
A child makes a few choices and needs to because that's part of growing up.
By the time we become adults, so-called grown-ups, we can make many choices.
We can make choices about our education, what kind of work we want to do, where we want
to live, the person we want to marry, the schedule that we want to keep, how many children
we want.
We can make choices about the kind of people we're going to be, whether people of integrity
or not.
We can make choices as to whether we're going to keep our word or fail to do so.
Life is filled with choices.
All of these that I've named though are in the natural realm.
And you see there is another realm to life, a whole other dimension that most people miss,
and that is the spiritual dimension.
In the spiritual dimension, there are some choices too.
One must choose to accept or reject what God reveals in his word, for example.
And one can choose to trust God or to trust in himself through this life.
It is in this realm that Abraham made his choice.
God promised Abraham a son.
It was a spiritual promise that had an impact in the natural realm.
Abraham chose to believe God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.
But when he chose to believe God, there were two sets of facts that he had to consider.
On the one hand, there was the natural set of facts.
Abraham was beyond child producing years.
He was still an idolater at 75 years of age when God called him.
He was 86 when God made the promise of a son.
Now some of you here today are 86 or 85 or 84.
How would you like to have that promise from God?
God said to Abraham, at 86 years of age, you're going to have a son.
But Abraham was nearly, and I say nearly, at 86, beyond that point in life.
Sarah too was dead.
In fact, Sarah had been sterile all of her life.
She could not have children.
She was up there toward Abraham's age as well.
That was the set of natural facts.
It says here that Abraham faced the facts.
It says in verse 19, he contemplated his own body and the deadness of Sarah's womb.
He looked at the facts, the natural facts, but he also focused upon some supernatural
facts including the fact that God is the God of miracles.
That is explained in the last part of verse 17.
That's why I included that with our text today.
He speaks about the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does
not exist.
God is the God of miracles and he expresses it with these two clauses.
First of all, he's the one who gives life to the dead.
Now that can be applied, of course, to the resurrection.
It can be applied to the resurrection in type, in picture, of Isaac when he was taken up
to the mountain and offered up and then in a picture was raised from the dead according
to Hebrews chapter 11.
I believe that God could do that, but I believe that the primary reference here is found in
the context.
The very word for dead there in verse 17 is used again in verse 19 where it speaks about
the deadness of Abraham and Sarah and their inability to produce children.
I believe that what is said here is that God is able to give Abraham and Sarah the capacity
to reproduce.
He's able to give life to that which is dead.
Furthermore, he is able to call into being the non-existent.
Some say that refers to God's creative power.
Hebrews 11 once again tells us that God did call into existence what did not exist before.
He did that by the power of his own will and his word.
But again, the interpretation of this is found in the context.
What it really means is that God was able to call into existence the reproductive cells
required for the conception of a child.
He is able to call into existence in Abraham's body and in Sarah's body those cells required
for a child to be born.
So those are the sets of facts.
On the one hand, there's deadness.
On the other hand, there's the God who gives life and who can bring into existence that
which doesn't exist.
Abraham, as he faced the facts with faith, believed God.
Faith is almost inevitably involved in making choices.
Think with me how that applies.
For example, in the life of Joseph.
On the one hand, he had the set of natural facts which said that he had been ill-treated
by his brothers, rejected by them.
He had been sold into slavery in Egypt.
He had been imprisoned there falsely.
There were some aspects to his life that were very cruel.
On the other hand, Joseph believed in the sovereign God who could use circumstances to
accomplish his own purposes.
As he faced the facts, Joseph chose to believe God was in control.
When he had the chance to get revenge on his brothers, he forgave them and said, you intended
it for evil, but God meant it for good.
Faith made its choice.
Take Moses, for example, as he leads the children of Israel up to the shore of the Red Sea.
They encamp their mountains on either side, water in front of them, and suddenly comes
the news that coming from behind is an army of furious soldiers led by a Pharaoh who has
been robbed of his eldest child.
Then God said to Moses, go down there by the water and watch what I'm going to do.
At that point, that may have seemed a little ridiculous considering the natural set of
facts, but Moses considered the supernatural set of facts.
He remembered what God had already done in Egypt and what God's command was now, so
faith made its choice.
He obeyed God, and the Bible contains the record of what happened.
You may trace that same trace through the life of Joshua at the Jordan River, for example.
Think about Rahab and her decision to hide the spies, or David as he faced Goliath, or
Daniel as he refused the food that was offered to him by the king.
Think of Noah as he built the ship, or of Gideon as he was commanded to confront the
army of the Midianites with 300 men when they were well over 125,000.
In each case, there was a set of natural facts to be considered, but there were supernatural
facts to be considered, and faith made its choice.
Now let me apply that to you for a moment, and to me, because I believe that there are
many of us here today who are facing similar kinds of choices.
It may be in the realm of a job or provision of money for your family.
It may be a choice to do right, even though that choice will cost you a friendship, or
maybe your employment.
Perhaps you're worried today over illness, and you're trying to decide whether to worry
or to leave it in God's hands.
I don't know.
I don't know what the situation in your life is.
But whatever that situation is, consider the natural facts, consider the supernatural facts,
the promise of God or the command of God to be obeyed, and then let faith make its choice,
and believe God as Abraham did.
Abraham looked at the facts, the natural and the supernatural, and made the choice to keep
on trusting God.
In fact, that faith grew, and that brings us to the second fact that we see about faith
in our text, and that is faith's confidence.
For as Abraham contemplated the facts, he actually grew strong in faith with respect
to God's promise.
That's what it says there in verse 20.
He grew strong in faith as he continued to focus upon what God had promised to do for
him.
And it says here that the result of that was that he gave glory to God.
Did you know that living by faith honors God?
When we choose not to live by faith, it dishonors God.
God today is looking for people who will dream of serving him in situations that they alone
cannot handle.
He is looking for a person who has a vision or a goal that's bigger than he is.
Because you see, it's in that kind of a situation that God can glorify himself.
When you and I get a hold of a promise of God, a command of God, and it seems impossible
to us, and yet we say God is able, God is glorified in that.
It pleases him.
How sad that so often we live on a different plane than that, a different level.
God is looking to show himself strong and mighty on behalf of those who will trust him.
And it says that his confidence, Abraham's confidence, caused him to be fully assured
that what God had promised he was able also to perform.
I think that we sing so much about being almost persuaded that we've forgotten what it means
to be fully persuaded now to believe.
That was the hymn that Abraham sung.
Fully persuaded now to believe.
That was his promise from God, you'll have a son.
And he was deeply convicted that what God had promised he had the power to fulfill.
Faith believes what God says simply because God is the one who has said it.
It says in verse 20 that Abraham did not waver in unbelief.
To waver is an interesting word.
It means to judge between two opinions.
It means to vacillate back and forth.
It's the same word that James uses in chapter 1.
You remember what he says there?
He says, when you are tested by God, pray for wisdom so that that test will accomplish
its full purpose in your life.
Now he says, if you lack wisdom to know how to respond to the test, then ask of God.
Because God gives liberally, he does not hold back on wisdom.
But let everyone who asks, ask in what?
In faith, nothing what?
Wavering.
It goes on to say he that wavers is like the wave of the sea and is tossed back and forth.
How many Christians there are who are seasick in the storm of life?
Because they waver back and forth, can I trust God?
Do I have to trust myself?
What shall I do?
And back and forth they vacillate.
But not Abraham.
Not Abraham.
He did not stagger.
He did not stumble.
He did not waver as he considered the facts with faith.
He trusted.
He had confidence.
Faith means that I trust God to do exactly what he's promised.
Faith is the assurance that the thing God has said in his word is true and that God
will act according to what he has said.
It is this same Paul who writes these words in Romans 4, who later in this book will say,
for I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers
nor things present nor things to come nor anything in all of creation will be able to
separate me from the love of Jesus Christ.
He said I am persuaded about that.
Just like Abraham was persuaded.
It's Paul who writes the Philippians and he says, being confident, persuaded of this
very thing that he who has begun his good work in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ.
God isn't going to give up halfway to the goal.
It's also Paul who writes to his fellow servant and son in the faith, Timothy, and says to
him, I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which
I have committed unto him until that day.
Folks, that's the kind of faith that gets results, is the faith that's confident in
God, that doesn't waver back and forth, but that is founded upon what God has promised,
what God has commanded.
I'd like you to notice now the third result or the third fact, rather, about faith, and
that is faith's consequences, verse 22 to 25.
Very simple.
The result of faith is that faith gets results.
Remember that.
If you dare to believe God, you are going to get results in your life.
If you've not experienced results in the Christian life, don't blame God for it.
God doesn't change from one person to the next any more than he does from one age to
the next.
He's the same God.
Why is it then that God works so mightily in some people, in some churches, and not
in others?
Very often the answer to that is found in the realm of faith, because God will do exactly
what we allow him to do.
Do you remember that when Jesus went back to Nazareth, his hometown, it says that he
could do no might, he works there because of their unbelief.
God chooses to limit himself very often to what we allow him to accomplish, what we will
believe him to do in and through us.
If God seems small, it's not because he is.
He believed in a big God who was able to bring to life that which was dead and to bring into
existence that which didn't exist, and he got results.
Five results I'd like to suggest to you.
First of all, he got the result of justification.
When God looked at Abraham's account of righteousness, he found nothing there to commend Abraham
to himself.
In fact, when God found Abraham, Abraham worshiped idols, just like everybody else did around
him.
But God called him out, and Abraham responded.
God graciously called him out.
Then when Abraham believed God, it says God counted that for righteousness.
He applied to Abraham's account as it were perfect righteousness.
That's how you and I are saved, too.
We can't come to God commending ourselves because we're nice guys.
We have to come to God as sinners.
As the hymn writer said, nothing in my hands I bring.
Simply to thy cross I cling.
When we come that way and we come in faith receiving Christ, believing in him, we get
results, justification.
The second result of Abraham's faith was a son.
Please think with me about Abraham for a moment.
Abraham lived in one end of the Fertile Crescent of the ancient world.
He lived in the crossroads of caravans, caravans going north, caravans coming south through
that area, went through Abraham's land.
Abraham had a lot of land.
He had a lot of wells.
It is not at all unthinkable that he serviced caravans as they came through.
He was a pit stop or shall we say an oasis stop for the caravans as they came on their
long journeys through the deserts.
Oriental people are very polite and courteous.
We can imagine Abraham inviting in the leaders of the caravans to dinner.
They got a place to sleep and breakfast maybe for their buck.
So they would sit around as the nomadic people did in that day and talk around the fire as
they ate.
Now Oriental people because they want to be courteous ask very personal questions immediately.
Westerners tend to be coy and you know they jockey for position in their conversation
with strangers but Oriental people are not that way.
They are very open, very intimate.
So the question may have gone like this, well how old are you?
How many goats do you have?
How many wells are yours out there?
How much of this land do you own?
What is your name?
And to that question he would say Abram and Abram means exalted father.
So what do you think the next question would be?
How many children do you have?
None.
Abraham didn't have one.
Eighty-six years of age and not a child.
I'll bet you he heard that a thousand times if he heard it once and by this time it cuts
and grates into his heart as undoubtedly it did Seres.
Exalted father, I can almost imagine the guests quickly getting a Frito up to the mouth before
they snickered.
And then we can imagine his servants.
Every time they speak about Abram, the exalted father who has no heirs.
And then there comes the scheme of Sarah.
They heard God had promised to their master a son and Sarah decided how that could occur
and since she could bear no children she gave her handmaiden Hagar to her husband which
was a custom in that day.
And Hagar had a son, Ishmael.
And then there was the friction in the camp between Hagar and Sarah and the problems that
arose around the birth of Ishmael.
And yet Abram was proud of that boy.
And when the caravan leaders would ask him how many children do you have from that point
on at least he could say one.
Ishmael.
And then 13 years later, Abram is 99 years old and he comes back from this encounter
with God and he makes an announcement to his household.
Now get this.
Here is the fellow who for 99 years has been called exalted father but he didn't have a
son until he was 86.
And now he has a word from God that he has to change his name at 99.
And now his name is to be Abraham, father of the multitudes.
I can almost hear them laughing throughout the camp as they think about the new name
of their master who has one son.
Abraham believed God.
You know what happened?
When he was 99 years of age, why did God wait until he was 99?
Because God wanted him to be completely dead as far as his own reproductive capability
was concerned.
When he was 99 and there was absolutely nothing left for Abraham, there was no possibility
of a child in himself.
When the natural facts said impossible, he still believed God and God gave to Abraham
and to Sarah the ability to conceive miraculously and at 99 there was the cry of a baby in the
tent and Isaac was born and God fulfilled his promise because Abraham believed him.
The second result was a son, the son of the promise.
Third result, many nations.
And still today the many descendants of Abraham squabble in our world.
And the fifth result I would like to suggest is that Abraham, because he believed God,
became the father, and I put that in quotes, of a worldwide spiritual family that has spanned
4,000 years.
The apostle tells us in this very chapter that he is the father of all of us who believe.
He is our grand daddy, so to speak, who has left us the example of believing God against
all of the odds.
Faith got results in the life of Abraham and dear friend, it will get results in your life
too if you trust God.
There is a very specific application the apostle gives to us.
He says in verse 23, now not for his sake only was it written that it was reckoned to
him, but for our sake also.
In other words, he says there is a lesson here that we are to learn.
He says, for our sake to whom it, righteousness that is, will be reckoned as those who believe
in him.
You notice it doesn't say we are to believe a cold set of facts, but it says we are to
believe in God.
Faith is a personal thing.
It is not faith in theology.
It is faith in the living God.
And it says righteousness will be reckoned to those who believe in God who raised Jesus
our Lord from the dead.
It furthermore says two important facts.
Him who was delivered up because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification.
To deliver up is a judicial word.
It was used in that day of turning over a criminal to the justice system.
Or it was used to cast a person into prison.
Kenneth Weiss says regarding this verse, it was the judicial act of God the Father delivering
God the Son to the justice that required the payment of the penalty for human sin.
In other words, all the justice, the requirements of God's righteous law were fulfilled in
Jesus Christ.
He was delivered up because of our transgressions.
How well that ties together with what Isaiah the prophet said.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
And then it says that he was raised also on account of our justification.
In other words, showing that it was complete.
Christ's work for sin was completed on the cross.
That's why he said it is finished.
But we cannot separate that work on the cross from the resurrection, can we?
In fact, the apostle says that if Christ didn't rise from the dead, then our faith is in vain.
The death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ go together.
His death accomplished our justification.
He was raised to show that our justification was complete.
When you and I trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, that is the result.
Faith gets results.
Have you experienced that, friend, personally?
Or is your faith today resting in what you've done and how good you are and what your church
has done on your behalf and the rituals you've been through?
Are you trusting baptism, just like the Jews used to trust in circumcision?
Then be aware this morning, perhaps for the first time in your life, that if your faith
is in those things, your faith is in vain.
Because your church and your works and your baptism will never get you to heaven.
What gets us to heaven is a personal relationship with God by faith in Jesus Christ.
Will you receive Jesus Christ today as your Lord and your Savior?
Will you establish that personal relationship by faith?
Stop relying on all those other things and today depend upon God's promise that whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
For those of us who are Christians, there are applications from this text as well.
What facts confront you today?
What promise will you claim from God's word?
Is your faith wavering back and forth or is it resting solidly upon confidence in God?
Faith makes God's dealings with us pleasant.
Unbelief makes his dealings with us hard and heavy.
Faith gives comfort and relief, but unbelief brings troubling and restlessness to the Spirit.
Faith enables us to wait upon God, but unbelief causes us to rush ahead or to give up.
I wish it were possible to look into your heart today and to see what that thing is
that you're wrestling with.
To see what the circumstances are that are over here on the natural side.
I wish we could sit down together and talk about the supernatural side that you need
to consider.
Above everything else, I pray that your faith today will choose to trust God.
That you as a Christian will walk by faith, not by sight.
That you will put away self-sufficiency and learn what it is to walk day by day trusting
God for the big things as well as the little things of your life and your daily routine.
In Abraham's case, faith saw the invisible, it believed the incredible, and it received
the impossible.
You can experience that too if you will face the facts with faith in Jesus Christ and his
promises.
Let's pray.
O Heavenly Father, today my own heart aches that I may learn more of what it is to live
by faith.
God, I pray that you will deliver me from going through this life walking in the flesh
and in my own ability, my own resources.
Teach me what it means to trust you.
Teach us all that.
There are some brothers and sisters here today, Father, who are wavering.
Put them upon a solid confidence today that will cause that wavering to cease.
There are some here today who have focused all of their attention on their natural circumstances
and have forgotten what it is to focus on your promises, your commands.
Help them today to do that, to make the choice to trust you.
Father, I feel that there may be some of your children here today who are quite sufficient
and who are not struggling at all with any circumstances.
My prayer is that you would shake them up.
You would bring some circumstance into the life this next week which will cause them
to begin to learn what it is to walk by faith.
God, we need to grow up.
We need to mature.
Quicken us to do that.
For that one who is here today without Christ at all and who is lost and bound for hell,
oh, how I pray that that one today will open his heart and trust the Savior, be justified
by faith.
Amen.
A chop in the liver has been found on the