Faith and Trust Keep Us Right with God – Romans 4

A text – Romans 4:13-25

4:13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.
4:14 If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.
4:15 For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.
4:16 For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us,
4:17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) –in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
4:18 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.”
4:19 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.
4:20 No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,
4:21 being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
4:22 Therefore his faith “was reckoned to him as righteousness.”
4:23 Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone,
4:24 but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,
4:25 who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification.

A reflection:

How do you make your decisions? What has to add up in a certain way before you conclude that something or someone is right or wrong, dependable or risky, even good or evil?

This passage of Romans is where Paul tells his readers how God makes decisions about human beings. It describes God adding up what Abraham did as he walked and talked with the Lord over time. And it wasn’t about how Abraham obeyed the law or how flawlessly Abraham behaved. It was about how Abraham trusted God and believed the promises God made, no matter how outlandish they may have been. His continual belief that God would keep promises was “reckoned to him as righteousness.” In other words, the right-ness and true-ness of Abraham’s relationship with God was so high and so good because Abraham believed the promises God made. And God kept those promises.

It’s not really about the law, Paul says, and how very well you keep it. It’s not really about being right, either – Paul was a Pharisee and Paul believed, at least until he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, that Paul the Pharisee was always right, of course. But Jesus knocked him from his horse and blinded him for three days until Paul trusted in Jesus as Lord rather than trusting in his own behavior and decision-making as Lord. Paul would have been a tough man to convert, but Jesus had a mission for Paul and chose him as an apostle while Paul was still trusting in his own Pharisee merits rather than God’s mercy. And when Paul learned that it was not his own deeds but rather God’s mercy that was going to save him, then God gave Paul the big job of teaching the whole world about the miracle of God’s love for us human beings.

It’s never been about how perfect we are or how obedient we are to the rules. It is always about how much we believe in God and stay with God and walk with God and know that God will care for us.

And then God does.

A prayer:

Gracious God, Thank you for loving us. Help us to remember that we are yours and you are never far away. Nothing is beyond you, and you will always be our God because you love us. Help us to believe and then to share this good news with people who really need to hear it.  Amen.