03.05.2023 - Second Sunday in Lent - Faith and Grace

Scripture: Romans 4:1-17

Romans 4:1–17 NRSV

1 What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. 5 But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 6 So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; 8 blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.” 9 Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only on the circumcised, or also on the uncircumcised? We say, “Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” 10 How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, 12 and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised. 13 For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation. 16 For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”)—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

Faith and Grace

03.05.2023

The Apostle Paul

Sometimes the Bible gives us the impression that heroes of the faith drop out of nowhere. However, even people like the Apostle Paul, who wrote at least 25% of the New Testament, have significant gaps in their life stories.

Paul first appears as Saul in Acts 7 and has a life-changing and name-changing encounter with Jesus in Acts 9. He stayed with a Christian leader for a time, and then we learn that he eventually began preaching about Jesus and meeting up with the other apostles. After that, they sent him off to share the gospel with the rest of the Roman Empire.

Reading the Bible, we can assemble some of the pieces between his letters and historical accounts. It is easy to imagine that God zapped Paul with a holy lightning bolt that turned him from a Jewish rabbi into a Christian preacher and church planter. But the truth is, there are about ten years between Paul’s conversion and the time he started his first missionary journey.

Three of those years, he spent in the wilderness of Arabia. Some scholars suggest that he spent time praying and preparing spiritually for the work ahead. We can compare that to the three years the disciples followed Jesus before His death and resurrection. After those three years, Paul returned to Damascus. He began practicing preaching and teaching with Barnabas, all the while trying to stay under the radar of his former associates, the Pharisees, who were still persecuting followers of Jesus. Only after praying, studying, and practicing for nearly ten years did Paul venture into his missionary work that transformed the Roman Empire.

When Paul sat down to write our scripture today, he was a seasoned bible scholar with years of experience leading, teaching, and shaping the Church. No wonder these passages from his letter to the Romans are so dense and powerful. There was nothing accidental in these passages. It was a beautiful act of God working through Paul as he deliberately wrote down years of his experience and understanding of the grace of God working in, around, and through him.

We may not always feel like it, but we are no different than Paul. Our Faith allows God's Grace to fill and empower our works to do far more than we could ever do ourselves.

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Works without Faith

Faith empowers the way we receive grace from God.

Anyone interested in making a historical argument in our nation points back to our founding fathers: Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and those that helped form the structures of our society. Paul had the task of reaching back 2,000 years to the founding father of the Jewish people: Abraham. God chose Abraham and Sarah to be the recipients of the covenant promise and the father and mother of His chosen people.

They are perfect examples of how God’s grace works. Unfortunately, neither the Old nor New Testament gives us clues as to why God chose them initially. Abraham and Sarah were not better than the people around them. If anything, they were looked down upon because they were childless and well into old age. The stories we do have about them show that they were not especially wise or exceptionally righteous. Everything about them reveals them to be an average couple in less-than-ideal circumstances.

Then God stepped into their story. Before Abraham had made any covenant with God, marked his flesh with circumcision, or made any ritual sacrifice, God invited Abraham to go on a journey to receive land, a new family, and a name that would become known across the world forever. At that moment, Abraham stepped into a holy relationship with God, acquiring a blessing beyond anything he could imagine, all without doing anything to earn it. However, to receive that righteousness, he had to step out in faith, following God, one day at a time.

Our lives are filled with lights, screens, printers, heaters, air conditioners, and many other kinds of technology that bless our lives. Most of them don’t work at all, though, if the electricity is turned off. They might look nice and impress our friends and family, but they won’t do anything without power. Likewise, the things that run on batteries can work for a while, but eventually, they become useless without being connected back to a power source and recharged.

The faith of Abraham and Sarah was like a light switch that they turned on and off as they chose to trust and follow God or turn off and turn away from Him during their lives.

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God’s Will: General and Specific

The light switch of faith that connects our works to the power of God applied to Abrahams's descendants as well. Joseph, the great-grandson of Abraham, was given dreams from God as a child. He knew from a very young age that God would make him a leader of his family. However, he did not know what he would have to do and go through to get there.

Joseph spent the first part of his life having things happen to him, most of which were not good. He did his best to follow God’s general will - the things that would later appear in the ten commandments. But he had no real direction in life and ended up in the palace dungeon in Egypt. There, he sought God’s help to interpret the dreams for others. That was a fundamental difference. Genesis 41:15-16 tell us that Joseph did not have that ability himself, but he sought God’s help and direction in the troubles before him.

God gave Joseph specific directions. For example, God told him to prepare for an abundant harvest by building houses to store grain instead of throwing celebrations because tough years were coming. Nothing in the scriptures alone would give you that kind of specific direction from God, and Joseph didn’t even have the scriptures back then. To get to God’s specific will, you must know and trust God and have an active relationship with Him. Like Abraham, it took Joseph having faith in God and following His specific and general directions to fulfill his calling and save his people from starvation.

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Faithful Grace

The devil tries to make us feel overwhelmed when we attempt to figure out God’s will for our lives. He will distract us with thoughts of earthquakes and floods, fires and tornados, and problems that everyone else in the world is facing so that we don’t stop and take a good look at our own lives.

Brothers and Sisters, the truth is far less mysterious than you will hear from the world. The vast majority of scripture gives excellent guidance on God’s general will for us. Most of the time, we question it when we are looking for loopholes, not trying to figure out how to obey them. However, there are a few scriptures that probably need some follow-up guidance to understand how we can follow them. Fortunately, Jesus taught about some of them directly, so we can use the whole bible to help interpret those tricky verses we come across. So, again, not overwhelming and not challenging to find out what God’s general will is for us.

The tricky part is getting to God’s specific will for our lives. The Bible is not like a fortune cookie that you can open up and figure out what to do each day from the text alone. It takes a living relationship with God to reach that point; that extra seeking makes all the difference.

I only met Jerry Ritter for a few months and never had the privilege of meeting Margaret. But I have heard stories from you about how much of a gift of God’s grace they were to our church. I’m confident that if you asked Jerry or Margaret what God’s general will for them was, they could have told you about serving, giving, reading the scripture, praying, and treating others with God’s love. I do not doubt that they came to a point where they led others by their words and especially their actions to do the same. I also do not doubt that they would have been a blessing from God to any other church they might have chosen to attend or any other group of friends with whom they chose to associate. But instead, God’s specific will brought them here to share their life with us, and that obedience to serve God faithfully where he sent them made all the difference to us. You probably know dozens, if not hundreds, of others who faithfully followed God’s specific will and made a difference in your life.

Who is God calling you to share his grace with?

Finding God’s specific will for your life is not difficult, but it takes patience and trust, like gathering rainwater. You cannot control when it rains to fill your rain barrels, but you can get set up and prepared and uncover them when you see the dark clouds rolling in.

To find God’s specific will for your life, you need to know His general will first, and you won’t find a better place to start than the Bible. The more you know the scripture, the more you are exposed to Who God is and what He wants from all of us. Second, you need a growing relationship with God that starts and ends with prayer. Having a relationship with someone you never listen to or talk with is challenging. Finally, because we are not perfect and can sometimes be led astray on our own, you need other Christians around you to study and pray with, so if you or I get a crazy notion in our head that is not from God, they can let us know. You need people you can trust who will tell you if a thought is from God, just from yourself, or someone trying to lead you astray. If you seek God in scripture and prayer, He will lead you to the right people, and you will be well on your way to living out God’s specific will for your life. In the church, we call that Discipleship.

That is why the church exists. To help people live according to God’s will. To be and to make disciples of Jesus. No other group or organization in the world can do that.

Will you seek God’s will in your life today so that all you do will be done faithfully and filled with God’s life-giving grace?

Communion Liturgy

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is right, and a good and joyful thing,

always and everywhere to give thanks to you,

Father Almighty (almighty God), creator of heaven and earth.

You brought all things into being and called them good.

From the dust of the earth you formed us into your image

and breathed into us the breath of life.

When we turned away, and our love failed, your love remained steadfast.

When rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights,

you bore up the ark on the waters, saved Noah and his family,

and made covenant with every living creature on earth.

When you led your people to Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights,

you gave us your commandments and made us your covenant people.

When your people forsook your covenant,

your prophet Elijah fasted for forty days and forty nights;

and on your holy mountain, he heard your still small voice.

And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven,

we praise your name and join their unending hymn:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,

heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ.

When you gave him to save us from our sin,

your Spirit led him into the wilderness,

where he fasted forty days and forty nights to prepare for his ministry.

When he suffered and died on a cross for our sin, you raised him to life,

presented him alive to the apostles during forty days,

and exalted him at your right hand.

By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection

you gave birth to your Church, delivered us from slavery to sin and death,

and made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit.

Now, when we your people prepare for the yearly feast of Easter,

you lead us to repentance for sin and the cleansing of our hearts,

that during these forty days of Lent we may be gifted and graced

to reaffirm the covenant you made with us through Christ.

On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread,

gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said:

"Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me."

When the supper was over he took the cup,

gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said:

"Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant,

poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ,

we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving,

as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ's offering for us,

as we proclaim the mystery of faith.

Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here,

and on these gifts of bread and wine.

Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ,

that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood.

By your Spirit make us one with Christ,

one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world,

until Christ comes in final victory, and we feast at his heavenly banquet.

Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy Church,

all honor and glory is yours, almighty Father (God ), now and for ever.

Amen.

You are invited to join us again for worship at 6 pm this evening. Sunday school begins in just a few minutes and we would love for you to join us there as well.