Lent 3 “Credited as Righteousness”
Cynthia O’Brien
Genesis 15, 17, Romans 4
March 19, 2006
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
GE 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. 2 I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers."
GE 17:3 Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, 4 "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. 5 No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God."
GE 17:15 God also said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her."
Romans 4:13-25
RO 4:13 It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14 For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, 15 because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.
RO 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. 17 As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations." He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed--the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.
RO 4:18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead--since he was about a hundred years old--and that Sarah's womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." 23 The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness--for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
Years ago there was a football player at Chico State named Rick McKinley. At the time, it was the number one party school in the nation, and Rick did his share of partying. After months of drunken binges, though, he began to wonder whether there was anything more fulfilling in his life than alcohol and sex. He began to long for God. So one Sunday morning, he made a point of being sober and walked to a local church to attend services. This was Rick’s first time in a church. That morning, the pastor talked about sin, and how we are all sinners, and he talked about Jesus, and how Jesus died so that God could forgive us of our sin. Rick prayed and became a Christian at age 19. (see Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz )
Lots of people can point back to the time when they came to faith, or when they converted to Christianity, or when they accepted Jesus as their savior, or however you want to describe it. They can point to a moment, like the old song says, “All my sins are washed away, I’ve been redeemed.”
All the way back in the Old Testament, we see that Abraham had a specific time when God forgave his sins. We read about it in Genesis 15:
GE 15:5 (God) took Abram 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."
GE 15:6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
God credited it to him as righteousness. In other words, God forgave his debts, paid off all his credit cards, set up a clean bank account, and cleared his credit report.
This is theologically significant. I hear people make a distinction between the Old Testament being about law and the new testament being about faith, but the truth is that everyone who is saved is saved by their faith in God by the free grace of God, and Abraham is a prime example.
Sometimes I wonder, though, why Abram believed God when God promised him offspring. After all, Abram and Sarah were very old, far past childbearing age.
But Abram believed God. Sarah, it took her a while longer to believe that God was serious. Abram believed God. And Paul explains in Romans that Abram was fully persuaded that God had the power to do what God had promised.
SO, GOD CREDITED IT TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS (based on Dan Fuller, The Unity of the Bible.)
Once you believe God, trust God, accept God, God takes away the barriers between you and God. In Romans, it seems that Paul is saying that Abraham was forgiven both his past sins and his present evil tendencies that would produce future sins. In other words, God credited him as righteous while he was still sinful so that God could get started on the great blessing God had promised. What Abraham had to do was simply believe the promise that he would be the father of many nations.
God cleared away all his anger against Abraham for his sins, so that now he could fully bless Abraham and fulfill the promises.
Now Abraham can become the hero of the faith, right? One of those “Bible Heroes” that we can look up to, the saints that we should treat as models, right?
I wish I could say that Abraham was a super righteous man. But he wasn’t. Genesis consistently portrays Abraham as a wicked man who needed forgiveness.
Look at all the rotten things Abraham did, AFTER God credited him righteousness.
First, he said Sarah was his sister so that when Pharoah took her into his harem he would not murder Abraham to get her. This was a huge sin and huge punishments followed. Another great sin was Abraham’s attempt to have a son by Hagar, his wife’s servant, and acting contrary to God’s promise that he would have a son by Sarah. Later he told Abimelech, the Canaanite king, that Sarah was his sister, again, selling her into a harem to save his own skin.
The Bible makes it clear that Abraham was a fallible person. He learned to fear God gradually over 25 years, and he made a lot of serious mistakes in that time.
Remember the college student I talked about a few minutes ago, Rick McKinley, who was such a partyer and went into a church and became a Christian? Portland writer Donald Miller talks about Rick in his book Blue Like Jazz. A few weeks after Rick started coming to church, the pastors of the church visited Rick, explained that he had been forgiven of his sins, and told him that it was important to try to live a righteous life. Rick agreed with them. After all, it would be easier to listen to the Sunday sermon if he didn’t have a hangover. So he began to choose purity over sin, but from time to time he would fail at his moral efforts. He really wanted to do the things he had done before, and before you knew it, he was doing it. Rick says that those were the most depressing moments of his life because he felt he was failing the God who saved him. He was anguished by his inability to control his desires. He felt that he had been given this new life, this key to heaven, and yet couldn’t obey Jesus in return. So one evening he got on his knees and told God he was sorry. He told God how much he wished he could be good and obedient. He then sat on the edge of his bed and swallowed enough muscle relaxants and sleeping pills to kill three people. [1]
The pastors had explained that Rick had been forgiven of his sins, but Rick could not believe it. Rick could not just believe that God really loved him and forgave him and did not want anything in return. Rick didn’t know how to receive free grace from God. Rick thought he needed to pay God back by doing things right. The harder it was for Rick to pay God back, the more he wanted to hide. It was as if God was his loan shark – that God’s love and salvation were conditional on Rick being able to do things that Rick could not manage to do.
As Rick lay in his bed waiting to die, he heard God saying to him, “Your life is not your own, but you have been bought with a price,” and he felt a certain peace. He understood that his role in his relationship with God was to humbly receive God’s unconditional love. Then he slipped into sleep.
He is still alive; it’s a miracle he can’t explain. He woke the next morning with energy, as if he had never swallowed the pills. After surviving the suicide attempt, he went to Bible college, married, had four children, and in 2000 he started a church in his living room in Portland. The church, now called Imago Dei, has been meeting in the old Laurelhurst Church and next month will move to Franklin High School because they’ve outgrown the church building.
I worshiped there a year or two ago and heard Rick preach. He delivered a sermon that was grounded on a solid Biblical foundation and packed with what I consider to be intelligent Presbyterian theology, but it was packaged in such a way that all the 20-somethings around me could take it in. He learned the hard way about God’s love, and now he’s turning around and becoming the father of hundreds of new young Christians in Southeast Portland.
Some people, in their despair, find a way out and even find God. Some people, as we’ve seen tragically this week, don’t make it back to this life.
Nick Vining was a junior at Reynolds who died tragically this past Tuesday night when he took his own life. He was a member at St. Henry Church, and an altar server there. Like you and me, he believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. No matter what Nick might do after that, no matter how much he might mess up, he was forgiven.
We don’t know why he took his life. Perhaps he forgot about how much God loved him, or about how God would forgive him no matter what. Perhaps he didn’t realize how much his friends and family cared about him. Perhaps the trials of his life seemed too great, and the temptation to escape was too strong.
I know many of you knew Nick and you’re deeply hurt at his sudden death. You need to know that Nick is in the hands of God now, the God who loves him, the God who is merciful.
Now it is time for us to remember that God gives us an offer. God holds out an offer to us, an offer of grace and blessing. All we need to do to receive that credit is to believe God. It’s not too late to believe.
Let us pray.
Merciful God, in Rick McKinley’s moment of crisis, you saved him, but in Nick Vining’s moment of despair, he didn’t make it back to this life. Some people, after coming to Christ, are able to joyfully walk a fairly straight path, while others come to you and then keep messing up. How good it is to know that you loved us all from the beginning, that you loved us when we believed in you, and that you love us still. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment