Lent 2A, 2020

Gen 12:1-3, Rom 4:1-8

Goodwood Uxrbidge Lutheran Church

1: What is this blessing? The kingdom of God

When Abraham was called out by God from his homeland in southern Iraq, He was called to a be made into a great nation, to be blessed and become a great name, indeed even a blessing to others, to ALL others. I don’t think anyone would be surprised to learn that its no small promise to be told that you will bless all the families of the earth. Few men in history have come close to the title of “blessing of the entire world.” Sure, we’ve got men such as Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla who learned to harness energy in ways that we now in the west could not think of life without. Artificial lighting, electrical heating, automobiles, refrigerators and more would be just a fable of science fiction without these men. But even in such things that have blessed billions of people over the years, not everybody has access to them or even knows that they exist. No, Abraham’s blessing was much more universal than that, it extended to every family on the whole earth. And how about the nature of this blessing? Surely becoming a father of a nation, a great name, and even inheriting the entire geographical region now known as Israel is a small blessing to the wider world when compared with those who worked to put hospitals and schools across the globe, at least doctors have saved peoples lives, right? Wrong. Abraham’s promise was not to become a physical earthly nation. It was not that the geographical nation of Israel would bless all families of the earth with material protection, growth, scientific advancement or otherwise. The child of promise born to him would be born of an old man in his twilight years and a woman to suit, not only exceeding in age, but barren throughout her life. This birth was not possible by earthly standards. And when His faith succumbed to his reason in despair the doubting Abraham slept with his wife’s handmaid in order that God’s promise might be fulfilled with some aid by his own hand, as if to think that God only helps those who help themselves. But try as he did Abraham did not move along God’s promise any more than pagan rain dances bring harvests. God rejected Ishmael, Abraham’s physical seed. There was no way that God was going to let Abraham think that his own efforts had anything to do with God keeping his promises to him. In the end, Abraham would be forced to part with this physical son. The promised seed could be nothing other than a miraculous work of God beyond natural possibility – life from the barren womb of a woman in her 90s planted by the seed of a 100-year-old man. This could be nothing other than the work of God, man’s involvement was incidental at best. Man’s work doesn’t help or facilitate God’s promises, our work is the hindrance and obstacle that God’s promises miraculously overcome. It was the beginning of the nation of promise, a foretaste of the church was being manifest here in the birth of Isaac – the beginning of the fulfillment of Abraham’s promise that He would be the father of many nations and bless the whole earth. This nation of promise that Abraham would be the father of, it wouldn’t be geographical, it wouldn’t be physical or genetic, and neither would be Abraham’s blessing to others. The call of Abraham was a call of faith, a call to give up that which men wrought by hands; homeland, family, friends, career, reputation, sacrificing all in reckless abandon to cast himself upon God’s greater promise, a promise so great that it can turn the mad man into scoffer and skeptic. This is seen in the highest form in Abraham’s life when God calls him to sacrifice the promised seed, Isaac. Only a man, willing to sacrifice his son, his only son, the promised son, would be able to by faith receive from God a son, a nation, a kingdom, a King, a Christ.

2. How is this kingdom possible? In Christ, from nothing

This is what Paul wants us to understand and in full. “What then shall we say was gained by Abraham our father according to the flesh?” (Rom 4:1) Absolutely, positively nothing. In fact, it was all that Abraham had by flesh that he was called to abandon so as to gain the world by faith (Rom 4:13). And it was by faith because it is only faith; a hope in things not seen (Heb 11:1) that can grasp the impossible and the unreasonable. A child, born from a 90-year-old barren womb, a nation born from a sojourner, a city whose architect and builder is God (Heb 11:10). It is only one who walks by this impossible faith that can see the kingdom of God. I will make you, O barren one, the father of all the faithful, I will make you, O nationless one, the father of many nations, I will make you O lowly one, the blessing of all the earth. How? Through Christ. Only through Christ can the impossible come to pass. Only in the impossible one. In God made flesh, in the one born out of a virgin’s womb, in the one in whom the finite contains the infinite, where the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. In the one whom the righteous is made sin, where God is killed, where death brings forth the life of all, where the sinner is declared righteous, who is made “my son.” This IS the nation promised to Abraham, Christ’s kingdom. A kingdom built by God. A kingdom created from nothing, ex nihilo.

3. How do we enter this kingdom? We are born into it

Nicodemus too looked for this kingdom. And when Jesus said to him in the third chapter of John that one must be born again before he could even see this kingdom he was confounded. How is that a person can be born when he is old? It is impossible no? How is it a woman, barren her whole life could give birth in her 90s? It’s not. How is it that a man who abandoned the country of his patronage to wander off on a wild goose chase guided by a voice in his head could become the father of many nations, the blessing of every single human being? It’s not. Neither is it possible that you, a sinner, who mistreats their spouse, who is a common exhibit of extreme road rage, a gossiper, a hater, a luster, a coveter, would be declared righteous. That you, a sinner beyond dispute sitting in that pew could be anything but damned to hell is impossible. Yet, listen to the words of Jesus, “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” It doesn’t make sense that you’re saved. But that’s probably because you didn’t save yourself. Surely people thought that Abraham was insane for looking for a city that didn’t actually exist, but that’s only because the city wasn’t built by men. Surely, they thought that Abraham was crazy for believing that Abraham would bear a son by the womb of Sarah, even Sarah did. But that was because man’s efforts didn’t help in the birth of Isaac, but it was man’s efforts that God overcame in the birth of Isaac. So, it is with our own salvation. Brethren, where do you look for your assurance of salvation? Your good works aren’t helping along the fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation to you, they’re the hindrance and obstacle He overcomes. You want to know how you were saved? You were born of water and the Spirit. The waters of grace washed over you and engulfed your flesh. And just as the water cleansed your skin of dirt, your soul was proclaimed cleansed of sin, your person, a child of the living God, blessed by God, and by God sent out to bless others. And how might that be, that room temperature tap water could wash away the sins of a person such as you, and such as I? It can’t. As we confess in Luther’s Small Catechism, “how can water do such great things? It is not the water indeed which does it, but the Word of God in and with the water and faith which trusts this Word of God in the water.” The Word of God. That same Word which spoke into the darkness, “let there be light” and there was. That spoke into the depth of our hopeless death, saying “life” and there was. How might one see the kingdom of God? God must speak over you, “you are my son,” in baptism. God must proclaim over you that by the blood of Christ your sins are atoned for, that you are a royal priesthood, co-heirs of all creation. And He does, and He has. It literally took a miracle to save you from yourself. But you ARE in Christ, by His blood you ARE clean of sin. Before any of us get the idea that our salvation had anything to do with our willingness to obey Christ, our birth into a Christian family, or our devotion to the daily reading of Scripture and private prayer, remember this, New Birth is called birth for a reason. You didn’t do it, someone gave birth to you. It took a miracle to save you from yourself, and as you might know, miracles are not something that our God is short of. Creation, sustenance, the gift of life, happiness, diversity, art, reason, these aren’t things we made. Our God is an ex nihilo God. A “from nothing” God. From nothing, comes salvation. From sin and unbelief comes righteousness and adoption into the family of God. Matthew 16:24-27: “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.” He will repay each person according to what he has done. I ask you fellow Christian, what have you done? There are many of us who will only take salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone if we can take our works alongside Him as some kind of back up assurance. Yeah, God promised I would become a great nation, but I slept with my barren wife’s handmaid to bring that promise about. No, no, no. Even my good works scream crucify. There is one, and only one remedy, brothers and sisters. “The Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” On that cross, bearing your sin, that Jesus died your death, suffered your hell, and was buried in your tomb. And miraculously three days later, He rose again to bring you new life, in a glorified body that you now await, to walk in a newness of life that you can now begin.

4. Justified sinners, a monergistic promise

If I were to say the great reformation era Latin phrase, Simul Justus et Peccator, what might go through your mind? Would you wonder at what time the church service ended and the ecclesiastical Latin lecture began? Or would you repent and believe in Christ Jesus afresh for all the gifts that He has given you through His blood delivered to you in Word, in Baptism, and soon in the Supper as He does every week? Simul Justus et Peccator; simultaneously just and sinner. Known commonly as Simul for short, theologians since the reformation have used this phrase as a shorthand for the truths of our place in-between law and gospel, as saved sinners, deserving only hell for the works of our hands, yet receiving heaven by faith in Christ. The Christian faith, the faith of the Simul, is the religion of God’s paradoxical mercy. In Christ, by faith, we are no longer subject to God’s wrath under the condemnation of the Law but receive in full His perfect righteousness counted to our person as if it were our own. Yet before the law which calls us to walk in love and grace, we find a standard which our hands cannot meet. We have not loved God with our whole heart, we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves. We have sinned in thought, word, and deed, and yet, you stand before God not only as one free of any defect or misdeed, but as one who has lived a life full beyond measurable capacity of grace, mercy, and love. “5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” Not by your will, not by your effort, and not by your works, you are saved by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus your Lord. Go forth and walk in the life that He has bought for you. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.