Trusting Faith
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17[1]
We live in a time when it seems that
it gets harder every day to trust in the promises we hear. Of course, since the
first advertisement promoted a product that was “New and Improved!” we have
been subjected to a flood of “promises.” With all that racket going on, we’ve
learned that those kinds of “promises” aren’t meant to be kept. They’re meant
to convince us to buy something. At times, the truth is found in the “fine
print” or the hastily rattled off disclaimers at the end. Unfortunately, too
few of us pay attention to those details. And after not a few times of being
“taken,” we get to the place where we stop trusting promises altogether.
It seems that these days the better
part of wisdom is to realize that people make promises for all kinds of
reasons. Some make “promises” because they want to tell us what they know we
want to hear. Some make “promises” because they want to get something out of
us. Some make “promises” because they just like the feeling of having the power
to make someone believe something. And when these “promises” turn out to be
false, we have to wonder whether they ever intended to keep them in the first
place. It’s a sticky problem, because I don’t think one answer fits all. There
are some who mean well and promise more than they can deliver. Then there are
others who use their words to blatantly manipulate us. How do you tell the
difference?
This problem of knowing which promises
to trust comes into play with our faith. Our faith is one that built wholly on
promises—promises are the foundation, the structure, and the shape of our
faith. I wonder if sometimes it may be just as difficult to trust the promises
of our faith as it is to trust the other “promises” we encounter in life. After
we’ve been burned a few times, all “promises” begin to sound alike. So we tend
to assume that if something sounds too good to be true, then it must be. And
yet, most of the promises that serve as the basis for our faith sound “too good
to be true” to a lot of people these days.
In our lesson from the letter to the
Romans for today, St. Paul looks to Abraham as the prime example of one who
trusted in God’s promises. That makes sense, when you think about it, because
Abraham and Sarah are the place where God’s promises and our faith begin. Most
of us know the story: Abraham and Sarah lived in “Ur of the Chaldees,” or what
is modern-day Iraq. And at the age of 75, God called Abraham to leave the land
of his family and to go to a land God would show him. And the promise was that
God would make a “great nation” of Abraham, and through his offspring God would
“bless all the families of the earth.”
I think if you’re looking for the
personification of a faith that trusts God to keep his promises, Abraham and
Sarah are pretty good candidates! I’m not sure I would have had the faith to
set out on such a journey at their age. And as one passage of Scripture points
out, they set out not knowing where they were going (Heb. 11:8)! That would
have been difficult enough. But the promise was not just that they were headed
to a land that God would show them. The promise was that from their offspring
God would make a great nation. I think that was a promise that would have been
difficult to trust. After all, even in that day and time, 75 was well past the
age when someone could expect to have children.
So it seems reasonable for us to ask
what in the world would have motivated them to set out on such a journey of
faith. And St. Paul quotes from the Scriptures to answer that question:
“Abraham believed God” (Rom. 4:3, quoting Gen. 15:6). Simply put, the reason is
because Abraham trusted God to fulfill his promise. St. Paul defines this faith
in different ways: he calls it trusting in the one who “justifies the ungodly”
or “declares the guilty to be innocent” (TEV)
or “accepts sinners” (CEV; Rom. 4:5).
He also speaks of the faith of Abraham as trust in the God who “gives life to
the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom. 4:17). I
think it’s one thing to put your faith in the promise that God forgives
sinners. It’s another thing altogether to trust that God gives life to the
dead!
But St. Paul insists that this is the
kind of faith that opens the door to the forgiveness and acceptance and new
life that God offers us all through Jesus Christ. He is convinced that trusting
faith is the only way for us to have that kind of life-giving relationship with
God. Experiencing the gift of new life is something we cannot “work up” by our
own efforts. It comes only in response to faith. The reason for this is that
Paul knows that salvation “depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest
on grace” (Rom. 4:16). New life is something that rests on God’s grace. As such
it is conveyed to us by a promise. And the response to that promise is trusting
faith.
I will be the first to admit that this
kind of faith is not always easy. Sometimes, the circumstances of our lives
seem to contradict all the promises we’ve trusted. Sometimes it just seems too
good to be true that God could really be the kind of God who forgives sinners,
or who brings good out of evil, or who gives life to the dead. At times it may
take more faith than we can muster to trust those promises. That’s when we
encounter the growing pains of our faith. That’s when we learn that we find
peace in this life only by trusting God, especially when it seems beyond us. We
find ourselves renewed as we take the risk of responding to God’s promises with
trusting faith.
[1] ©2017
Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/12/2017 at Hickman
Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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