Faith: Abraham's Example

The Letter to the Romans

Faith and Justification

Abraham: The Example of a Man Justified by Faith Alone, 4:17–25

Romans 4:17–25 “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. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”

Good morning and welcome to the Countryside Vineyard, those in person and those in TV Land.

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Joe Fager and I’m one of the Pastor’s here.

This morning, we will be looking at Romans 4:17-25, a powerful passage that captures the heart of God’s promises and our response of faith. Paul uses the story of Abraham to show us what it means to trust in the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist. To fully understand this, we need to situate Romans 4 within the broader argument Paul develops in Romans 1-4.

Paul begins Romans by outlining the universal problem: human sin. Whether Jew or Gentile, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). But this isn’t just about personal moral failings; it’s about humanity's collective failure to fulfill the purpose God gave us. We were meant to reflect God’s image into the world, but instead, we’ve turned to powers who were not God, leading to corruption and death.

Romans 1-3 isn’t just a list of individual sins; it’s an indictment of how humans, as a whole, have rejected God’s glory. “We exchanged the glory of God for non-Gods.” Romans 1:23. We “exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the creator.” Romans 1:25

But God promised to reverse all this.

He told Abraham, I’m going bless the whole world through you. I will make you great nation (that’s Israel) and the whole world will be blessed (that’s the rest of us) and through that blessing your offspring will be innumerable (that’s the faith family we belong to as Christians).

Romans 3:21 through the end of Chapter 3 gives a condensed but powerful answer to how God revealed his righteousness (his faithfulness to this promise) through Jesus Israel’s Messiah representative (and as we’ll see in Chapter 5 humanity’s representative.)

Chapter 4 introduces the concept of Faith using one of the greatest examples of Faith, Abraham.

And we’ve talked a lot about Abraham’s story over the last month so we don’t really need to rehash that today.

The real point of today’s passage is to sum up the whole argument from Chapter 1 all the way to where we are now.

Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. 4:3

But what exactly did Abraham believe?

We are going to look at 4 truths about faith

But before I begin to teach, let’s Pray…

Faith is Specific (17—21)

Romans 4:17 tells us Abraham believed in the:

The God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

Here Abraham is said to have placed faith (believed) in God’s character and ability.

We may think of faith as blind optimism or a general belief that there is a God. But not so Abraham.

Abraham believed in the God who can bring life to the dead (looking forward to Christ’s resurrection no doubt) and who can make something out of nothing (looking back to creation).

In other words, we have faith in the God who can turn our impossible looking situations into something great.

Paul goes onto say that Abraham had hope when there was no hope.

I want to just ask, have you ever been in a place in life where you were out of hope?

Maybe financial trouble, maybe even you want a child but it seems hopeless, maybe relationship troubles, etc. I could go on, maybe that describes your current situation.

Abraham, when there was no hope for him and Sarah to have children, believed that God could do it, more importantly because it was tied to God’s promise believed God would do it.

18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

And you know what? God still speaks today.

Do you believe that?

If you talk to him, he will still speak and he will still make promises, maybe not as grand as the one he made to Abraham, but he still will promise this that or the other thing.

When that happens, our job is to believe the promise and wait for it in hope even when the promise seems beyond possibility, or maybe I should say because it seems beyond possibility.

Not only will God speak directly to you, but the Bible has a slew of promises that God has made to us as humans, not the least of which is eternal life with him in the New Creation.

If you need a place to start believing God, that is the place. Believe that God has a plan to renew creation and give everlasting life in that new creation to everyone who believes in Jesus Christ.

Faith Reverses the Sin Problem (v 20)

If you notice here Paul is very deliberate to show how faith reverses the original sin problem, which is disbelief.

Adam did not believe God, and took the word of the serpent above God’s word and ate the tree resulting in humanity being enslaved to the serpent (the devil, Satan, sin, death).

Vs 20 says

20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God

Remember in Romans 1 the problem was that humanity as whole rejected God’s glory exchanged it for created things (idolatry). Adam listened to the serpent instead of God, enslaving humanity to the serpent (often represented as the enslaving power of Sin in Paul’s writing, especially in Romans.)

Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Adam did not believe God and it was counted to him as sin. Abraham believed God and it was counted as righteousness.

More importantly for Paul though is that through believing God we exchange our disbelieving idolatrous hearts from sin and toward God and thus reverse the curse on humanity.

In verse 20 Paul uses language that ties directly back to what he said in 1:23-25

Humanity exchanged the glory of God for created things. Here Abraham brings glory to God by believing.

Humanity in chapter 1 exchanged truth for a lie. Here Abraham exchanges a lie for truth. The lie: You and Sarah cannot have children. The truth: God says we will.

You can’t follow a set of rules and reverse the problem. You must exchange lies for truth, and exchange your idols for God’s glory.

Faith grows through trials (19-21)

I’m going to read verses 19-21 again:

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

Abraham’s faith wasn’t blind or naive. He faced the facts about his and Sarah’s physical limitations, but he chose to trust God’s promise anyway.

Faith is not the absence of doubt but perseverance despite doubt. Abraham gave glory to God by trusting Him in the face of overwhelming obstacles.

When we imitate this type of perseverance despite what we see, we bring glory to God in the world, which is what we are supposed to be doing.

Sure there will be naysayers saying you’re crazy, but God’s promises will always be vindicated and shown to be true.

All of us will stand before him at the judgement, and I think it will be public, so that we will be vindicated in front of those very same naysayers, which ultimately brings glory to God.

But more to the point always, always, always when things seem impossible and suddenly you see the fulfillment, your faith will grow exponentially, and this happens all the time in our Christian experience.

When you exercise faith through trials and seeming impossibilities God will also strengthen your faith to help you through.

Faith doesn’t mean denying reality—it means believing that God’s power is greater than reality. Like Abraham, we are called to face our challenges honestly while holding fast to God’s promises.

Faith points to Jesus (22-25).

22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

The ultimate, the greatest, the most obvious, and most important example of God’s faithfulness to his promises was the gift of Jesus Christ.

God came in human likeness (Jesus of Nazareth) to do for humans what they could not do for themselves.

Defeat the power of sin and death.

He was handed over for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

We talked all about his being handed over to defeat sin on the cross when we were in Romans 3, but what does it mean that he raised for our justification.

When Jesus died, God punished sin which had unleased all its worst on the prefect Son of God. Jesus lived in perfect obedience to God, and thus it was the most egregious injustice that could have been brought upon a human being. When the innocent Jesus died on the cross (a most horrific death) that act condemned sin once and for all. It dealt with the sin. When Jesus was raised from the dead it vindicated him. That means it showed him for who he really was.

That is why the resurrection is so important. If that hadn’t happened then we would still be in our sins as Paul says in 1 Cor. Another word for vindication is justification. Christ’s resurrection is what justified his life and death.

And the point of all this is that those who are “in Christ” are also justified right along with him.

That is why we speak of being justified by faith. We are buried with him in baptism Romans 6 and raised to new life being fully justified before God because of our faith in Jesus.

As we prepare for communion I want to give you some takeaway’s

Is your faith specific?

Do you have faith in the God who created the world and who can bring life back to dead things?

Also with this point what dead things in your life need resurrection power?

Ask God to reveal and work on these areas with you.

Are growing in your faith as you trust God to fullfill his promises to you.

Is your faith being enhanced as you wait for God?

If not, ask God to reveal areas in your life where you are still believing lies and work to exchange those lies for the truth of God.

Have you fully committed yourself to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on your behalf?

Maybe you need to recommit yourself to this truth this morning or if you have never taken that step, now today is the day to do it.

All you have to do is tell him you believe, even if you don’t fully understand it yet. God, I believe, now teach me.

Let’s pray.

In Jesus name, let’s pray.