HOW TO BE RIGHTEOUS BEFORE GOD

HOW TO BE RIGHTEOUS BEFORE GOD Genesis 15:6 May 18, 2008 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction Jesus regularly redefined what is and what is not possible. He transmuted water into wine, walked on water and through walls. With a single touch He hardwired a blind man’s brain, recreated synaptic connections between his optical nerve and his visual cortex. He raised people from the dead and He himself rose on the third day after being pronounced dead and put into a grave. Jesus said, I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these… (John 14:12) In fact, He said, Everything is possible to him who believes (Mark 9:23) In the classic story, Alice in Wonderland, “Alice laughed: ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said; ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’ ‘ I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!’” If the operative element is faith, let’s consider the topic of faith—or, believing in impossible things—in the life of the one the New Testament calls the father of all who believe, Abraham. Genesis 14 records for us the account of Abraham going out against enemies who outnumbered his clan enormously, in order to rescue his nephew Lot and his family. At the close of that chapter, he meets with the intriguing and mysterious king of Salem, Melchizedek, who blesses him. The Story of Abram (Abraham) Verse one of chapter 15. After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” But Abram said, “O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.” When a man had no children in those days his estate was left to his chief servant. You’ll remember that God had promised two decades ago that the childless couple, Abram and Sarah, would be parents—in fact, He said that Abram’s family of descendants would be a great nation. But poor Abram and his wife were about 90 years old now, and no kids! Now he brings the dilemma before the Lord, worried that the nation of Abram would die out and Eliezer of Damascus would inherit the promises. Verse 4 . . . Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And verse 6 will make it clear that Abram believed God, that is, he confessed that he trusted God and what God was telling Him. Biblically, to “believe” means to trust or rely on someone and on what that someone tells you. The word used in Genesis 15 for “believed” is the same root as the word “Amen,” suggesting the security of a trusting relationship. We know what that means—we rely on things and on people all day every day. Though you rarely think about it as such you “trust” your calendar and your clock to orient you to date and time. You wake to the alarm, you were fairly certain the light in the bathroom would come on when you flipped the switch. You tuned in to the news channel and, for the most part, believed the newscaster’s report—up until the editorial comments, anyway. You even, perhaps foolishly, believed the weather forecast! These are all matters of faith, though we give them little thought, because we long ago learned to rely on such things. Consider the chair you are sitting on right now—you probably didn’t even consider whether it would hold you as you sat down and rested your full weight on it, did you. By the way, Mike told me the other day, and I forgot to announce it that there are two chairs that have weak welds on the frame and it’s possible they could collapse. I think they were mistakenly set out with the others. . . A national magazine assigned a photographer to take pictures of a forest fire. They told him a small plane would be waiting at the local airport to fly him over the fire. He arrived at the airstrip just before sundown and, sure enough, a small Cessna was waiting on the tarmac. He jumped in with his equipment and shouted, "Let's go!" The pilot, who looked a little tense, turned the plane into the wind, and soon they were in the air. "Fly over the north side of the fire," said the photographer, "and make several low-level passes." "Why?" asked the nervous pilot. "Because I’m going to take pictures! "I'm a photographer, and photographers take pictures." The pilot replied, "You mean you’re not the flight instructor?" Beside the more or less automatic or reflex trusting we do, there are other, more important things we take a little more seriously as we decide whether they are reliable enough to trust. It’s an interesting list, you know: politicians, televangelists, computer security, car salesmen, the person who asks for your social security number (there’s another increasingly dubiously trust- worthy item – Social Security), pedophiles, ex-cons, hitchhikers. God! How about God? Can you trust what He says? How about when He’s let you down? Or, perhaps you’ve begged Him to reveal Himself more fully to you and you get nothing? How about His promises—they never seem to arrive, or never on time, or never quite the way you expected. Our neighbors must bethinking about such questions. The wife and mother is quite sick with an unknown ailment and worrisome symptoms. We’ve put God on the spot—we’ve promised to pray for her, asking God’s healing. We’ve prayed with them, stepping out audaciously in faith, thanking God for His power to heal and brazenly inviting Him to touch this woman. We believe in God’s goodness and His power, even if we don’t receive the precise answer we trust Him for. But will they? Could you trust God if he promised you a child twenty years ago and you’re still childless? How about if you’re now 90 years old and you can’t even remember the last time you seriously thought about procreation? How about if the only two other times you heard from God, you ended up on a 600-mile desert journey dragging all your belongings and not knowing where you were going; and the second time you heard from Him you ended up in a war with four maniacal kings and their armies? Observations About Abram’s Faith Did you notice the first line in Abram’s vision from God? “Do not be afraid, Abram.” Can you guess why that was the first thing he heard? He IS afraid! He and his 318 family fighters have just routed and humiliated one of the most ferocious warrior kings west of Mesopotamia, and three of his crony king neighbors and their thousands of foot soldiers. You bet he’s afraid. He knows that retaliation is on the mind of old Kedorlaomer. The man of faith is quaking in his sandals! And God comes to him with this message: “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” Three things ought to comfort us here: first, the great man of faith is experiencing fear, just like we do. When you feel fear it does not mean your faith has died. It probably does mean your faith is currently being tested. As counter-intuitive as it seems, you may be feeling scared, but still be rock solid in your faith. In fact, if the Bible is clear on anything it is clear that going through troublesome times always leads to a strengthening of faith. The second comforting thing we discover here is that when we are afraid, God knows and understands. God is not only aware, but He comes to us in the midst of the trial in creative ways to reassure us that we are in His hands, and come what may, we will be safe, and His good will for us will prevail. So Abram receives the comfort of God in his time of fear. The Lord reminds him that He is Abram’s shield. He told him that precisely because in his fear, Abram didn’t feel shielded—he felt defenseless. Thirdly, Abram was not called a man of faith because he had this season of fear, but because he survived that season and was the stronger for it. Hebrews 11 is the Hall of Faith. Every one of the faith heroes in that list have this in common: they faced great trials, and through their faith in God they were victorious. Aren’t you glad the Spirit of God is in your heart, Christian, reminding you that you are a child of God? Romans 8:15-16 brings to us reassurance as real as Abram’s vision was to him: …you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. And later in that chapter, …if God is for us, who can be against us? It was in May of 1995 that 34-year old Randy Reid, was welding on top of a nearly completed water tower outside Chicago. He unhooked his safety gear to reach for some pipes when a metal cage slipped and crashed into the scaffolding he stood on. The scaffolding tipped, and Reid fell 110 feet, landing face down on a pile of dirt, just missing rocks and construction debris. When paramedics arrived, they found Reid conscious, moving, and complaining of a sore back. That’s all! Apparently the fall didn't cost Reid his sense of humor. As paramedics carried him on a backboard to the ambulance, Reid had one request: "Don't drop me." Fear is a funny thing. God protects us from harm in a 110-foot fall, but we're still nervous about three-foot heights. We’ll never in this world be free of danger; but we can be free of fear. As he is reassured by God’s word to him, Abram is reminded of the other thing that’s bugging him. As though he was saying, “Thanks for that reminder, Lord, but there’s one more thing . . . this whole business of having many descendants? What’s with that? We’re pushing a hundred years old—no kids, there’s no desire and, well, there’s the impotence thing. Can you give me some kind of sign that this promise is alive, ‘cause, I gotta’ tell you, I’ve pretty well resigned myself to giving everything to Eliezer, my servant. I’m thinking what you told me about having more descendants than the dust is more like “dust in the wind.” I imagine a whole new wave of fear came over Abram about then, as he realizes he’s just called God’s promises into question. “I’m supposed to be a man of faith! I hope I didn’t go too far with my questions.” But he hadn’t. You know, if there’s one thing God loves, it’s honesty. Psalm 51 tells us that God desires “truth in the inner parts.” He’d much rather we open up to Him in prayer than try to masquerade some caricature of faith that sounds good. Hey, He knows our hearts already! It’s comforting to know that we don’t need to worry about offending God with our questions, even if we’re questioning the very promises we’re supposed to be trusting. Child of God, always remember that He wants you to express your honest thoughts to Him. His desire is that we say what we are thinking; trying to look holier and more trusting than we actually are is not faith—it’s duplicity. God isn’t mad at you when you ask questions. It’s not an anemic faith that asks questions, but a strong faith. What Abram was doing was expressing his doubts through his questions. How difficult it is when we think that having doubts is antithetical to faith. How refreshing is the story of the desperate man whose son was demon possessed and in constant danger of self-injury. He brought the boy to Jesus and just as he was describing the way the demonic seizures knocked him to the ground and beat him up, it happened. Down he went into the dust. He foamed at the mouth and rolled around, writhing under the oppression. The father said, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” “If you can?!” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.” “ I DO believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” Right away Jesus cast out the evil spirit. The text at Mark 9 doesn’t expressly say it, but it seems to me Jesus was responding not only to the man’s admittedly small faith, but also to the honest and childlike admission of his need. That’s a great prayer, by the way, and one the Lord is quick to answer: I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief. Experiencing doubt is not a sin; nor, again, is it a symptom of faithlessness. It is the most natural thing for sinful human beings even saved sinful humans. One day, in heaven, we will no longer have to wrestle with doubt. But for now, we need to be reminded that doubt, far from being thoroughly bad for faith, is actually a stepping stone to greater faith. Samuel Rutherford once wrote, "If God had told me some time ago that he was about to make me as happy as I could ever be in this world, and told me he should begin by crippling me in arm or limb, and removing me from all my usual sources of enjoyment, I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing his purpose. And yet, his wisdom is manifest even in this! For if you should see a man shut up in a closed room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps, and then throwing open the shutter to let in the light of heaven." One thing is for sure. We do not have all the answers. God does, and He has chosen to keep most of them to Himself. We know this—if we had more answers, we’d have less faith. God is at work in your life when you fear and when you doubt. He doesn’t condemn these feelings, but urges us on to more growth through them. We also know that it is the struggles in our lives that keep us seeking the Lord. It is when we’re troubled that we know most certainly that we need Him. So we draw near to Him. And that’s not only good for us, but it is exactly what God wants, too. During the nineteenth century attempts to ship fresh North Atlantic cod from Boston to San Francisco were failing At that time the best way to ship the fish to the West Coast was to sail around the South American continent--a trip that took months. As you can imagine, the first attempts to dress the cod in Boston and pack them in ice failed miserably. By the time they reached California, the fish weren't fit for consumption. The cod were placed in holding tanks full of water, shipped to California alive, and dressed there. The results were less than satisfactory. The fish didn't get much exercise during the trip, and as a result they were pasty and relatively tasteless. Finally, someone hit upon an interesting idea. "Why don't we put some catfish in with the cod?" Why? Because catfish are cods' natural enemy. Sure enough, when a few catfish were placed in those tanks with them, the cod remained continually alert and swimming around, and stayed healthier because of it. This time, when the fish reached San Francisco, they were in perfect shape. Conclusion The key verse is 15:6. Abram believed the LORD and he credited it to him as righteousness. Neither Abram nor we could ever be righteous before God on our own effort. Our sinfulness ensures we will never be able to measure up. But God made it up for us through Jesus’ sacrifice. And he “credits” our account with the righteousness of Christ. There is nothing impossible for God. Not one of your problems keeps God up at night taking Mylanta. I want to close by referencing the primary and most profound impossibility: that we sinful human beings could ever stand in the presence of the holy God, let alone enjoy intimate fellowship with Him. Jesus even said, With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God. (Mark 10:27) God has made lots of rules and principles by which to govern the universe. Some of His most profound and under-appreciated are gravity, chronology and energy. But He often defies them, sometimes it seems simply because He can. He truthfully said, The wages of sin is death. But He paid the debt Himself. He makes donkeys talk, seas part, ax heads float, storms stop with a single command, hungry lions refuse to eat, the sun stands still, city walls are leveled with the sound of voices, disabled from birth a man is instantly able walk and jump. And spiritually dead people are born again simply by trusting Him. The fact of the matter is, this whole encounter between God and Abram was finally fulfilled in the coming of Christ. And Romans 4:16 – Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. The grace of God is available to everyone. And there is only one way to enable it in your life: by believing in Him, trusting Him. What exactly do we need to trust? The gospel of Christ: He died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, he was buried, and he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. There is not a single additional thing you can do to be righteous before God—not one. If you’ll trust Him, He’ll bring you into a fully reconciled relationship with Him.   [Back to Top]