(Text Only)
Title: Conclusions from Chapter 4
v18 “contrary to hope, in hope believed…” I know the English translation of what Paul wrote in Greek can be a bit confusing here. What Paul is saying is that “rational hope” was that there was no realistic way that Sarah could have a child at 90 years old. Despite the “facts” Abraham believed and had “irrational hope” that what God said he was going to do, he would in fact do.
Application: Perhaps we have made the American Christian lifestyle a little too rational. Everything has to fit neatly with what the secular world thinks and “knows” about our existence. You know this line of thinking.
“How can you believe in creation? Evolution is a Scientific Fact!”
“Well, perhaps when Genesis says that on the sixth “day” God created man that to God a “day” is billions of years and in that time evolution created man as we know him.”
Have we become too afraid to say, “I don’t care what science says about the world. The Bible is Truth, it doesn’t need to answer to science and man. Science and man need to answer to it!”
V19-21 (read)
Abraham did not consider the “reality” of his situation. He casted aside the fact that he was 100 years old. He casted aside the fact that Sarah was 90. Abraham knew one thing: The one, true God told him that his wife would conceive and bear a son, and that was enough for Abraham to believe.
Application: Do you understand what it means to have the faith of a child? Belief beyond explanation. Expectation beyond factual evidence. God said it. I believe it. That settles it. Where our faith suffers, where our walks grow weak is in that very moment when there is tension between what God told us He would do and what we decided is possible, and in that critical moment we compromise.
To make ourselves more comfortable, we take a little truth from the Bible, and a little Truth from the world and make our own truth serum.
(Seminary example of the lemonade and the chocolate milk.)
V21 “therefore”
And because of this faith, God saw him as righteous! God knew. God knew that Abraham was fully aware of his own age. God knew that Abraham was fully aware that Sarah herself laughed out loud when the prophecy of this birth was given to them. God knew that the entire world was laughing at Abraham’s belief in Him, and for that, it was accounted to him as righteousness!
V23-25 (read)
Now here comes the really good part. This wasn’t just about Abraham and God. This was about God and mankind. This was really about Jesus Christ. What have we learned from Paul in chapter four?
How is it that we are saved?
We must share the belief of Abraham. And what is that belief? That the seed of Abraham will saved the world from sin. That God is and will do what he says He is and will do. And he said he sent us his son to die on the cross.
And he did.
And he said that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.
And we will.