God's Faithfulness Holds You

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[0:00] Romans 4, 16 through 25. The Apostle Paul writes this, for this reason, all the reasons that he said about Abraham, for this reason, it depends on faith. In order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham. For he is the father of us all, as it is written, I have made you the father of many nations. In the presence of God, in whom he believes, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

[0:39] Hoping against hope, he believed that he would become the father of many nations, according to what was said. So numerous shall your descendants be. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was already as good as dead, for he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's house, which was already as good as dead, womb, no distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Therefore his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness. Now these words, it was reckoned to him, were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this word and we ask that you add your blessing to it in Jesus name. Amen. I don't know if you had this experience, but when you were young, and I hope you can remember when you were young, like five, six years old, and maybe you grew up and your parents talked to you about faith and that you need to believe, and you're like,

[1:58] what does that mean? What does it mean to believe something? What does it mean to have faith in something? And I didn't know, so what I thought, I thought it was, was I had to think about it really hard, like God is real. I would say God is real, God is real, and I would also take a deep breath, God is real, God is real, and I would kind of turn my body into a little tight ball of muscle, you know, of tense muscle. God is real. Like, I don't know what I was trying to will my self to believe, or I just thought that I had to kind of breathe in something. I don't really know why I did that, like it's so far in the past, but I definitely remember it. Like, I thought faith was somehow is trying to get God to speak to me in that moment. Like, I was trying to listen for some external sign, like I could see something or hear something that God would say, yeah, I'm real. And you know what? It didn't really happen when I was a little kid. God never kind of just came through in that way. It didn't mean I didn't have faith, it just meant that that wasn't working, right? That that thing that I was doing wasn't working. But I was struck with this question, well how do I know, or what really does it mean to believe? Does it mean to just say I agree with something, or say that I

[3:10] know something? Well, we're gonna get into that, you know. I was waiting for this moment to see God sort of show up, and he didn't. But we'll come back to this, we'll come back to this. I want to look at, want us to look again at chapter 4, and you can actually make that one go away, because we just, if you want. Yeah, make the whole thing go away, it's fine. You got it, good, okay. Chapter 4 gave us a way to think about this differently, about what faith is. And actually, it turns out it's a little simpler than that. It's a little easier than kind of turning yourself into this little ball and hoping something will happen, or holding your breath, or thinking like that. It's, this chapter is so much about faith, and it's about faithfulness, and it's about acting in good faith, and believing that your partner in a covenant will follow through on their commitments. So, for starters, I want us to look at the Greek word that Paul uses for faith. And we don't, we don't always just say what these Greek words are, but these are the really important ones, and so you may want to know what this one is. You don't have to write it down, but the verb form of the word for believe, to have faith, is PISTECHOSIS. And it means to believe, or it means to have faith in, or to think that a thing will happen.

[4:35] It means that you, you know, you trust, trust or believe or have faith in a thing. But there's a noun ver, version, all, all, a lot of these Greek words have both a verb version and a noun version. And so the noun form of PISTECHOSIS, to believe, is PISTHIS. And that means, that's where things get really interesting actually, because that word, it can be, be, faith by itself. So, to believe is the verb, faith is the noun. Everybody gets that, right? Believing is a verb, you do it. Faith is the thing that you have when you believe something. So the faith is the noun. And in English that makes sense for us, right? Believe is the verb, faith is the noun that describes my state of believing. So PISTECHOSIS can mean faith, but it can also mean faithfulness. It actually has several meanings, there are about six meanings. But in, for our sake, faithfulness, it's a word, faithfulness actually starts to make a little bit of sense. Because why? We're talking about the covenant of God and Abraham believing that God would be faithful to the covenant. So faith, PISTECHOSIS can mean faith, but it can mean faithfulness. So it's not just a state of believing in something, but being on the other side of that. Being the reliable party that

[5:51] someone else will believe is going to follow through. So faithfulness is kind of an adjective, but it's also a noun. right? It's this state of being faithful, right? So why is this important? Well, it's how our passage starts today, and it's a major theme in Romans. So maybe you could show that very first slide there, Nathan. I'm going to give him a workout today, because what does the very first verse of our section say? It says, for this reason, it depends on faith, right? And you can hide it again now, Nathan. I'll just keep you busy there. So for this reason, from the previous section, that the promise to Abraham came true not because people kept the law, but through faith in God, which was a sign of their righteousness. That was that section that I read as the second reading. And so for this reason, that all these promises come true because of faith, so the promise comes by faith. But now the question, is that faith in God, or is it the faithfulness of God? Do you get that? Because we're using that noun here. What does it depend on? For that reason, it depends on faith. Is that my belief in God, or is it my knowing that God himself is faithful, right? It doesn't say what the object of this faith is. So it could be, for this reason, it depends on faithfulness.

[7:20] And if it's faithfulness, then it would be the faithfulness of God. So I'm asking the question, is it our faith, or is it the faithfulness of God? And if it's faithfulness, then it would be the faithfulness of God. And somebody out there is really smart, and they're going to say what? Yes! Right on! Exactly. You can have your cake and eat it too here. It's all right. It's totally fine. It's not a binary where you have to choose one or the other. It is our faith in the faithfulness of God. Those are both, they can both be true, and I think they both are true because we're dealing with a covenant. A covenant works because the parties have trust that the other will perform, right?

[7:58] And some of you may now be thinking of a problem, right? We know that God is going to perform his end of the covenant. We understand from Paul that he thinks Abraham kept his part of the covenant. Actually, if you read in Genesis, we find out that Abraham didn't do such a very good job of keeping his part of the covenant because they had to wait a little longer to have children than they thought, and they got impatient, and they tried having children their own way apart from God, and that was, catastrophic. So there was some lack of faith in the faithfulness of God on Abraham's part, but then in the end, faith did come back. So it's true that Abraham was faithful, and it was credited to him as righteousness, but at the same time, the wrinkles of sin and our own agendas keep sort of peppering their way into this relationship with God. And so, yes, God is faithful to the covenant, but you may be out there thinking, I'm not sure I'm as faithful to the covenant as God is. I'm not sure my ancestors have been as faithful to the covenant as God is. And we inherit all that from our ancestors. I'm not sure the people of Israel have been faithful to all the covenants that God made with them. In fact, he made the covenant at Mount Sinai, where Moses came down with the Ten Commandments.

[9:19] He came down with one copy, the first copy. He saw them all worshiping a golden bull. He smashed them. He was so mad. And then he had to go up the mountain a second time. It's really a hike. It's really a hike. I've been up to the top, but I got to ride a camel to the top. So it was easy. I don't think it doesn't say anything about Moses riding a camel to the top. He had to walk all the way up there and get two more tablets and come down with them. He was mad. The people started. How's that for starting the covenant? We're going to start a covenant with you. You've already goofed up. Wait a second. OK, let's start over. And then if you just read the Bible, it's the people. Breaking covenant with God over and over again. And so the real question comes in.

[10:07] How long will one side of a contract keep being faithful to their commitments in the contract? If the other party in the contract has almost never been faithful to the commitments of the contract, how long will that one party keep going? And this is the problem that Paul has. That's why he writes. Romans. That's why he writes a lot of his other letters. And his contention is and this is pretty close, is that the people, his people, the Jewish people are at a point of decision almost where they have to really decide if they're going to keep covenant with God or not, and that they're in very real danger of losing that covenant on some level. And this is similar to that parable of the vineyard where the landlord comes and asks the people who are working the vineyard for the fruit, the fruit of the vineyard, and he's going to give the vineyard to those who will work in the vineyard. He's going to do that.

[11:04] And so there's this really real possibility that the covenant, having been broken so many times by God's people, will no longer be honored on God's side. And who could blame him? That's how covenants work. If you, that's what it also says in the covenant. There's also a clause in some of these covenants that say, I'm going to keep this forever if you keep this forever. But if you break it, then I have the right to break it, right? A lot of covenants are like that. A lot of contracts are like that.

[11:33] But God in his faithfulness and God in his patience and God in his mercy and God in his grace doesn't exercise that clause of the covenant. What does he do, though? This is everything that Paul ever writes about. He says, if you can't keep your end, I'm going to send a human being into the world who will keep your end for you. He's going to be my son. He's going to be completely obedient. He's going to keep perfect covenant with me. And for his sake, I will count that to you as if you've kept it. So then that's Jesus. And he's so obedient and so faithful. He has this pistis. He has this faithfulness to his father that he does everything. The father asked, and he takes every consequence that the earth has to offer or to give as a result of his obedience to the father. And the result of his, the consequence of his obedience is his own death on the cross. We understand that he couldn't be Jesus. He couldn't be the son of God without ruffling enough feathers to get himself killed and, and hanged on a Roman cross. It had to happen. And his death. And then his. And then his resurrection then become this, this proof that God has actually redeemed him and thus he will redeem us. In this passage, here we have talking about bringing life out of death and bringing things into existence that don't even exist yet.

[13:05] Now, I want us to look. I just got so excited. I got way ahead of myself. I know that. And I know I just like skipped. Two pages of my manuscript and I don't want to goof up by landing in the wrong spot again.

[13:24] Okay. So, yes. The, the Jesus kept his. Jesus kept our end of the deal with his obedience. Right? I want us to look at verse 20. Can you take the slide forward one? Nathan. Verse 20 and 21. It says this. No. We're talking about Abraham now.

[13:47] No distrust. made him waver concerning the promise of God. He didn't have a lack of faith there, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Okay? So faith is at the start. It's this conviction that God is faithful. Does that sound like a circular argument? But it's really, it's so comforting. Faith is simply this conviction that God is faithful. So then it doesn't depend on me. It doesn't depend on my power to be faithful to my end of whatever covenant I may be in with God. All I have to do is really be fairly convinced, pretty sure, yeah, pretty sure that God is good. That's all you have to really say. If you want to say if you've had faith or not, you don't have to take a deep breath and put yourself into a ball. All you have to say is, I'm pretty sure God is good. I'm pretty sure God is good. I'm pretty sure God is good. I'm pretty sure God is good. I'm pretty sure God is good. Can you say it? Let's just try it. Just say it. Say it with me. I'm pretty sure God is good. Some of you might want to take a step further and say, I'm really sure God is good. Let's try that one. I'm really sure God is good. Now, if you're not there yet, that's okay. You might just be

[14:58] pretty sure God is good. How about this? I'm kind of sure God is good. Let's try that one. I'm kind of sure God is good. That's enough. That's enough. You're kind of, yeah, there you go. God can use that too. I'm kind of sure God is good. I'm leaning in that direction. Faith is something that you can get rid of. It's not just a thing. It's a thing that you can get rid of. It's a thing that you can grow in. That's all we're talking about here. It's not some magic incantation that suddenly you have faith. It's that you look at the history as we've been given it in the scriptures, but also the history of your own life, perhaps. And you say, you know what? God has been pretty good. Now, that doesn't mean that bad things haven't happened in your life. Of course they have. I don't want to even, if I were to start thinking about it now, about all the bad things that have happened in my life, I would melt up here. So I'm not going to go there. But God has been good. God is good. God has been good through those things. God has been good despite those things. He didn't send them to me, that's for sure. Over the years, my understanding of faith has changed. I don't tense up and whisper to myself anymore. I don't do that anymore. But it takes life experience, right? It

[16:01] takes moments where things are difficult and God shows up. And it's not something a five-year-old will understand yet. And so when we're talking to five-year-olds, they do have faith. It's just not the faith that's born out of experience, right? It's not the faith that's born out of faith that says God has seen me through some tough times, although there are some five-year-olds who have had tough times. There's no doubt about that. They have a faith of their own. And I think mine was genuine. I wanted to believe it, and I had the expectation that God was going to reach into my life somehow. I at least had faith that God was going to try to talk to me in my sort of strange moments of trying to have faith. That's a faith in its own, in a way, which is kind of exciting. Now, faith can seem fickle, right?

[16:44] Let's be honest. I'll be honest with you, right? Faith has ebbs and flows and times when it seems harder to believe. And we live in Silicon Valley. We're surrounded by really analytical people. We're surrounded by a lot of scientists and engineers. Of course, there's all sorts of artists and other professions here. But this environment is full of people who are either agnostic or atheists as well. And we're social people. It's easy for that sort of thing to rub off on us. There have been times, and I'll be honest with you, there have been times where God seems less real to me than other times. I'm your pastor. It's okay. So I'm trying to lead by example. It's okay to say that your faith is sometimes weak, sometimes in doubt. Like, sometimes I don't have it all, right? And actually, this is normal. It's normal in a life for your faith in God to kind of go up and down. That's quite okay.

[17:38] If you feel that way, you're not alone. You are not alone. A lot of people go through it. Probably everybody goes through it. But if you feel that way, you're not alone. You are not alone. A lot of people go through it. The ones who say they don't go through it, they're lying, right? They're trying to put on a show. The best advice I got from a mentor was this. He said, think back in your life and remember those times when God did seem real. Remember those times where God showed up. Remember those times where God reached into your life. And don't struggle with the faith question alone. That's the other thing. Don't do this alone. Spend time with other people. Share this burden with them. And they may not be able to fix it. Nobody's going to try to fix it. But even saying it out loud can take some of the power away from it. To say to somebody, you know, I've got my doubts today. I've got some doubts today. I'm not sure this is all real. And they'll say, oh, I hear that. I hear that. And they might then say, can you remember when it did seem real? And then you go, oh, yeah, there were times. I want to summarize today. I want to summarize what we've looked at so far and sort of shorthand here. And then we're going to look forward a little bit

[18:42] to future weeks because we've got a lot coming up that I'm very excited about. I'm going to summarize real quick. Paul uses Abraham as an example that righteousness, which is either justification from sin or being in a state of a right relationship with God and others, or both of those. All those can mean the same thing too. Paul uses Abraham as an example that righteousness is accompanied by faith and trust that God is faithful and trustworthy to do his end. So we believe that God is faithful to do the things that he said he'll do. We also believe that Jesus did our part because we couldn't do it ourselves. And that creates in us a righteousness of right relationship with God and right relationship with each other. Paul's shorthand definition of faith then is the conviction that God will do amazing things and has done amazing things. Simply that, that God is kind of good sometimes or pretty good sometimes or really good sometimes. That's all faith is, this conviction that God will do amazing things. And he does amazing things. Like he does amazing things for Abraham. He calls things into existence that do not yet exist. This power to call things and to call out to something and it exists. Like calling a child into existence for an elderly couple. Is that a good miracle? Like

[20:06] they must have been like, after Isaac was born, they probably were like, I'm never going to doubt again. I mean, like that's a miracle. That's a miracle. A 99 year old and a 90 year old couple having a newborn baby. Can you imagine them running around changing diapers, you know, with a cane in one hand and here, let's work together to change this diaper. Cause you know, it's, what are you going to do? I mean, every time, every time he cried or every time he played with his rattle, they must've said, God's amazing. How did we get this kid? I mean, you could say that if you're even have a child as a young person, you'd be like, how did we get this? Kid children are amazing. So every time they looked at that child, they said, God must be real. He promised us he's keeping his end. We have to keep our end. Right? So this is what he says. He calls things into existence that do not yet exist, such as a child to a very elderly couple. And here he's sending out more new life from a body that's dead. You want to see this connection here. And it's really deep.

[21:15] And he's talking about bringing into existence things that do not yet exist or bringing life out of something that's dead. And it seems like he's talking about baby Isaac coming from an elderly couple. He is, but he's also talking about Jesus coming back from the dead. He's talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And you see how for Paul, all these things work together. The miracle of this new child, the miracle of this new life, the miracle of this new life, the miracle of this new life, the miracle of this new life, the miracle of this new life, the miracle of this new life, the miracle of this new life for Jesus, but all of it in the context of a covenant. God said he would do these things. God said he would give them this child. God said that he would raise Jesus from the dead. God said he would do these things and he did them. And then we are then left with the realization that God is faithful. And then we can trust or be convinced that God will do what he says he'll do. So looking forward, now we look forward to future weeks. He's developing this idea that we're going to spend time on in the future. So stay tuned, that Abraham is the father of everyone who believes. And so Christians claim

[22:20] as their spiritual father and also have a claim then on all the covenants of God. They have a claim on the covenant and that this is the ultimate goal that through the righteousness of faith and the faithfulness of God that takes place in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. We then, this is the really good news. We're going to be talking about this for the rest of Romans. As a result, of all these things that God has done and raising Jesus from the dead and our faith, we are being formed into a worldwide multi-ethnic family of faith. So you're going to be watching for this word in the next week's family, family, family, family. We are now part of the family of God, a worldwide multi-ethnic family of faith, descendants of Abraham. And that faith is reckoned to us as righteousness, which means we live in a right and whole relationship with each other and with God. And we live in shalom. And peace. And we become the beloved community. This is the vision of Romans. And in his, in the first place, the vision is that this would be between Jews and Gentiles would become one family, but it expands beyond that to all the ethnicities of the world so that this is God's plan. Not that any of those ethnicities disappear either, but they're all celebrated and it's this beautiful,

[23:37] beloved community. So all that's coming in future weeks. So you have to come back. But for now, I want you to hear this one last word. Which is this. God is faithful to do what he's promised. God is faithful to do what he's promised. He'll be faithful to you. It's okay if you have doubts. His promise is for you today. You are included in the family of God because Jesus does for you what you cannot do for yourself. God is faithful. God is trustworthy. And God has keep, God will keep his word to you and you belong to him. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your word. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your word. Thank you for this promise. Father, all we can say is thank you for your faithfulness. Amen.