Sermon Tone Analysis

Text: Genesis 15:1-6

Theme: Being made right with God come by faith alone.

Date: 09/25/2022 File name: Patriarch_Lessons_02-2022.wpd ID Number: 58

Every world religion exists to answer two fundamental life questions.

The first question is: Does God exist?

The second is: If he does, how do I have a relationship with Him?

Let’s take that first question.

All of the mono-theistic religions answer this question with an unqualified “Yes, God exists.”

Judaism and Islam and Christianity all teach that a Supreme Being exists who created this world, and everything in the universe.

Other religious groups, such Eastern religions, Mysticism, and Spiritualism all teach that God is “alive in all things.”

ILLUS.

Think The Force of the Star Wars sagas — a cosmic energy force created by all living things.

In the original movie, Jedi Master Yoda explains the force, saying “Life creates it, makes it grow.

Its energy surrounds us, binds us.”

God is not seen as an external, all-powerful personal spirit but a part of your very own existence.

Then there is that second question: Since God does exist, how do I have a relationship with Him?

Most will answer: “In order to please God, you must be good, meet certain religious requirements, and participate in the appropriate religious rituals.”

Eastern Religions say, “Just look deep withing your own soul, and you’ll discover god there — and maybe you’ll even discover that you are a god.”

Biblical Christianity says, “No, absolutely not.”

Biblical Christianity says: “You have a relationship with God through faith alone.”

The life of Abram reveals that a right relationship with God is established and maintained by faith alone.

[Read Genesis 15:1-6]

Let me take a moment to set up the scene for you.

At the end of chapter 14, Abram has returned from rescuing his nephew Lot from some enemy kings who had taken him and his family hostage.

As he returns home there is an encounter with the mysterious priest-king Melchizedek.

Melchizedek blesses Abram and Abram gives Melchizedek one-tenth of the693 spoils of the battle with the kings.

There is a conversation between Abram and the king of Sodom who wants to reward him.

Abram refuses to take even a thread or a strap of a sandal from the King as a reward.

Chapter 15:1-6 picks up the story with God speaking to Abram, and there is an interesting mix of faith and doubt contained in Abram’s conversation with God.

Abram continues to wonder how God’s promise is going to work.

Abram still does not have any sons, and he and Sarai are not getting any younger — in fact Sarari is well-past child bearing age.

In v.2 Abram says, in essence, “God, how are you going to reward me?

I still don’t have any male offspring, and if I were to die today one of my house servants would be the heir of all that I have.”

God’s words to Abram are both a reassurance of His promise and a renewal of His covenant with the aged Patriarch.

During this conversation, God reiterates the promise he has made to Abram.

He takes Abram outside and asks him to look at the stars in the sky.

Then he promises to make Abram’s descendants as numerous as all of those uncountable stars he was viewing.

Then Moses records some of the most important words in the Old Testament: And he believed the Lord, and he [i.e. the Lord] counted it to him as righteousness.

Do you understand the magnitude of these words?

What Moses just said is this: Abram is given a right standing before God simply because he has faith in God.

How simple is that?

How profound it is!

This is the most important lesson we learn from the life of Abraham:

I. RIGHTEOUSNESS HAS ALWAYS COME THROUGH FAITH

1. if you have been ‘born from above’—or as Baptists are more likely to say—if you’ve been ‘saved’ then you’ve been justified by God

a. justification is the central doctrine of the Bible

1) it was a doctrine essentially lost for almost 1,000 years, but recovered by the preachers, pastors and theologians of the Reformation era

2) it is a doctrine that has been at the core of Baptist theology since our forefathers penned their very first Confession of Faith in 1611

ILLUS.

In that year, English Baptist pastor, Thomas Helwys wrote simply: “That man is justified only by the righteousness of Christ, apprehended by faith.”

2. the New Testament explicitly teaches that sinful man is justified (that is, he is given a right standing before a holy God) by faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord

a. how does a sinful man or woman enter into God’s presence in heaven for all of eternity?

b. by faith alone in Christ alone

1) the key word there is alone

2) they word implies the sufficiency of faith alone — not faith AND works, not faith AND religious sacrament, not faith AND religious ritual, but faith — genuine, put our life-on-the-line kind of faith that looks alone to Christ and his substitutionary death in our place

3) it is a faith that trusts in nothing else but his promise to do what he says he will

ILLUS.

Rock of Ages Cleft for me

Nothing in my hand I bring

Simply to Thy cross I cling

Naked, come to Thee for dress

Helpless, look to Thee for grace

Vile, I to the fountain fly

Wash me, savior, or I die

3. our confusion arises when we start talking about God’s plan of salvation in the Old Testament vs. God’s plan of salvation in the New Testament

a. what determined whether-or-not a person living in the Old Testament time period went to heaven or hell?

1) in other words, how was a Jewish Prophet, or a Jewish King, or a Jewish peasant ‘saved’?

b. the answer is the same: by faith

1) that begs the question: Why was the Law given in the first place?

A. THE LAW WAS GIVEN TO REVEAL THE SINFULNESS OF SIN

1. the Law was never given as a means of salvation but as a means of revealing sin and the sinfulness of sin

“What shall we say, then?

Is the law sinful?

Certainly not!

Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law.

For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting.

For apart from the law, sin was dead.”

(Romans 7:7–8, NIV)

ILLUS.

We’ve all heard the old adage: “Rules were made to be broken.”

Well no, they really were not.

Rules and laws are developed and agreed upon among men to guide our behavior in relationships to the broader culture.

They are mutually agreed upon rules that, in the end, keep us and those around us safe.

God gave Moses the Law.

It contained three specific sections: a Moral Code of behavior (best known are the 10 Commandments), a Civil or Legal Code of behavior and a Religious Code of behavior.

God dictated the Law to guide how the Israelites were to relate to their God and how they were to relate to each other.

2. when an Israelite disobeyed any of the rules in any of the three areas they were sinning against the Lord, and when you sin against the God you need the mediation of a sacrifice for your sin

a. the Law revealed the evil of sin

1) in his letter to the Christians at Rome, the Apostle Paul was blunt when he wrote,

“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.

For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”

(Romans 7:18, ESV)

2) the Law revealed the evil of sin, and our desperate need for right standing before God

b. the sacrificial system revealed the grace of God

“And all its fat he shall remove, as the fat is removed from the peace offerings, and the priest shall burn it on the altar for a pleasing aroma to the LORD.

And the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven.”

(Leviticus 4:31, ESV)

B. THE LAW WAS GIVEN TO POINT MEN TO GOD BY FAITH

1. the Apostle Paul had to address this very issue with the Christians of Galatia