When Our Hard Work Doesn't Work

Texts: Romans 4:1-25; John 6:22-29

TOMORROW IS LABOR DAY, WHEN we celebrate the efforts and accomplishments of America's workers.  So it was appropriate that recently the actor Ashton Kucher should give an audience of young people a strong exhortation about the value and necessity of hard work.  He was speaking at the Teen Choice Awards, and among other things, he said, "I've noticed throughout my life that Opportunity looks a lot like hard work."  His point was that nobody should sit around passively and then complain when opportunity to get ahead seems to pass them by. Hard work is essential, and the kids need to get that through their heads while they're young, and save themselves a lifetime of disappointment and misery.

That's how it operates in this world, "under the sun," as Solomon put it in Ecclesiastes.  You get what you work for, and if you don't work, you don't get. And if you can work but refuse to, and by dint of welfare and handouts you do get, you're settling for way less than second best, and when the handouts run out, you'll be sunk.  It's the way things are.

But there's a sphere where all these facts are stood on their heads.  Where to stop working is virtue, where to keep on working is to do evil, where being willing simply to reach out and receive good things we don't deserve is to be the happiest of all.

St. Paul speaks of this condition in our reading from the fourth chapter of his letter to the Romans.  Now, in the Bible, context is everything.  So we need to remember that prior to this, up to the first part of chapter 3, the Holy Spirit has convicted us all, Jews and Gentiles alike, of unrighteousness before God.  The Jews have the Law of Moses written on tablets of stone; they don't obey it.  The Gentiles (and all mankind, really) have the natural law of God inscribes on their hearts, and they suppress it and break it, too.  So we're all in the position where the law has declared us all guilty.  God has brought us to this position so that, as Paul writes in 3:19-20,

. . . [E]very mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.  Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

The law of God, whether it's the written law given through Moses or our inward sense of right and wrong, describes the work, the big job we have to do in order to please our Lord and Creator.  Ultimately, whether we acknowledge Him or not, God is our Boss, and if He wants to fire us, there's no place else to go.

And even if we feel we want to do what is just and right and do the work God requires, every day we're putting ourselves more in His disfavor.  We're like incompetent workers who not only don't do our jobs, but even when we're trying our best we break the machinery and alienate the customers and embezzle our employer's funds. When it comes to achieving favor with God, our hard work doesn't work.  This is how it is when we depend on ourselves to gain and maintain our own righteousness by obeying the law.

But the good news, as Paul tells us in the last part of Romans chapter 3, is that God Himself has done all the hard work for us through His Son Jesus Christ.  His blood shed on the cross makes everything right between us and our divine Employer: We are justified in His sight.  His death paid the price to buy us back out of slavery to sin: In Jesus Christ we are redeemed.  His sacrifice of Himself propitiated the wrath that God rightly had directed against us for our sin: He has settled the our sin debt for us and it will never be held against us again.

Jesus Christ did all this for us when He died on Calvary, and His resurrection proves that God accepted His work.  But how do we make the work of Jesus Christ our own?  Do we do it by laboring really hard to love God and our neighbor, so we'll deserve the favor of Christ?

Well, think of the words of Jesus Himself as recorded in the sixth chapter of John's gospel.  The day before He had fed the 5,000-plus on the east side of the Sea of Galilee.  Then somehow He'd transported Himself to the Capernaum side of the lake, though everyone had seen the disciples go off in the only boat they had without Him.  Even though they didn't necessarily know Jesus had walked most of the way across on the water, they certainly were sure that this Rabbi was a special representative of God and they weren't going to lose hold of Him.  They were racing around, working hard not to lose hold of Him.

But as Jesus says, "You are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you."   He seems to be agreeing with the idea we all have, that spiritual blessings, like earthly ones, have to be earned by our own efforts.  So of course the representatives of the crowd ask Jesus, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"

Now, they knew the Law.  And they knew God expected them to keep it.  But maybe, just maybe Rabbi Jesus would give them some wonderful new tip so they could keep it.

And Jesus says simply, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

That's it.  If they or we want to gain eternal life, if we want to appropriate the work of Christ on the cross for ourselves, we must not work.  We must let God do all the work and simply receive the gift of salvation by faith in Christ alone.  Our work has no place in God's plan to make us right with Him.  In fact, to insist on working for it ourselves is to imply that Jesus and His death aren't good enough for us.

But if you've read your Bible and knew about the patriarch Abraham, you might be inclined to object.  Wasn't Abraham justified by his works when he obeyed God and left Ur and then Haran to go to the land of Canaan?  Didn't God reward him for his deed when he was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah?   Abraham pleased God by his works, didn't he? and aren't we to be sons of Abraham and follow in his footsteps?

Not so fast, Paul says in Chapter 4.  How was it actually that Abraham pleased God?  The Apostle quotes Genesis 15:6:  "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."  It was by faith and faith alone that Father Abraham was accepted as righteous before God!

And is the righteousness that God credited Abraham by faith the heritage only for the circumcised, that is, the Jews?  No, because God created that faith in him and accepted that faith before the sign of circumcision was even given.  The important thing is not whether we are Jews or Gentiles, the important thing is that God does His work in us and credits righteousness to us by faith.  To walk in the footsteps of Abraham, Paul argues in verse 12, is to receive by faith the work that God has done for us and to live our lives trusting that God has done everything necessary for us to be accepted by Him.  Just as Abraham looked forward to Christ and trusted in the work He would do, we look back on the saving work Jesus completed and trust that it is enough and more than enough, apart from anything we could accomplish.

But--!  But--!  Don't we have to do something to be Abraham's true heirs?  The other day I heard that some television host was arguing that if you don't think the impending national healthcare law is a great thing you can't possibly be a real Christian.  The radio host who passed this story along thought this was ridiculous on political grounds.  As Christians, we first and foremost have to reject this statement on spiritual grounds.  We are Christians through being accepted by God in Jesus Christ, and that was due to no work of kindness of ours, public or private.  For as our reading says, "It was not through law--" [And the law is largely about how we should be kind to one another] "--Not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith."

But let's say it were possible for someone to receive the new heaven and new earth God promises by his or her hard work trying to love God and neighbor.  If that were the case, Paul says, "faith has no value and the promise is worthless."  But we've already seen that doing our best to please God-- that is, following the law-- doesn't get us anywhere.  It only puts us deeper into God's righteous wrath.

But being right with God through faith is an entirely different story.  For one thing, it's totally inclusive.  For it says in verse 16;

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring-- not only to those who are of the law [that is, ethnic Jews], but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham.  He is the father of us all.

This is totally countercultural!  The culture says-- what is that song from The Sound of Music?  It goes something like

Nothing comes from nothing,
Nothing ever could;
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must've done something good.1

Human culture says it's all about work and rewards.  But the promise of God comes to us who are dead in trespasses and sins, who are totally helpless and can't do a single solitary thing to work our way to eternal life.  And see! He makes us alive in Christ!  Our God is the God who does call something out of nothing by the power of His Word, and He does it every time the Holy Spirit plants faith in Jesus Christ into a lost sinner, like each of us were before He gave us new life in Christ.

Our God is the God who "calls things that are not as though they were."  And when He speaks, those things spring into being!  How do we know this is true in time and space and not just in theory?  Well, says Paul, look at the whole history of the birth of Isaac.  Both Abraham and Sarah were as good as dead where it came to having children.  They totally didn't have it in them.  But God had promised him a son from his own loins by his wife Sarah herself and no surrogate.  God in His mercy maintained and repeated this promise even after the fiasco with Hagar and her son Ishmael.  And without wavering Abraham believed that the Lord indeed would give him his own begotten son by Sarah.  He had faith that God had the power to do what He had promised, and this faith was "credited to him as righteousness."

So what does this mean for us as we go about our lives as children of God living in an ungodly world?  First, we must resist the Devil's lie that God requires more of us than faith in the finished work of His Son Jesus Christ, or that faith itself is some kind of a work we do, and not itself the gift of God.

We must stand firmly against the world's conception that being a Christian is about doing good deeds, and the more good deeds you do, the better Christian you are.  Yes, God does want us to walk in the footsteps of our Father Abraham, who acted on the divine promises he believed.  But our actions and our work do not make us his children or children of the living God.  That all comes by grace through faith in Christ alone.

And we must utterly reject the falsehood that creeps upon us when we're depressed or in a bad situation, the nasty little voice that suggests we're not good enough to be saved by the blood of Christ, or worse, that somehow the blood of Christ isn't strong enough to save a wretch like you or me.  If we were good, we wouldn't need saving!  And the promise of God in Jesus stands firm and strong.  His cross is more than sufficient to save us from all our sins.

For what does the Apostle say at the end of our reading from Romans?

The words "It was credited to him" were written not for him [Abraham] alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness-- for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.  He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

In the sphere of this world, by all means, work as hard as you can at the vocation God has called you to.  But in the sphere of the world to come, stop struggling, stop your fruitless working, put down your tools and come with empty hands ready to receive.  The Son of Man gives you the food that endures to eternal life, and He gives you the faith you need to take it from His hand.  By His grace, may you cease your labors and rest forever in Him.  Amen.
____________________________________________
1  By Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, 1959

God's One-Sided Bargain

Texts:  Genesis 15:1-18; Luke 22:14-30

TWO VERSES FROM OUR READINGS this morning sound the keynote for today's sermon.  The first is Genesis 15:17 and it says,

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. 

The second is Luke 22:20, which says,

In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. 

One verse that's familiar, one verse we may find to be obscure.  But both have to do with the covenant of grace that the Lord our God makes with us, not counting the cost to Himself, that you and I might be saved.

The making of covenants is fundamental to Biblical history.  Our God is a covenant-making God.  But let's not think that the making of covenants was some special Bible thing off in a category by itself.  No, it was basic to human life and civilization back in ancient times and it still is today.

People make different kinds of covenants with one another, for different purposes.  Treaties.  Bargains.  Marriage vows.  Contracts.  You name it.  All of these involve the parties promising to do certain things for one another.  Very often they stipulate the penalties the parties will face if either of them fail to live up to their side of the bargain.  The general form was, "Do this, and this benefit will follow.  Fail to do this, and this penalty will follow."  As you might expect, if one party to a contract was more powerful than the other, the weaker party incurred most of the obligation and most, if not all, of the penalties.  But what would you think of a covenant where the stronger party took all the obligations and all the penalties to himself, and all the benefits came to the party that was weaker?  That's not how it happened in the ancient world, and it's not how it happens today.  But that's exactly what the Lord God Almighty does for us in the covenant of grace He has made with us for our salvation.

Genesis chapter 15 begins with the word of the Lord coming to Abram in a vision:

"Do not be afraid, Abram.
    I am your shield,
    your very great reward."

At the outset, we see God conferring a benefit on the man Abram.  And who was Abram?  Was he some hero or demigod who had the right to deal with the Lord God Almighty as an equal?  No, he was a nomadic herdsman of Syrian descent whom God out of His own free grace had elected to be the one through whom all the nations of the world should be blessed.  God of His own choice gave Abram the right to expect something of Him.  So to this wonderful assurance Abram basically responds, "How will I know that You will keep your promise to me?  You've promised to make me into a great nation and look, I still have no children and a servant of mine looks to be my only heir."

  And does the Lord say, "Trust Me?"  He could have.  But in grace He responds that indeed, a son coming from Abram's own body would be his heir, and He gives him the sign of the stars of heaven as His testimony that His promise is firm and sure.

Does Genesis say, "Abram did this or that to deserve that God should favor him"? or "God required these actions and good works from Abram as his part of the bargain"?  No, it tells us that upon seeing this sign,"Abram believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness."  All the action was on the Lord's side; all the passive receptiveness was on Abram's.  Abram simply received God's grace, and by that grace he received the righteousness of God that made it possible for him to walk with God in friendship and peace and receive His blessings forever.

But God has not finished making His one-sided bargain or covenant with this man.  The Lord says,

"I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it."

Again, as in verse 2, Abram asks for a sign that this indeed will take place.  God, being God, had every right to say, "Abram, you trusted Me before; go on trusting Me now.  Isn't My word enough for you?"

But the Lord doesn't do that.  Instead, the Lord God of the universe condescends to a man and grants him signs and seals to ratify the bargain, exactly as if it were one man making covenant with another.

The Lord commands Abram to bring certain animals of a certain age, along with two birds.  Abram obeyed, cut the animals in two, and arranged the halves opposite each other, with the birds opposite each other, though not cut in half.  Then Abram sat down to wait, driving the birds of prey away from the carcasses, waiting to see what the Lord would do, waiting to see what the Lord wanted him to do.

This strange procedure was a standard way of ratifying and witnessing to a covenant in the ancient Near East.  What could it possibly mean?  It might help if we turn over to Jeremiah 34.  There the leaders of Judah have made a covenant before God to free their slaves, but they've broken it and taken the freedmen into slavery again.  So the Lord says,

The men who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces.  The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf, I will hand over to their enemies who seek their lives. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.

The covenant was sealed in the blood of the animals.  The idea was that the parties making the covenant would walk between the severed animal pieces, in effect saying, "If I break this covenant, may I be like this slaughtered animal.  May my dead body be food for birds of prey, with no one to drive them off."  Typically, it was the weaker party who passed between the pieces.  A weaker king.  The debtor who needed the money.  The people of a god.  The powerful party merely witnessed that all was done properly, to his benefit.

But what is this in Genesis between God and Abram?   It had been nighttime with the stars shining when the Lord first came to him in this vision.  It was now sunset of the day after   As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and "a thick and dreadful darkness came over him."  This was no ordinary darkness and no ordinary sleep, it was a sleep from the Lord.  Abram would not be asked to walk between the pieces; he would not be asked to do anything.  In fact, God wanted to make sure Abram wasn't capable of doing anything.  This treaty, this bargain, was going to be totally one-sided, and the one party making the promises, the one party obligating Himself to them was God and God alone.

In verses 13 to 16 the Lord sets forth the terms of the promise:  That Abram's descendants would indeed inherit the land, but not until the sin of the present inhabitants (here known collectively as Amorites) had reached its full measure and their judgement was due.

Now, we might think that doesn't exactly count.  If you tell me I've won the Publishers' Clearinghouse Sweepstakes but then tell me you'll make the check out to my great-great grandchild who hasn't even been born yet, and I'm getting on in years and don't have any kids in the first place, as a modern individualist I'm likely to say, hey, that wasn't what you promised before.  But our ancient ancestors were much more family and clan oriented than we are, and they understood that they lived on in their descendants.  A man like Abram would have taken no pleasure in receiving a blessing that would die with him.

So as Abram lies in deep vision-sleep, the Lord unilaterally declares what He will do.  And then, wonder of wonders, when the sun had fully set there appeared (verse 17) a smoking firepot with a blazing torch passing between the severed animal pieces. This was none other than a vision of the Lord God Almighty swearing an oath against Himself, saying, "May I be like these dead animals if I do not keep my promise to Abram my friend."

God Almighty Himself is conferring all the benefits!  And taking on all the penalties and obligations!  Most covenants then as now say, "Do this in order to receive that."  But God's covenant of grace says, "Believe this and receive that."  Or maybe putting it better, "Believe Me and receive this." God was witnessing blood against Himself if He should fail in any of His promises to His friend Abram.

What is this to us?  Everything.  Because in His grace, God's one-sided bargain with Abram set in motion the divine plan for our salvation.   He promised him a land to call his own, but the physical land of Canaan was only a sign of the kingdom of heaven that we, God's covenant people, will receive.  He promised him heirs like the stars in the sky, and physically, this came true, but even more numerous are those who are children of Abraham by faith, for all who, like Abraham, believe God and have it counted to us as righteousness.

But the greatest fulfilment of God's covenant with Abram came in the greatest of his descendants, who is Jesus Christ our Lord.  And so we see Him in the Upper Room, sharing a meal with His disciples shortly He is to die, and like God His Father so many centuries before, God the Son of God makes a one-sided covenant with those He loves and seals it in His own blood.  "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you," Jesus said.  For us He became those animals whose bodies were cut in two.  For us He walked the road to Calvary   Jesus did not bleed and die because He failed to keep His covenant of grace with us, He bled and died so that covenant could be put into effect.  His resurrection from the dead proves that this is true; because He rose, we know that we will rise with Him.

In this season of Lent, as we look forward to Easter and Christ's resurrection, let us remember that there is nothing we can do to deserve God's blessings of life and fellowship and forgiveness.  His covenant with us is like His covenant with our father Abraham, totally one-sided on God's part where it comes to action and obligations, totally benefitting us whom He has called to be His own.  Indeed, our new covenant in the blood of Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of God's promises to Abram, who believed the Lord and to whom that was credited as righteousness.  For as St. Paul says in Romans 4 says,

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring--not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.

By faith we are the children of Abraham, the friend of God.  But even better, by faith in the shed blood of Christ, we are the children of God, who makes His extraordinary promises to us, and keeps them all.

Unalienable Rights

Texts:  Psalm 21; Galatians 3:26-4:7

WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

    We all recognize those stirring words.  They begin the second paragraph of our American Declaration of Independence, adopted by Congress 235 years ago tomorrow, on July 4th, 1776.  These words still resonate in us today, because our basic human rights are important to us.  They define our identity as free human beings.  We understand-- or I hope we do-- that these rights are not given to us by the government of our country; rather, they are the gift or endowment of our Creator God.  Our human rights under God are unalienable-- that is, they cannot be sold or given away, even by the one who possesses them.  The human rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are given to all people everywhere, and as the Declaration goes on to say, "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

    Our nation was founded especially to affirm and defend these rights, and as American citizens we have to be ready to do whatever we can and must to defend them, whether the danger comes from a foreign enemy or from forces of oppression within our shores.

    But essential and important as these human rights are, as much as they are given to us by Almighty God, they pertain only to the kingdom of this world.  They belong to the order of Creation, to this present age which is passing away.  We enjoy these rights only as long as our mortal bodies stay alive.  When the children of earth die, they have no life, no liberty, they can pursue no happiness.

    But there is another kingdom with greater and better rights, a kingdom of Heaven whose citizens never die and whose dominion will never pass away.  There is a household of God, whose children enjoy their rights forever, a family from which no member ever has to depart.  And we who bear the name of our Lord Jesus Christ are citizens of that everlasting kingdom and enjoy its rights, even while we are citizens of the United States of America or of any other country under the sun. 

    Our reading from St. Paul's letter to the Galatians speaks of our rights as citizens of God's kingdom and members of His household.  We began with verse 26 of chapter 3, where it says, "You all are sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ."  We gain our rights as humans by being born of our mothers into this world; we become sons and daughters of God by the new birth that comes through trust in Jesus Christ and His atoning death for our sins. 

    Our first right in Christ is our becoming a son of God.  As it says in the Gospel according to St. John,  chapter 1, verse 12, "To all who received him"-- that is, Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh-- "to those who believed in his name, he"-- that is, God-- "gave the right to become children of God." In the kingdom of God we are more than subjects, more than servants, even more than citizens-- God has given us the right to be called His children!  And as John says in his First Letter, that is what we are!

    Our baptism was our rite of citizenship and adoption, for as Paul says in Galatians 3:27, "all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" Again, it doesn't matter what country we were born in, it doesn't matter what race or sex we are: in Christ, God gave us the right to become His sons.  And so, as it is written, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."  Not just sons, but heirs, heirs according to the promise to Abraham!

    God promised Abraham he would inherit, many blessings, among which was the promise that all nations should be blessed through him, through the miraculous offspring God would give him.  Jesus Christ is the ultimate fulfilment of that promise; as Paul says in Galatians 3:14, "He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit."

    In verses 4:1-3, Paul illustrates how formerly we were like  underage children or slaves in the eyes of God, under the control of the Law and of the basic principles of this world, without rights and without privileges in God's household.  If we had time, we would examine more carefully what those verses mean.  But this morning I'd like to skip straight to verses 4-6, where it says, 

    But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

    "The full rights of sons."  Now that Jesus Christ has come, we have been freed, redeemed, declared independent of the law.  Jesus the Son of God and Son of Mary perfectly kept the Law in our behalf.  He fulfilled all its righteous requirements and now, in Him, we have received the full rights of sons. 

    But I ask you, what are our full rights as full-grown, inheritance-worthy sons of God?  We can't answer that question without first asking, "What are the full rights of the Son of God?"  For it is only in and through and because of Jesus Christ that we are children of God at all.  Only in Him do we enjoy and exercise our unalienable rights in the kingdom of Heaven.

    Psalm 21 goes a long way towards answering that question.  It petitions the Lord in behalf of an unidentified Israelite king, probably King David.  It might seem strange for us to deal with a royal psalm on the weekend when we celebrate our independence from all human kings.  But our forefathers knew that although no one man or woman was worthy to rule over a free people, God, the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer of the universe is still and always will be this earth's true Sovereign and Lord. 

    As we read through Psalm 21, we see that no human king could ever come up to this standard, claim all these rights, or inherit all these blessings.  Christ and His apostles all testify that David wrote as a prophet, and looked forward to the promised eternal King, great David's greater Son. In Jesus and only in Jesus, the Son of David, Son of Mary and Son of God, is this psalm fulfilled. 

    What are the rights of our Messiah and King?  Verse 1 begins:

    O LORD, the king rejoices in your strength.
               How great is his joy in the victories you give!

    Jesus has the right to victory.  Victory over sin, death, and the devil, victory over every evil force that stands opposed to God and to God's chosen people.  This right is unalienable: Jesus who died once can never die again; death has no more mastery over Him, and one day will once and for all put death under His feet.

    The right to victory is ours as sons of God in Jesus Christ.  On the cross He defeated death for us, and we, too, rejoice in the strength of God demonstrated for us.

    Verse 2 says,

    You have granted him the desire of his heart
               and have not withheld the request of his lips.

    Jesus has the right to the desires of His heart, and the granting of the request of His lips.  In the letter to the Hebrews we see that His earnest desire was that through His obedience many sons might be brought to the glory of God, so that He might be the firstborn of many brothers.

    And Jesus has granted us the right to have our prayers and petitions heard at the throne of God, as we pray them in His name and according to His will.

    In verse 3 it is written,

    You welcomed him with rich blessings
               and placed a crown of pure gold on his head.

    Jesus had the right to be welcomed into the very presence of God when He ascended into heaven, and even now He has the right to wear the crown as the Lord before whom every knee will bow and to whom every tongue will confess His sovereign worth.

    In Him we will have the right to wear crowns as rulers under Him, crowns that we will cast down before Him as we bow down in worship and love.  

    Verse 4 states,

    He asked you for life, and you gave it to him—
           length of days, for ever and ever.

    By His perfect life and sacrificial death, our Lord Jesus has the right to eternal life, length of days, for ever and ever.  He rose triumphant from the tomb on the third day, gloried, transformed, immortal.

    And now He endows us who believe in Him with His own everlasting life, so that our mortal bodies will be transformed to be like His immortal body.  In Christ we have inherited the right to the life of God that can never, never die.

    Verse 5 says,

    Through the victories you gave, his glory is great;
                  you have bestowed on him splendor and majesty.

    Jesus has indeed won the victory through the might of God the Father, and now He has the right to glory, splendor, and majesty.  This is not the transitory glory of this world; the splendor of Christ will last into all eternity.

    And so in Him we, too, will inherit glory, honor, and immortality, as Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, for we share in the inheritance of Jesus, the firstborn Son of God.

    Verse 6 affirms,

        Surely you have granted him eternal blessings
               and made him glad with the joy of your presence.

    Jesus as God's firstborn Son has the right to eternal blessing.  His store of riches is gladness in the presence of God.

    We in our sin deserved only the curse of God.  To stand in His presence with our wickedness on us would mean not joy, but misery and condemnation.  But through faith in Him Jesus has shared with us His right to take eternal pleasure in the presence of God Most High.  He has invited us even now to participate with Him in the blessings of that kingdom, where eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.
    Verse 7 assures us,

    For the king trusts in the LORD;
                   through the unfailing love of the Most High
           he will not be shaken.

    Jesus our King has the right to trust utterly in the love of God Most High.  He has the right and assurance that His trust in His Father will never be shaken. 

    And so in Him we have the right to trust God to save us totally and completely.  Jesus has promised that He will never leave us or forsake us.  Our adoption as sons in His name will never be undone, or repudiated.  God's love to us is unfailing.  In ourselves we have no right to it, but in Christ our right to God's love is everlasting and unshakeable. 

    In verses 8 through 12 we see that Jesus our King has the right to triumph and vengeance upon His enemies.  His enemies are sin, death, and the rebellious angels, but they also include the wicked among mankind as well.  The cowardly and those who are soft on sin will say that it's mean and intolerant to want to see God's human enemies destroyed.  After all, isn't He the God of love?  But what else is God to do with those who ally themselves to the end with the devil and his demons?  What else can be the fate of those men and women who keep on plotting evil against the Lord and His anointed?  At the time of Christ's appearing in glory He will have the right to make them like a fiery furnace, with the wrath of the Lord swallowing them up.

    Until that time we hope and pray that all sinners will come to enjoy the rights of the sons of God that we inherit now in Jesus Christ our Lord.  But in the day of His appearing we will have the right to see God's vengeance on our foes, and we will know that His judgement is righteous and just.

    These are only a few of the rights we enjoy as sons of God and heirs through faith in Christ Jesus.  These rights are unalienable.  No one can take them away from us, because they are His rights first and no one can take the rights of Jesus Christ from Him. 

    Yes, but what if we fall away from Jesus Christ?  Brothers and sisters, does the Bible not teach that the rights of Christ are unalienable?  Do you not know that one of the foremost of His rights is His right to you?  He has bought you with His blood, He has claimed you through faith (which is the gift of God and not your doing at all), and no one and nothing can snatch you out of His hand or alienate Him from you-- not even you yourself.

    Brothers and sister, as we celebrate our unalienable rights in this free land, remember that we possess rights that are  greater and even more unalienable in a land that is greater and freer still.  We are citizens and children of that land even now, even we are free to exercise our rights as its sons, through our Sovereign and only King, Jesus Christ: to whom be all glory, honor, and power in God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and forever.  Amen.

Christ's Resurrection and You: Who Is Your Mother?

Texts:  Galatians 4:21-31; John 21:15-19

THERE'S A STORY ABOUT A little boy, maybe four or five years old, who goes Christmas shopping with his mother.  The store is crammed with customers, and he loses her in the crowd. The child looks around desperately.  He sees a woman with her back to him, wearing a blue coat.  Oh! His mother was wearing a blue coat!  That must be his mom!

    The little boy runs up to her and grabs her by the belt of her coat.  Whew, he's safe!  But she's busy and distracted and he can't get her attention, so he just holds onto that belt for dear life.  Eventually, the woman pays for her selections and makes her way out of the crowded store, the little boy in tow.  Out on the sidewalk, the woman notices the pull on her coat belt.  "Mommy!" she hears a little voice say.  She turns around-- and the child bursts into tears and wails, "You're not my mommy!!"

    Oh, dear.  We have to hope that if and when this happens in real life, the nice lady would take the boy back into the store and help him find his real mother.  But nice and helpful as she might be, as nice and helpful as babysitters and teachers and aunts might be, they are not your mother, they can never take the place of your mother.  A normal child knows who his mother is, and he looks to her for guidance, for teaching, for counsel, for nurture, for protection, and yes, for discipline.

    It's important for us children of God the Father to know who our mother is, too, for nobody and nothing can take her place, and only she can guide, teach, counsel, nurture, protect, and discipline us up to everlasting life.

    Trouble is, too often we children of God fail to recognize our mother.  We latch onto mother substitutes and follow them to spiritual disaster, even to perdition, if that could be possible for the elect.  As a Christian, it's important that you know: Who is your mother?

    This is the problem St. Paul confronts in the fourth chapter of his letter to the Galatians.  The members of the Galatian Church had forgotten who their true mother was.  You could say that the whole epistle is Paul is trying to wake this church up to the danger that's gotten them into.  At the very start he says

    Paul, an apostle-- sent not by men or from man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead--

Paul writes in the authority of the resurrected Son of God.  He speaks in the power of the gospel of Christ dead and risen again.  This is the gospel that gave us birth into new life with God in Christ.  In it we gain the freedom of God's household (as we read in the first part of Chapter 4).  This good news is "not from men nor by men."  For what human being could ever conceive of an actual living, breathing, walking-around personage dying, and then, all by Himself, under His own power, rising from the dead?    The resurrection put the final seal on the new covenant God had always intended to make with mankind.  It made good on all the promises the Lord made so long ago to Father Abraham, that through his seed all nations would be blessed.  The Holy Spirit Himself had enabled the Galatians to believe and accept that Christ's blood had been shed for them, and that now they were justified through faith in Him alone.

    All this was on their spiritual birth certificate, you might say, and yet now they were doubting their identity in Christ.  Maybe they needed something else to guide, counsel, and nurture them.  Maybe they should follow what those men who came from Jerusalem said, and be circumcised and follow the Law of Moses like good Jews!

    And Paul can only shake his head in frustration and say, "You foolish Galatians!  Who is your mother, anyway?"

    Which brings us to our passage in Chapter 4.  Here Paul compares two mothers, Hagar and Sarah.  You know the story from Genesis.  God promised Abraham a son from his own loins.  For years nothing happened, and Abraham and his wife Sarah grew older and older, till the time of childbearing had passed her by.  So Sarah and Abraham decided to help things along a little.  After all, doesn't God help those who help themselves?  They utilized a device prevalent among their Hittite neighbors, for a wife who was barren to give one of her maidservants to her husband to be a surrogate mother.  The child would count as the wife's own offspring and everything would be acceptable and legitimate according to the rules of  the time.

    You know what happened next.  Hagar, the Egyptian slave woman, got pregnant and proceeded to make herself insufferable.  She pushed it so far that Sarah punished her and Hagar ran away into the desert.  But she returned and bore Ishmael, Abraham's natural son.  Then in God's good time, He miraculously enabled Sarah and Abraham to make a baby together.  As it says in the Letter to the Hebrews, "And from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore."  The birth of Isaac was literally life from the dead!  But Hagar and Ishmael didn't appreciate the wonder God had brought about.  Ishmael mocked and persecuted his little half-brother, and so it was the Lord's will that he and his mother be sent away. 

    As it happened, Ishmael fathered a great nation of his own, the Arab people, but in Galatians Paul wants us to see how these two mothers and their sons are metaphors for the choice we have to make.  Who is our mother?  Is it Hagar, whose son was born in the ordinary way?  Or is it Sarah, who bore her child from the deadness of her womb by the resurrection power of God?

    I'm still working away at the family tree for my mom that I mentioned last week, and for a time I had a certain 4th great-grandmother down as the daughter of her own sister-in-law.  That's what comes of having sons named after their fathers.  So how did I make that mistake?  I took the word of several different websites that said that Mary was Catherine's mother.  Never mind that the dates didn't make a bit of sense, that's what they all said.  And for awhile, I believed it.

    The voices of this world unite to tell you that Hagar is your mother.  Hagar is human effort making us acceptable to God.  Hagar stands for us making things happen in our own time and by our own effort, instead of being patient and waiting for God to keep His promises.  If you're nice enough, if you give enough to charity, if you follow the rules-- especially God's rules!-- He'll accept you as His child and take you to heaven when you die.

    To claim Hagar as your mother is to reject the power of Christ in His resurrection.  It's to reject Him as the fulfillment of all the promises made to Abraham.  The men who were travelling throughout the Roman world trying to convince Gentiles they had to be circumcised were known as "Judaizers."  Their goal was to make sure that good Christians also became good Jews.  They didn't realize or didn't care that the covenant that God made with Moses at Mount Sinai was only provisional.  That all the ceremonies and sacrifices looked forward to the slaying of the perfect Lamb of God on Calvary's cross.  And that now that He, Jesus, is risen, there is no more need for Gentiles to convert to Judaism to be pleasing to God. In fact, all Jews need to welcome Jesus their risen Messiah in order to be the chosen people God always intended them to be!

    Hagar represents the old covenant of Law, but Sarah represents God's new covenant of grace, shown to us in the miraculous resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  We, too, have been born by the power of the Spirit.  We, too, are children of promise.  We are sons and daughters of the free woman, Sarah, and we share in the inheritance of God our Father through our Lord Jesus Christ.

    That is, if Sarah is your mother.  That is to say, if you accept that you are a child of God solely by His own life-giving power.

    In the same way, we must also choose whether our mother is the Jerusalem here on earth, or the Jerusalem that is above.  Remember that in the first century, Jerusalem was still the site of the Temple.  It was where the animal sacrifices were made.  It was where the men of Israel had to go to observe the appointed Feasts, like Passover and the Day of Atonement.  It was the heart of Jewish religious observance, the place where forgiveness of sins was to be found-- until the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ.  As Jesus said to the woman of Samaria,

    "A time is coming when you will worship God neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. . . . A time is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth." 

    Now that Christ has died, risen, and ascended into heaven, the place of our worship is in heaven with Him who is Spirit and Truth.  It is our mother the heavenly Jerusalem, which is above, and is free.

    But does that mean God has left us motherless here on earth?  By no means!  For the Scripture makes it clear that the Jerusalem above represents the Church of God in all her perfection.  In Revelation 21 it says, "I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband."  In Ephesians 6 we read that husbands should love their wives "as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, . . . to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."  The Jerusalem above is the perfection of God's covenant people, His Church, and if you are in Christ through faith, she is your mother.

    To many, that's strictly a Roman Catholic concept.  And really, we have to avoid the idea that "the Church" is just the pastors and the presbytery and the General Assembly and not all of us gathered here as the body of Christ Sunday after Sunday.  But even we Protestants need to recognise the Church as our mother, for it is to her that God has entrusted His Word and Sacraments, that through them we might be guided, taught, counselled, nurtured, protected, and disciplined.  John Calvin says in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, that "the Church is she into whose bosom God is pleased to collect his children, not only that by her aid and ministry they may be nourished so long as they are babes and children, but may also be guided by her maternal care until they grow up to manhood, and, finally, attain to the perfection of faith. What God has thus joined, let not man put asunder (Mark 10:9)": to those to whom he is a Father, the Church must also be a mother. This was true not merely under the Law, but even now after the advent of Christ; since Paul declares that we are the children of a new, even a heavenly Jerusalem (Gal. 4:26).

And so our Lord Himself commanded the Apostle Peter on the shore of the Sea of Galilee to demonstrate his love for Christ by feeding His lambs, taking care of His sheep, and feeding His sheep.  Whatever else the leadership of the Church does, they must make sure that saints old and new are constantly being fed with the pure milk and the solid meat of the word of God.  Following their example, we must all teach and encourage one another, loving and caring for one another for the sake of our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ.  That's the only way we can grow up to be like Him.  There are many who think they can be Christians on their own, without being connected to any visible church.  But the Scripture utterly denies that this is possible.  You are either incorporated into God's covenant assembly, or you are still out in the desert, clinging like Ishmael to the robe of Hagar your slave woman mother.  You are either miraculously born of the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, and incorporated into His body by baptism, or you are dead in your trespasses and sins.  You can seek your own spiritual food and starve, or be richly nurtured by the hand of the mother God has given you.

    Who is your mother?  Your mother is the new covenant people, sealed in Christ's blood.  Your mother is the assembly of the children of God, given new birth by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  Your mother is the Church, the heavenly Jerusalem, the spotless bride that God has foreordained you to become.  Nothing can take her place.  Today and every day let us thank our earthly mothers for all they have done for us. But even more, let us thank and praise our Father in heaven for caring for us and loving us through His Church, our mother who is free. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

The Lord, the God of Salvation

Texts: 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; 1 Samuel 17:1-54; Mark 4:35-41

"AS GOD’S FELLOW WORKERS WE URGE you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says,
‘In the time of my favor I heard you,
and in the day of salvation I helped you.’
"I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation."
______________________

"I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation."

These are the words of the Apostle Paul that begin our epistle reading for today. He wrote initially to the church in Corinth, in Greece, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, these words are for us as well. God’s grace and salvation is an urgent matter. We must not receive this gift of God in vain; that is, merely outwardly or to go along with what our friends and family are doing; no, the salvation of God must be received sincerely, humbly, with awe and holy love, that the grace of our Lord may have its effect in us.

All of our Scripture passages this morning have to do with the salvation of God, including the Psalm we recited for the Responsive Reading. It stands to reason: From start to finish the Bible is the story of God’s salvation. The saga of His work for humanity from the days of Adam to the days of the New Testament church is often called "salvation history." There is nothing in this life more essential for you to know. There is nothing in this world more disastrous if you ignore it or take it for granted.

We don’t use this word "salvation" much outside the Church. But we all know what it means to be rescued or saved from some terrible situation. Maybe you’re caught in a flash flood like the ones that hit the area last Wednesday, and the water picks up your car and rushes you into the nearest creek. But a brave policemen comes in a boat and fishes you out. Maybe your house catches fire and you’re trapped inside. Then a strong fireman comes and saves you. Or maybe you don’t have quite enough to pay your mortgage. But a generous relative or friend comes along in the nick of time and gives you the cash you need. In all these cases, you were in a desperate fix and somebody came along and rescued you from it. You received salvation.

But the word "salvation" these days seems reserved for use by the Christian Church, and really, that’s appropriate. Because as bad as it would be to be swept away by a flash flood or to be burnt up in a fire or to have your house sold out from under you, far, far worse is the situation all human beings are in that makes us all need the salvation of God. Financial loss, even utter destitution, could never be as devastating as the loss of fellowship with God forever. Physical danger, even physical death, is nothing compared with the agonies of eternal death and hell that await those who insist on continuing in their sin. The God of salvation rescues us from dangers that we cannot even imagine this side of eternity. His saving power is better and stronger and more effective than the most heroic earthly rescue could ever be.

And as wonderful as policemen and firemen and generous friends can be, far more glorious and worthy of praise is God Almighty, who rescues us from eternal death and everlasting loss. Jesus our Saviour knew it would cost Him everything to come to our rescue: Position, dignity, reputation, His very life-- even in that terrible moment of abandonment on the Cross, He suffered the loss of His relationship with His Father. Christ our God was not compelled to save us. We didn’t earn it; we didn’t put Him in our debt; when He saved us it was not because we were so cute and winsome, like kittens up a tree. Rather, out of His own free grace the Lord our God chose in love to grant us salvation through our His Son Jesus Christ. Such grace must never be taken for granted or received in vain!

I wonder, when we read the responsive Psalm, did you see yourself as one of those who knows the name of the Lord and trust in Him? Or did you recognise yourself as one of "the enemies," the wicked nations who dig pits to trap the righteous? When you heard the word of the Lord as written in the seventeenth chapter of 1 Samuel, whom did you identify with? Were you cheering for David and Israel, or for Goliath and the Philistines?

If I believed in betting, I’d lay money you were all identifying with Israel, with those who seek God. But why? On what basis? The Scripture teaches us in the Psalms and in Paul’s letter to the Romans that no one seeks God. We read in the Letter to the Ephesians that naturally-speaking, we non-Jews were separated from Christ and excluded from citizenship in Israel. We have no right to claim the salvation of God! And even if we can claim some Jewish blood, the Old Testament Scriptures teach us that Israel was not chosen by God because it as a nation was stronger or more numerous or more deserving than any other people. As human beings, the Jews of old were just as rebellious and disobedient as the pagans were. All of us start life as enemies of God; we deserve nothing from Him but defeat and destruction! So how can any of say that like David we’re soldiers in the army of the living God? How can we rank ourselves with the righteous and not only wait for God’s salvation, but also confidently expect it?

But we do, and we can, for by His grace God makes us part of His covenant people, with all the rights and privileges pertaining to our position with Him. The Lord long ago called our spiritual father Abraham and made a covenant with him, a covenant that was all about what God would do for Abraham and his seed; all Abraham had to do was humbly receive God’s favour through faith. That covenant was not set aside by the secondary covenant that God made with Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai; in truth, the covenant of Sinai was tributary to the earlier covenant, showing us more clearly His divine righteousness and our sin and driving us to depend on Him alone for salvation.

It was this covenant of grace that David the shepherd boy appealed to when he walked into that valley to answer the challenge of Goliath of Gath. More than once in this passage David refers to his opponent as "this uncircumcised Philistine." Is David just calling names? Absolutely not. Circumcision was the sign the Lord gave Abraham to signify that he and his descendants were the people of God. It identified Israel with Him and His salvation. But there stood Goliath, insulting the armies of Israel and thereby mocking and defying God Himself. Goliath cursed David by his false gods, who could not save. David relied on his covenant Lord, the God of Israel’s salvation, and through God he defeated the giant and won the victory.

We can claim God’s salvation in our day, for the covenant of grace that God made with our father Abraham is made perfect in His Messiah, Jesus our Saviour and Lord. We inherit His salvation through the new covenant made in His blood. David the son of Jesse took his stand in the Valley of Elah, but Jesus the Son of David took His stand on the hill of Calvary, and there He defeated the ultimate enemy, Death. Now through God’s favour we are included with His covenant people and rejoice in how He has saved us.

We can even rejoice in situations that might make the unsaved world think hadn’t received salvation at all; at least not the kind the world would understand. Paul writes in our reading from 2 Corinthians of troubles, hardships, distresses, beatings, imprisonments, and so on and on. There’s some good things listed in here, but mostly it’s one long tale of suffering and woe. They’re the kind of thing we’d beg to be rescued from, but for Paul they became credentials that proved that he and his fellow apostles were truly the servants of God. For if Paul and his fellow-workers were suffering, it was for the sake of Christ who first suffered for them and for us all, that we might receive the salvation of God.

Our passage follows on from Paul’s teaching in chapter 5. There Paul reminded the Corinthians that Jesus Christ died for us, that He has reconciled us to God through His blood. That is the salvation our God offers us! Everyone who proclaims this gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ, like Paul is an ambassador of God the King, and like every duly-appointed ambassador, each one must show his or her credentials.

All who bear the name of Christ, especially those who are ministers of the salvation of God, must be ready to commend themselves by their willingness to suffer for Jesus’ sake; they must show themselves genuine by their holiness and graciousness of life and by their kindness and love to all people, especially to the people of God; they must demonstrate their total dependence on the Holy Spirit and the power of God. They must be willing to suffer rejection, even rejection by the very churches whom they love.

How could any human being bear such a cross? Only through the power of the Lord, the God of our salvation, working in him.

Paul could bear all his hardships and even display them as proofs of God working in him, for Jesus Christ was and is the God of his salvation. Through Christ Paul was assured of life and joy and fellowship with Almighty God, in this life and in the world to come. And so we can be assured as well.

As we go through life, often we’re like the disciples on the boat with Jesus that night on the Sea of Galilee, tossed by the storm and thinking He doesn’t care if we drown. But we’re forgetting who this Man is. He is Jesus Christ, the Lord, the God of our salvation. His very name reminds us of that-- for it means "Jehovah saves." At His word giants fall, wind and waves are calmed, and our very sufferings for His sake become badges of honor, credentials that show we are ambassadors of our Lord the crucified and risen King.

Our God is the God who saves. Jesus the Son of David came down into the valley of this world and won for us the salvation we need, the rescue we could never manage for ourselves. Hear Him as He speaks to you in love through the words of His servant Paul. Do not receive God’s grace in vain. Don’t ignore the Good News for some pleasure or interest in this world you think is more important. Don’t allow the troubles of this life lead you to despise the salvation won for you by Christ on Calvary, to make you think He’s helpless in this fallen world. Rather, know that it is in the midst of battle and storm and difficulty that the Lord shows His saving power most clearly. It is when we face our helplessness, when we have given up any hope of saving ourselves, that He moves us to turn to Him and accept the salvation He brings.

This good news is for you if you’ve been a Christian for ninety years, or if you’ve just been going through the motions and aren’t yet a Christian at all. The Lord, the God of your salvation offers His grace to you through His Son, your Saviour Jesus Christ. In humility and trust, accept what He has done for you. For with Paul, I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

God's Ancient Promise, Ever New

Texts: Zechariah 8:12-23; Galatians 3:6-9, 15-22; Matthew 2:1-12

OUR GOSPEL READING FROM St. Matthew declares, "Magi [or wise men] from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.'"

How many times have we heard them ask that question in this reading at this time of year? If we're long-time church-goers, probably every year of our lives. It's early January, it must be time for the Wise Men to show up looking for the infant King of the Jews! It doesn't surprise us, does it? I mean, we know who that King of the Jews was and is! He's Jesus the Christ, the Son of God! Of course any sensible person, any man-- or woman-- who claims to be wise would come to seek and worship Him!

But we've read the end of the story. We know Who the Babe of Bethlehem turned out to be. The Magi and Herod and the rest of them are still in the middle of Jesus' story; at its beginning, in fact. We can't assume they knew what we know about Him. They couldn't assume what we take for granted.

And maybe if we saw things from their point of view, we, too, would be filled with new wonder, eagerness, and fear, and come to worship our Lord Jesus with fresh hearts and open eyes.

So I ask you, why on earth would the Magi have come all that way, over a thousand miles, to seek and worship the newborn King of the Jews? Who were the Jews in the days of Caesar Augustus, anyway? They were a harried, scattered, barely-tolerated people. Their ancestral land was divided and occupied and ruled by Herod, a puppet king installed by Caesar in Rome. The last king of the royal line of David had died over 500 years before. The Hasmonean kings and queens, the ones descended from Judah the Maccabee and his brothers, that dynasty had lasted only a hundred years. And the last of them, Mariamne daughter of Alexandros, had married Herod himself and he'd had her executed twenty-five years before. Besides, the Maccabees were from the tribe of Levi, not the tribe of Judah like David. They really weren't qualified to sit on the throne of Israel according to God's promise to David. And Herod himself, he wasn't Jewish at all! His father was an Edomite and his mother was a Nabatean Arab. He professed the Jewish religion-- sort of-- but he was only "King of the Jews" because Caesar Augustus had declared him to be. He was king over the Jews, but he wasn't a king from or of the Jews! To talk of a true "king of the Jews" in those days was practically meaningless!

But there the Magi were in Jerusalem, asking after such a king. But they were supposed to be so wise! They were of the great tribe of the Magi! They were the hereditary priests and royal astrologers of the magnificent land of Persia! Actually, why would these Magi, these high officials, these esteemed advisors to kings and princes, bother with anything Jewish at all?

And why should they come now, for this birth? Some scholars believe that the Magi came according to the ordinary international custom of that time. They say that "to worship" only means "to do political homage." But that wouldn't make sense even from an earthly point of view! Kings and nobles paid worship only to rulers they acknowledged as their overlords. The Persians were a proud people who had repulsed the Roman army twice in the previous sixty years. Their nobles weren't about to bow down to the infant King of a miserable conquered people! And suppose they'd intended to do honor to an infant son of Herod, the "official" king of the Jews. Does that really make sense? Herod was always having children! History tells us he had many sons by many wives; yes, and he put many of them to death. If the Magi had wanted to come congratulate old Herod on his newborn offspring, they would've been travelling from Persia to Judea and back again over and over and over.

No, something else was happening here, something the Magi knew and that Herod refused to see. Clearly, back in Persia the wise men had come to know of a promised King of the Jews, who wouldn't be just another earthly king. This knowledge first came to their people when the Medes and the Persians conquered the Babylonian Empire in 538 BC. When they took over the Persians found this peculiar people the Jews living dispersed in the Babylonian lands. The Jews refused to assimilate and take up the gods and the practices of the peoples around them. They kept talking about how the Most High God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, had personally called their ancestor Abraham and promised to make him the progenitor of the greatest nation on earth. They claimed to be God's chosen people and that His eternal purposes would be worked out through them. The Jews clung to their holy writings, where it said that the Most High had promised that a King would come to sit on the throne of his father David, and his reign would have no end. These writings said that God would be especially active and present with this Davidic king, not the way kings and emperors always claimed to be sons of the gods, but truly and actually. And these scriptures said that this promised king would come as a blessing and light to the non-Jewish nations, to share the blessings of the Most High with them all, if they would come in humility and worship and willingness to serve Him according to His will.

The Wise Men weren't wise merely by training or by tribe. They were wise because they believed what had been revealed to them of God's promises to His people Israel. They were looking forward to the birth of this one, particular, special, promised King of the Jews. As it says in the book of the prophet Zechariah, they were ready day by day to come up to Jerusalem to take firm hold of that One Jew by the hem of His swaddling bands and go with Him to entreat and seek the Lord Almighty, for they knew that God would be with Him indeed. So when they saw the star of our Lord Jesus Christ at its rising, they rejoiced, packed up their gifts, saddled their camels, and quickly as they could, they came.

They didn't expect to find Christ the newborn king in Herod's palace in Jerusalem-- you'll notice in the gospel text, Matthew doesn't say they asked Herod first off; no, it was Herod who called the Magi to come to him. They came to Jerusalem for information and directions only. If the Magi failed in wisdom at any one point, it's that plainly they thought that Herod and his court and all Jerusalem would be as glad as they were to hear that God's King of kings had been born! For if they as Gentiles were overjoyed, how much more should God's people Israel have rejoiced!

But they arrived, and nobody in Jerusalem had heard of the birth of the promised King. They weren't even expecting Him. Herod had to convene a special council of the chief priests and teachers of the law to tell him where the prophets said the Christ was to be born. And in the end, Herod didn't care about God's ancient promises. He only cared about his own present kingdom and power.

We know how the story unfolds. The Magi find the Christ child at the house in Bethlehem where He is now living with Mary His mother and Joseph His foster-father. They bow down to Him and give Him gifts, and receive the blessing of God's promises fulfilled. They are not fooled by Jesus' humble circumstances, for just as Simeon had told Mary in the temple, the Magi recognise that this Child is indeed the promised One, the One born to be "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of God's people Israel."

And we know how Herod tried to trick the Magi into operating as his spies to reveal exactly where the newborn King could be found. John Calvin suggests that the Holy Spirit darkened Herod's mind, so he wouldn't think of sending one of his own men to Bethlehem with the Magi to come back with the information he wanted. Perhaps. Or maybe Herod was afraid that anyone he sent would betray him and pledge loyalty to this newborn King! However it was, God warned the Magi in a dream not to return to Herod and they went back to their eastern land another way.

Matthew doesn't tell us what they said or did when they arrived back home. But by the Holy Spirit the Evangelist tells us what we need to know, that God keeps His ancient promises. Thousands of years before, God called Abraham and promised that all nations would be blessed through him. And in the visit and worship and joy of the Magi, we see the firstfruits of God's fulfilment of His promise. Jesus Christ the King of the Jews was born for them, as much as He was born for His people Israel.

And Jesus Christ was born for us, for you and me. He was and is the glorious fulfilment of all God's promises to father Abraham. The Apostle Paul wants us particularly to be aware of how that fulfillment comes. Many early Jewish Christians, many early Gentile Christians, even, like the members of the church in Galatia, thought the Gentiles laid hold of the promised blessings by becoming Jews. They thought that in order for Christ to be our King, we all had to bind ourselves first by the Law of Moses and keep it perfectly!

We're rather the opposite. Our culture tells us that God will bless us if we're pretty nice and think the baby Jesus in the manger is really, really, adorable.

But no! No to both those false ideas! As Paul writes in the letter to the Galatians, God gave the promise of universal blessing to Abraham, and Abraham "Believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Righteousness is necessary to please God. And that righteousness comes not by obedience to the Law of Moses or to the law of niceness, but by faith. And this faith is not a mere feeling, it is a God-given trust in our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the Jews. This is how God always intended to justify everyone, Jew and Gentile alike: the Wise Men from the east and you and me besides.

God's promise to Abraham was, "All nations will be blessed through you." He gave it to "Abraham and his seed." St. Paul is urgent to make us understand the implications of that. In Galatians 3:16 he says, "The Scripture does not say, ‘and to seeds,' meaning many people, but ‘and to your seed,' meaning one person, who is Christ."

So ultimately, the promise of being a blessing to all nations is made to Jesus Christ. And the benefits of this promise come to us through Jesus Christ! He and He alone is the bringer of the blessing of God to all nations, including you and me and everyone who believes. Jesus has blessed us by His perfect obedient life and His faithful death on the cross. He fulfilled the Law of Moses for us, so that no longer are we prisoners of sin, locked away from the eternal life and love and acceptance of Almighty God. If through faith we have bowed before Jesus Christ, He is our Lord and King and He shares with us all the glorious inheritance that is His as the Son of God.

This was God's intention from of old. It was His intention when He made His promises to Abraham, it was His intention when He inspired the prophecies of Zechariah, it was His intention when by the rising of a star He drew the Wise Men from the east, to seek and worship the infant King of the Jews.

It was the wisest thing the Magi ever did, travelling all that way to worship the infant King of the Jews. And if we are wise we won't let anything stop us from bowing down and worshipping Him, too. That Child grew up to be our crucified and risen Savior Jesus Christ. He is our King, sitting in power at the right hand of the Father. And He calls you and me and all people of all nations to know Him by faith and receive the peace and eternal life with God that He alone can give. This is God's ancient promise of blessing. It is good even to this present day, it will be good forever. Accept it and be joyful, for the promise is for you.

The Treaty of Calvary

Text: Romans 4:13-17; 5:1-11

WHEN I WAS A KID IN SCHOOL STUDYING American History, we learned about April 19, 1775. That was the date of the famous "shot heard round the world." That’s when our colonist forefathers stood up to the British troops at Lexington and Concord, and the Revolutionary War was begun.

Of course we also learned about July 4, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was ratified in Philadelphia. And October 17, 1781, when the British surrendered at Yorktown. And of course, we learned about September 17, 1787, the day our Constitution was adopted by the Constitutional Convention.

But somehow we never heard much about September 3, 1783. Anybody here remember what happened that day? No? That’s the day of the signing of the Treaty of Paris, when Great Britain and the brand-new United States of America agreed to terms of peace. That’s the day the Revolutionary War officially came to an end, and we had won.


It’s easy to overlook the Treaty of Paris. For one thing, it happened, well, in Paris, France. Here in southwestern Pennsylvania, it’s not too hard to visualize the battles and struggles of the Revolution itself. We don’t have to go that far to see where they took place. And every time we travel the Washington Trail, Route 68 in Butler County, we remember the exploits of the man who would later lead our forces to victory. But Paris, especially Paris in 1783 is so far away-- it’s hard to get our imaginations around anything that happened there.


And then treaties are basically about politics and diplomacy and legal affairs. Terribly dry and boring, not exciting like battles and sieges and deeds of heroism. No wonder September 3, 1783 doesn’t stick in our heads!


But the Treaty of Paris was essential for the birth of our nation. Without the Treaty of Paris, we’d still be at war with Great Britain. At the very best, we’d only have a cease-fire. And if the Crown of England ever felt it was worthwhile to resume hostilities, they could do that. It would just be the same war going on and on.


George III agreed to the terms of the Treaty of Paris because we, the American colonists, had won the war. He was the head of the greatest nations in the world at the time. But after six and a half years of struggle, he simply couldn’t keep pouring in men and money and materiel and munitions to put down those pesky colonials across the Atlantic. So he had his ambassadors sign the Treaty.


Like most treaties, each side got something out of it. We got the best of it, of course: We got our independence and the rights to the land claimed by the thirteen former colonies. But the British got some benefits, too, like the right to navigate on the Mississippi River, the right of pro-British combatants to be free from American prosecution, and the right of pro-British colonists to sue for the recovery of confiscated property.


But suppose a rabble of rebellious revolutionaries and terrorists declared war against a great superpower, a high and glorious Emperor or King. Suppose unlike our colonial ancestors, these rebels had no excuse or cause for war. Suppose under the King’s rulership, they’d been free and responsible citizens with everything they could ever want or need, but they rebelled anyway. Suppose even that the great King had delegated much of the rulership of His empire to these ungrateful wretches, but it wasn’t enough for them, they wanted to put down the King and be kings and queens themselves.


Suppose this war of rebellion had gone on for years, decades, centuries. Suppose the cruelty, brutality, treachery, and desecration of these terrorists was without boundary or limit. And suppose the great King had all the men, money, materiel, and munitions to put down the rebellion whenever He wanted.


Will such a King conclude a treaty of peace with such a gang of bloody rebels? Will He not stop waiting for them to surrender and destroy them altogether, just as they deserve?


You’d think so, wouldn’t you? You’d think He’d bring all His power to bear and be done with this war, once and for all. He could. He’d have the right to. He’d have the power to do it. Let Him wipe them out those terrorists, and let His loyal subjects stand up and cheer!


But what if that’s not what the great King did? What if, instead, He drew up a treaty of peace with those rebels, and it was all in their favor-- life and health and property and riches and high places in His kingdom forever more! What if He sealed it with the blood of His beloved and only Son?


And what if-- what if-- the only thing required from the rebels was that they lay down their arms and accept all the good things promised by this amazing treaty? What if they’d be breaking the treaty if they insisted on trying to do good things in order to deserve the King’s offer of peace?


You’d think that King was either out of His mind-- or that He was the most loving, gracious, caring, merciful, and glorious King the world has ever known. But surely, such a King, such a superpower, has never existed-- has He? And such a treaty, could it ever be offered? How could anything like that be imagined?


St. Paul answers these questions in his letter to the Romans. In the first three chapters, the Apostle convicts all humanity of being in vicious, unexcusable rebellion against our Lord and King. That includes every man, every woman, every child; rich and poor, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, knowing God’s law and not knowing God’s law. We are all guilty of waging war against our gracious Lord, and He has every right to destroy us in His wrath.


But beginning towards the end of Chapter 3, Paul reveals how the Lord God Himself intervened to end the hostilities between Him and us. In Chapter 4, he gives an example of one man who accepted the King’s terms and inherited His promises-- our father Abraham. And in our portion of Chapter 4, Paul outlines the glorious terms of the treaty of peace our Lord and King has made with us, for our benefit and His eternal glory.


We can call it the Treaty of Calvary, and by all calculations, it was ratified at 3:00 in the afternoon on Friday, April 3rd, in the Year of Our Lord 33. On that day and at that hour, Jesus Christ the Son of God died on the cross of Calvary to seal our peace with His own innocent blood. And simply by laying down our arms and accepting His grace through faith in Him, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.


The rebellious world looks on and says, "Impossible!" And it is amazing, overwhelming, almost too good to be true. As St. Paul says in Chapter 5, verses 6 and following,


For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.


"While we were still sinners Christ died for us"! While we were still rebellious, blaspheming, self-righteous, cold, cruel, careless sinners, our God and King made a unilateral treaty with us and signed it with His own blood!


Amazing, but not incredible!


Something you may have noticed, that's going around these days in popular American culture: The constant use of the word "incredible." "Incredible" means "not to be credited" or "not to be believed," and people use it for everything. I’ve even heard Christians use it, about things that you’d think they’d want you to believe. The other day, I heard an advert telling me to send for "This incredible set of Scripture cards!" Excuse me, if it’s unbelievable, why should I bother?


The marvellous love that God offers us in the Treaty of Calvary is not incredible. In fact, the only requirement laid upon us is that we do credit and believe it. The only thing we have to do is be like Abraham and reach out in faith and simply accept God’s promises offered to us in Jesus Christ.


And yes, God’s promise to Abraham that he would inherit the world finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. The promises of the Treaty of Calvary are better than a pledge of earthly territory and property and fishing and commercial rights. They extend from this world to the world to come, and their blessings and benefits to us will never end.


Let’s look at the terms of this treaty, here in Romans Chapter 5.


First of all, now that we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God! That means your sins are forgiven! That means that your conscience can be calm and clear!


I know what it’s like to remember some past sin, and feel unsettled about it. Maybe I’ve asked forgiveness of the person I offended, but I just don’t feel forgiven. The Holy Spirit here tells me and tells you to believe God, not our feelings. The blood of Jesus has covered our sins. We have God’s peace-- let’s enjoy it!


And through Christ we have access to God’s grace and we can stand in it. We can stop acting like it’s up to us to please God in our own paltry power. We can stop trying to put God in our debt by observing the law. Our standing with our King is all by His grace. It comes simply and solely because we belong to His righteous Son, Jesus Christ. He fulfilled the law perfectly for us, and makes us worthy to come into His Father’s presence.


And through Christ, we may boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. This boast has nothing to do with what we are or have been in ourselves-- it totally has to do with what Jesus did for us.


Under the terms of the Treaty of Calvary, we can even boast in our sufferings. For now our sufferings have meaning. Now we are fighting on the side of our Lord, the most glorious and gracious God and King, and our wounds come in His service. In Christ, our suffering does not defeat us, it makes us more like Him, in endurance, character, and hope. For in all our sufferings, the Holy Spirit pours the love of God into our hearts, the love that Jesus knew when He bore the sins of the world for our sake.


Under the terms of the Treaty of Calvary, now that we have been justified by Christ’s blood, we have been saved through Him from the wrath of God. It’s not nice or popular or modern to talk about the wrath of God against sin. But deep inside, we all know our rebellion against Him deserves it. So we excuse ourselves. Or we try to heap up good works to balance out our bad ones. Or we try to run away into pleasure or depression or busyness, anything to escape facing the wrath of God. But in Christ, that threat is removed! For the sake of Jesus’ shed blood, God our King has ceased His war against us and we have nothing to fear from Him, ever again.
That reconciliation came to be while we were still God’s enemies! So now that we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son, how much more will we be saved by His resurrection life!


For under the Treaty of Calvary, peace with God gives us so much more than His war against us being over. He doesn’t just march away and leave us on our own. No! Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ makes us heirs of all the gracious promises first offered to our father Abraham, for all those promises are Yes and Amen in God’s crucified and risen Son. Power and glory, wisdom and strength, honor, glory, and blessing: All these are ours through Jesus Christ, who defeated death and brings us with Him to His Father’s throne.


We can boast in God, because He is no longer our divine Enemy; rather through Jesus Christ, He is our Father and our eternal Friend. He has reconciled us to Himself, He has concluded His treaty of peace with us, and nothing will ever be the same.


Think what this can mean for your every day life and for mine! We have peace with the great King: how can any enemy now have any lasting power over us? And that includes the enemies that attack us within our own thoughts and minds! God has reconciled us to Himself: now we can courageously and lovingly offer reconciliation to others. He has converted us from rebels and terrorists into His loyal subjects and royal children: now we can serve Him humbly, gladly, and willingly. We can take His direction and offer the love and peace of Jesus Christ even to people we think could never deserve it.


For we did not deserve for God to make peace with us, yet He did. We didn’t force Him to give us these blessings by winning the fight against Him or by earning them by our own good works. Yet here we are, enjoying all the joys of life and hope and peace with Him.


Rejoice in that peace! Live in it! Boast in it! And more than that, offer and extend that peace to everyone you know. For when you do, though Jesus Christ your Lord you are ratifying and keeping the Treaty of Calvary.

Open-Eyed Faith

Texts: Genesis 12:1-4a; 15:1-6; Romans 4:1-5; 13-17

IMAGINE YOU’RE A MAN OF 75 YEARS, living outside a small city called Haran in Aramea, in the plains of southern Turkey. You haven’t lived there all your life: several years ago you left your native land a thousand miles away and came here with your father, your wife, and your dead brother’s son and his wife. Your father always talked about pushing on to a land farther to the west, but somehow, you never did.

Imagine that you’d never heard of Christianity, or Judaism, or Islam-- because they didn’t exist. Imagine that you’d always worshipped a myriad of gods and goddesses. Imagine that you’d heard about a divine entity known as the Most High God, but you’d never had anything much to do with Him. Imagine that you and everyone knew the Most High God had created the world, but he’d delegated all the god duties to deities like Nannar the moon god and Ishtar goddess of fertility and Shamosh, god of the sun. Imagine that you believed that even the moon god and the sun god were too high and mighty for you, that your personal gods and goddesses were spirits of rocks and trees and hills. And imagine you believed that if you went to a new country, you’d have to start worshipping new gods, because each little deity had his own turf and didn’t have any power in another land.

And now imagine, just suppose, that one day, or one night, you become aware that God Most High--the Most High God- is talking to you. Imagine that He identifies Himself as the Lord Jehovah, the God Who Was and Is and Is to Be, the Maker of heaven and earth and all that is in them. Imagine that God Most High, the Lord Jehovah, makes it clear that those other gods and goddesses you’ve been worshipping are really nothing, and that from now on, you’re to listen to Him and Him alone.

And imagine that this exalted Jehovah, the Most Exalted God, the Great Creator, tells you directly that He has a unique and world-changing plan especially for you, but you have to trust Him totally to get the benefit of it. Imagine He commands you, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house, to the land that I will show you."

But now imagine it’s not easy for you to up and leave, just like that. Suppose Haran is your forefathers’ ancestral home, even though you weren’t born there: the place where your people had always lived even though your branch had roamed off east for awhile. Suppose you fit right in back here in Haran, that you’re part of a big extended family, a tribe, and now it’s just you and your little clan that’s supposed to go blinding off into the blue with no idea where you’re all going. Suppose you’ve just become the head of your little clan, and you’re loaded with the responsibility for all your relatives and servants and slaves. And what about all your sheep and cattle? Will there be grass and water for them where the Lord Jehovah wants you to go? Where He’s taking you, will there be bandits or defensive landowners? Will the kings of those nations demand taxes or tribute from you? You have to consider all these things. It’s not a trivial thing, just to pack up and go.

So, what will you do? What’s going through your mind? Do you doubt your sanity? Do you tell yourself, "Aw, I was just hearing things!" and stay where you are? Or are you convinced you’ve really heard from the Most High God, Jehovah by Name? Will you believe He is who He says He is, and will you obey and go?

If you’re Abram son of Terah, somehow you obey. You pack up your goods and your livestock and your family and you go. You go, even though you don’t have a clue where Jehovah Most High is leading you. You go, even though the only thing your really know about Jehovah Most High is that He’s the Maker of heaven and earth and that He’s spoken directly to you. You go, and that takes a degree of faith the world has never known before or since.

There’s a reason that St. Paul calls Abraham the father of all of us who believe. We take it for granted that there’s only one God. We just assume that His power extends over the whole universe and beyond, and there’s nowhere we can go away from His presence. We know of all the mighty acts Jehovah God would do for Abraham and his descendants. God willing, we have personally experienced the saving power of the Lord when He rescued us from sin by the blood of His Son Jesus Christ. We know all this. We assume it.

But Abram didn’t assume all this. He couldn’t assume it. Until the Lord Most High called him, Abram didn’t know a thing about it at all.

One of the neatest things I learned in seminary was that all the idol-worshipping nations in the ancient Near East had some concept of a Most High God who had made the world, even though they had all sorts of bizarre ideas about Him having wives and children and doing all sorts of ungodlike things. And a neat thing I learned when I was studying for this sermon was that Abram’s people weren’t originally from Ur of the Chaldees, which is to say, from southern Iraq. They were nomadic Arameans, and though they pitched their tents wherever conditions were good for their sheep, that region up in southeastern Turkey around the headwaters of the Euphrates were their ancestral home. As Arameans, they were Semites, and they would have heard of Jehovah God, the Lord God whom alone we worship today. But their knowledge of Him would have been corrupted. Arameans like Abram would have thought that Jehovah was just another territorial or national god.

So again, think how revolutionary, how earth-shattering it was for Abram the Aramean to have Jehovah God reveal that He and God Most High are One and the Same. And not only that, but also to have Him make Abram promises that revealed that He the Lord had power over all the nations, not just the Arameans.

It took faith for Abram to pack up and go. He could have said, "Jehovah, how do I know You have any power beyond my own country? You might abandon me!" He could have called on another god to frustrate God Most High in his plans-- after all, some legends said that the sky and the earth were the sons of this god, and they’d gotten away with rebelling against him. Abram could have tried to bribe the Lord with sacrifices to make Him change His mind and let him stay in Haran.

But Abram took the Lord God at His word. He didn’t quail, he didn’t debate, he didn’t demand signs and wonders and evidence. Abram simply believed that Jehovah God was Who He said He was, that He was a righteous God, and that He had the power to keep the promises He had made to His servant Abram.

That is faith. That is the faith that pleases God. As it says in the letter to the Hebrews, "Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." We can argue that Abram wasn’t really seeking Jehovah when Jehovah called him. So much the more we should look up to our father Abraham, because he trusted in the Lord’s existence and His power to reward as soon as the Lord revealed Himself to him.

But was Abram’s faith was some meritorious deed that the Lord had to reward him for? Not at all. Abram merely did what we all ought to do, he trusted God implicitly. But even though Abram didn’t "earn" anything by his faith, the Lord by His free grace chose to reckon or credit it to him as righteousness. God declared the sinner Abram worthy to be His servant and to walk in friendship with Him. For unless God has imputed His own righteousness to us, none of us sinners can stand in His presence.

We read in Genesis 12 that the Lord promised to make of Abram a great nation. That means children, descendants of his own body. But several years later, Abram and Sarai still had no offspring. We see that by chapter 15, Abram is bold to question the Lord on how He is going to keep His promise to make him a great nation. Will it be through an adopted son, a slave like Eliezar of Damascus?

Does this mean Abram was wavering in his faith?

No, not really. For again, he demands no signs and wonders, no miraculous proof. The Lord simply assures Abram that the sons and daughters of his body will be like the stars of heaven, and again, Abram simply takes God at His word. As the Scripture says, "And he believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness."

Is that blind faith? Maybe for Abram it was. But if you’re blind and you put your trust in a faithful guide, that’s not like putting your faith in nothing at all. The path is still there and the destination is still at the end of it, even when you have to rely on someone else to get you where you have to go.

It’s like I was telling the children. A blind person with a guide dog trains with that dog. He gets to know that dog. He lives with that dog twenty-four hours a day. He relies on that dog to keep him on the right path, to get him around obstacles so he won’t bark his shins or step out into traffic. Our blind friends may not be able to see the road ahead, but the eyes of their hearts are very open to the trustworthiness of their faithful dogs. And so they snap on the leash and step out in faith.

Our God is much greater than any Seeing Eye dog. But He is not less than a Seeing Eye dog. Whatever trust a blind person can have in her dog, Abram had exponentially more trust in the Lord Jehovah, God Most High. Whatever trustworthiness a trained guide dog might have, the trustworthiness of the Lord God of heaven and earth is infinitely more.

Abram believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Abram knew he was blind to what would happen to him in the future, but he put his life and the life of all he had in the hands of the God Who Sees.

And because he did, we do not have to rely on blind faith. We don’t have to screw up our guts or our emotions and believe in believing. We don’t have to generate "faith" as if it were some force to keep Tinkerbell alive. We don’t have to manufacture faith as if faith itself were a form of work that God has to pay or reward us for. We can simply look at everything our Lord Jehovah did for Abraham and his descendants. We can receive the testimony of what He did for centuries to save and defend His people the Jews. We can trust in the overwhelming power of what Jesus the Son of God did for us on the cross.

We still need faith, but our faith is not blind. We trust in the sure word and working of our Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave His life for us. We trust that we are spiritual children of Abraham and Sarah, reckoned through their blessed offspring Son Jesus of Nazareth. And because we are their descendants in Christ, we share in the promises that the Lord God promised Abram from the very beginning. We inherit the promise of belonging to a great nation-- which is the kingdom of God. We can claim the promise of God’s blessing-- the blessing of being made a child of the eternal Father Almighty. The promise of a great name-- the great name of Jesus our Lord, at whose name every knee shall bow. The promise of many sharers in our blessing-- people of every language and nation and tribe whom God shall call into the fellowship of His Church. The promise of ultimate vindication-- the final defeat of death and the devil and of all those who follow and serve Satan, the Enemy of our souls.

All these blessings we share, because Abram that day in Haran long ago believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. All these blessings we share, because we walk in Abraham’s footsteps and believe God when He tells us that faith in Jesus alone is the only way to please Him. All these blessings we share, because we trust in the blood of the Cross to wash away our sins so we can be reckoned righteous in His sight.

What is our brother Paul’s concern? His concern is that we stop trusting in our own works to make us pleasing to God. He doesn’t even want us to have faith in faith, as if that were a work we did to make us pleasing to God. No, our brother Paul wants us to open our eyes and simply receive the gift that God is giving us, the gift of eternal life and righteousness won for us by the saving death of God’s Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

It’s true, we can’t see the consequences of trusting God and receiving that gift. But we see Jesus, who bore the cross for our sake. We see what God did for us through Him. We can have open-eyed faith that Christ is trustworthy and will fulfil all God’s promises to our father Abraham in us. We can have open-eyed faith that He is the One true God, the righteous Lord Jehovah, God Most High. And we can trust Jesus our Lord to bring us at last to the Promised Land, to the very heart and arms of our Father in heaven.

To whose Name be honor and power, blessing and glory, through Christ, with the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.