Credit Check
Notes
Transcript
1 So what are we going to say? Are we going to find that Abraham is our ancestor on the basis of genealogy?
2 Because if Abraham was made righteous because of his actions, he would have had a reason to brag, but not in front of God.
3 What does the scripture say? Abraham had faith in God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.
4 Workers’ salaries aren’t credited to them on the basis of an employer’s grace but rather on the basis of what they deserve.
5 But faith is credited as righteousness to those who don’t work, because they have faith in God who makes the ungodly righteous.
Credit Check
Credit Check
An article in the US News and World Report starts out an article with these words:
“It’s the big day – you dress to impress, print extra copies of your resume and don a winning smile. Unfortunately, you might be destined to fail before you ever walk into that job interview, despite your rock-solid qualifications.
A recent survey by CareerBuilder found that 72 percent of employers conduct background checks on prospective employees and include a credit check in 29 percent of cases. That means if you have a dark financial past, it could come back to haunt you during the job application process.
What Are Employers Looking for in Your Credit Report?
Just as lenders review your credit report in order to glean some idea of how you will behave as a borrower, employers also review credit reports of prospective employees.
Credit reports, which detail your history of borrowing and paying back money, can shed some light on how you will perform as an employee.” [1]
As I read that I wondered if there was a credit score for Christians, and faith was the indicator of that score, what would my faith credit score be? Where would your score be?
Paul opens this chapter with an interesting question.
1 What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?
To help clarify that, let me read it from a different translation Romans 4:1 “1 So what are we going to say? Are we going to find that Abraham is our ancestor on the basis of genealogy?”
In the church you often here the founder of the denomination quoted in order to validate a position. You might hear me quote or reference Phinease Bresee the one given credit for founding the Church of the Nazarene. You might also hear me reference Francis Asbury or John Wesley as the founders or early leaders of Methodism.
If you were in a Lutheran church you would hear reference to Martin Luther. If you were in a Mennonite church you might hear reference to Menno Simmons.
The Jews did the same thing back in Paul’s day. Even though there were 12 tribes that went back to Jacob, they went a few generations further back and traced their spiritual genealogy to Abraham.
God picked Abram of all people on the earth to bless him and bless all people through him.
1 The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your land, your family, and your father’s household for the land that I will show you.
2 I will make of you a great nation and will bless you. I will make your name respected, and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, those who curse you I will curse; all the families of the earth will be blessed because of you.”
4 Abram left just as the Lord told him, and Lot went with him. Now Abram was 75 years old when he left Haran.
We know the story of him. He and his wife were unable to have children. God eventually makes a covenant with him. We read about it in Genesis 15 and it details the extent of the land that God was giving to Abram and his descendents.
The Jews claimed their righteousness, their access to God because of God’s promise to Abraham.
So when was it that Abram was declared righteous? Was it when he left home in Ur of the Chaldees to follow God that he was declared righteous? No!
Was it when he took Isaac his son to Mount Moriah in obedience to offer him as a a sacrifice that God declared him righteous? No
Listen to what is recorded in that chapter.
6 And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
It was when Abram believed in God. In that moment he was justified through faith.
When is a person saved? In the Gospel reading earlier, Nicodemus asked that very question. What did Jesus say to him?
The New King James Version (Chapter 3)
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Jesus explains what he means by that in the following verses and then in that grand verse he says
John 3:16 “16 God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.”
Believes in him - Jesus - is where faith comes into play and we are born again.
We frequently hear people say that we are all God’s children. This idea comes through the Jewish belief that just because they can trace their genealogy back to Abraham makes them righteous.
Jesus refutes that idea in this section from John’s Gospel. Jesus says there that God didn’t send him to condemn the world. Why? Because the world was already condemned because of sin.
He said “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18)
This ties into what Paul was writing about in his letter to the Romans. Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness.
That is the only way to the Father. Belief in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Jesus said John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Jesus is the only way to the Father. This is the message that we are to carry into the world.
Going back to what Paul’s letter he said that Abraham believed. He then writes something that I really hadn’t noticed before. Remember last week that I said that I often read scripture and find something new? Look at verse 4 of our text.
4 Workers’ salaries aren’t credited to them on the basis of an employer’s grace but rather on the basis of what they deserve.
Friday was payday for a lot of people. They did not receive their wages because they had worked and they were being paid what they deserve. The employer is not showing them any grace, they are simply paying them what they are owed.
Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. He received that righteousness by God’s grace.
If we back up a little bit into chapter 3 we read why Paul is writing this.
God created us to be in relationship with Him. From Adam and Eve all the way to Generation Alpha, God has wanted a love relationship with us.
Paul wrote
23 All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory,
All of us have sinned. Over in chapter 6 Paul wrote that the wages of sin is death. Clarence Bence in his commentary on this passage wrote:
Romans: A Bible Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Chapter 4: Faith (Romans 3:21–31))
Sin is not merely the disruption of cosmic harmony (although we sense the lack of unity because of sin); nor is it provoking God’s wrath by doing what displeases him. And although God holds us accountable for violating His moral standard, it is not our disobedience of the law that is the core of our problem. Sin is our faithlessness to the relationship.
There is a coming judgement. We don’t know all the details on how it will happen, but everyone of us will give an account to God. Bence suggested two questions that we will have to answer:
1 - How did you measure up to God’s standard of holiness and moral purity?
God’s standard is absolute holiness and purity and we could easily say that there is no way that we can live up to that. We would be correct in say that “we can’t.” But, God has given Himself, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity to live within us and transform us into the likeness of Jesus.
The answer to this first question is answered in how much are we allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us. Have we yield control of our lives to Him? When we die to ourselves we live for Christ.
2 - What did you do with the knowledge you received of God’s grace in Jesus?
Did you keep it to yourself or did you give it away? The Gospel message is not to be kept and hoarded, it is to be given away.
16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all
Jon Corson wrote:
Jon Courson’s Application Commentary Chapter 4
Salvation must be by faith. If it were by works, we would always wonder if we were really saved. We would feel like we had to come forward every service and get baptized every Sunday. We would walk around feeling beat up, cast down, and done in continually. But when we understand that our relationship with the Lord is not based upon anything we do or don’t do other than simply believing, salvation becomes something we are not afraid of losing every week.
Salvation: The Father thought it. The Son bought it. The Spirit taught it. The Bible brought it. Satan fought it. But, praise the Lord, by His grace, we got it!
So, how is your Spiritual Credit this morning. Have you received salvation by faith through the Grace of God in Jesus?
[1] Bond, C. (2019, October 31). How Employment Credit Checks Work. U.S. News & World Report. https://money.usnews.com/credit-cards/articles/when-do-employers-check-your-credit