01-22-12 The Voice of Abraham

In our study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians

we’ve seen Paul fighting with everything he has

against the lie that had taken root in his fellow Christians,

fighting for their return to true freedom in Christ.

They, like most Christians at certain times in our lives,

had listened to what sounded like the reasonable, rational voice of religion

telling them that there was simply no way a person could expect

to stand absolutely righteous and pure and holy in the presence of God forever

simply because they chose to believe God

when He told them Christ’s death paid their own moral debt in full.

How could such a thing be?

How could a person’s life

be flooded with the grace of God

simply because that person chose to believe God was there

and that He was offering them total cleansing without charge?

I know I’ve mentioned this repeatedly throughout my years of teaching,

but there is nothing that more clearly

and powerfully proclaims the absolute integrity of our God

than does this one amazing truth.

The simplicity of it is so filled with wonder to me.

For you see,

from the very beginning

God has given every person the same exact proposition He gave to Adam and Eve.

To Adam and Eve He said, “All I ask from you is that you believe what I have told you about this tree.”

It wasn’t complicated,

it wasn’t obscure,

it certainly wasn’t in any way religious in nature.

But it did require one thing that Adam and Eve refused to give -

it required their willingness to believe that what their Creator God told them

was motivated by His love for them.

It required their willingness to believe

that what He said to them

was motivated by His longing, His desire to be good to them.

But the request He made was clear and simple - just believe this one thing I have said to you.

And now, here we are,

with our God making each of us exactly the same offer.

All He asks of us

is that we believe what He’s told us

about another tree - the one on which the Son of God died.

He tells us that Jesus’ death

paid our debt for our sin - all of it,

and all He asks from us

is our willingness to choose to believe that he’s telling us the truth.

Of course we also face the same internal battle Adam and Eve did -

we too must wade through all of our misconceptions and twisted perceptions of our God

and choose to believe

that He truly is GOOD,

and can be trusted,

and that He is reaching out to us for no other reason

than because He wants to be friends with us.

I’m not saying we have to have that all worked out in detail in our minds,

but we certainly have to reach out to Him

with the hope that He will respond with kindness to us when we respond to Him with trust.

And when we do

all He asks from us

is our willingness to believe, to trust this one thing He’s said to us,

that...(1Jn 1:7)...the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

Seems way too good to be true, huh.

Seems too simple,

too easy,

too uncomplicated,

too wonderful and amazing.

Enter the voice of religion

and enter the warfare for the discovery of the truth about out God

and the warfare for the hearts and lives of the human race.

That’s the warfare that was raging in the lives of the Galatians

at the time Paul wrote this letter.

They had heard and believed

that reasonable, persuasive voice of religion

telling them such a thing simply could not be.

There was no way God Himself

would pour out on each of us

His endless grace,

His kindness,

His redemption,

His healing,

His love,

and His friendship

simply because we chose to believe Him at one point,

believing Christ’s death did for us

what He told us it did.

And then they heard that voice of religion

skillfully supplementing the death of Christ

with a carefully outlined series of duties they must fulfill

before true peace with God

and the hope of eternal life in His presence

could ever be achieved.

And that lie triggered a rage within Paul

that drove him to the writing of this letter,

a letter in which, like the man-on-attack that he was,

leveled reason after reason

and proof after proof at his readers,

seeking to break the power of the religious poison within them

and bring them back to simple trust and thankfulness and gratitude toward their God.

Here’s the way it is, my friends -

if we ever truly hear the true grace of God and believe what we hear

it will transform our lives as nothing else in human experience will ever do.

It will consume us,

it will embed within us a longing for a life of purity and productivity

in a way that no religious system

could even begin to duplicate.

And if it does not affect us that way

then we have not yet heard and believed the true grace of God.

Well, so far in our study of this letter

we’ve looked at 4 of the 9 proofs Paul has offered his readers.

The first proof he offered

of the truth of the message he preached to them

about God requiring from them nothing more than their willingness

to trust and believe what He’d told them about Christ’s death removing their sins

was Paul’s assurance

that this amazing GOOD NEWS did not come from the mind of man,

it came directly from the mind and heart of God Himself by direct revelation.

The second proof he offered

was his assurance that this message had been closely examined

and wholeheartedly approved by those Apostles appointed by Jesus Himself.

The third proof he offered

was that this message he preached

overcame errors in the life of the great Apostle Peter.

And then, the most recent proof we looked at

was Paul’s forcing the Galatians to look at their own lives

and to see that their own lives and brief history with Christ

proved the truth of total and complete salvation solely on the basis of simple faith.

Which brings us to Galatians 3:6-14,

a section of Paul’s letter in which he then turns his readers’ eyes

back to the most significant individual in the history of the Nation of Israel - Abraham,

and shows them that the very truth they have rejected

was imbedded into God’s relationship with Abraham from the very beginning.

Now, this section begins with a quotation from the 15^th chapter of Genesis,

but we need a little background on what prompted the statement

for us to appreciate what’s going on here.

Abraham makes his first appearance at the very end of the 11^th chapter of Genesis

where we are given the genealogy leading up to his birth.

We are also told that he took Sarah as his wife

and that she was barren.

And then, in the first few verses of the 12^th chapter we read this:

Gen 12:1 Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father's house, To the land which I will show you;

Gen 12:2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing;

Gen 12:3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."

OK, at that point in history

Abraham was no different from anyone else on earth.

By that I mean that there was nothing in his heritage

or his personality

or his abilities

or anything else that we are ever told about

that explains why God did what He did.

Why did God sovereignly step into Abraham’s life

and make him the promises He made him?

He did it for the same reason

He barged into my life when I was 19 years old

and told me He wanted my life.

He did it for the same reason He stepped into your life

and took what would become just one more lost, empty, purposeless life

and recreated you into one of the few, one of the chosen

who now lives every day, every second in the presence of God Himself,

immersed in His grace, held in His love.

And why did He do that?

We have no idea.

We are told that God loves us all,

that He seeks us all,

that He longs for us all to enter into a friendship with Him.

But if I had to guess about what causes Him to sovereignly intervene in the lives of people at times

as we see Him doing here with Abraham,

there is a fascinating statement tucked away in 2 Chronicles

that I think may shed a little light on it.

In 2Ch 16:9 we are told that, “... the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.”

Isn’t that a fascinating statement!

That’s another one of those incredible windows into the mind and heart of God Himself,

a window through which we see

a deeply personal,

very real interaction between Him and us.

And the obvious implication of the statement

is that, when He finds those whose hearts will respond to Him

He does whatever He needs to do

to reveal Himself to them in a way they can recognize and respond to.

But back to Abraham...

God steps into his life

and over the course of some period of time

He reconfirms His promise to Abraham

that He will indeed make of Him a great nation,

a people through whom He will literally bless the whole world.

But there is a problem...Sarah is barren,

and remains barren throughout all of her child-bearing years.

Which brings us, then, to Genesis chapter 15,

a chapter that opens once again with God revealing Himself to Abraham

and reconfirming His promise to make him the father of a great nation.

This time, however, Abraham brings up the elephant in the room,

pointing out to Him that he has no children,

and that the only heir he has

is one in his household who has no blood ties to him.

Then God responds in Genesis 15:4-5 by saying this:

“ "This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir." And He took him outside and said, "Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be."

And the next words we have recorded in Genesis

are also the next words we have quoted for us in this passage of Galatians we’re studying.

Gal 3:6 Even so Abraham believed God...

And clearly what Abraham is choosing to believe

is not just that God will be good to him,

or gave him a great name and heritage,

but that God would do the impossible...

somehow He would give Abraham his own flesh-and-blood son.

There is simply no way to overstate the significance

of what we have recorded here

or of what took place at this point in God’s dealings with His creation.

You see, this a breakthrough of mammoth proportions.

As far as we know

this is the first time ever

when we have God making a specific promise to a specific person

and that person responds by choosing to believe

that God is telling the truth.

This is God speaking

and a man choosing to believe

for no other reason than because God spoke,

choosing to believe what God said

more than he believed the evidence of his own body

or the evidence of his wife’s body,

more than he believed what all the other voices and proofs around him were saying.

The promise God made to Abraham was clear,

specific,

personal.

And Abraham chose to believe that one clear, specific, personal promise.

He had no idea how God was going to accomplish it,

but he chose to believe God both could and would.

But that is not where this verse ends either in Genesis

or when it is quoted here in Galatians.

It doesn’t just say, Even so Abraham believed God... ,

it says Even so Abraham believed God... and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Now, prior to the writings of Paul,

and especially through his comments in Romans chapter 4

no one saw what was really happening here.

It was hidden from the mind of man

until God chose to bring it out into the light.

But once he did

it confirmed that from the very beginning

the rules have never changed.

You see, what we have happening here

is God telling us that when God made one promise to this one man

and this man chose to believe that promise

God responded to that belief

by removing from Abraham all of his sin

and declaring him forever righteous.

And the pattern has never changed.

God offers to each of us His promise,

clear, specific, personal.

For us the promise is His promise

that the death of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.

And for us

we also have a whole world of voices

telling us how absurd that is.

Why would such a seemingly small thing

as our belief in that one promise

change anything in our lives.

But when we, like Abraham, believe God

this same God responds to each of us

exactly the same way He responded to Abraham in the face of his belief.

He reckons it to us as righteousness.

He declares us as righteous.

We give Him one simple act of trust, belief,

and He gives us His righteousness forever.

And obviously, Paul brings this up to the Galatians

because it is this one truth that they had chosen to reject.

They rejected it for the same reason no one saw it in Genesis

for several thousand years after it had been written...

because it simply seems too good,

too amazing,

too remarkable,

too wonderful to be true.

You see, here’s the deal...

There are two distinct aspects

to this whole sin thing between us and God.

The first is that we do all have a debt on our account that we cannot pay -

a debt that, left unpaid,

will keep us forever separated from our Creator.

It is the debt of our own immorality,

our own rejection of our Creator as our God

and all of the stuff that flows from that rejection.

It’s a very real debt,

and one that a just, righteous God cannot ignore,

cannot simply set aside.

And with that aspect of this mess we’re in

God stepped in and paid that debt for us

with His own death.

The debt has been paid.

But the other aspect of this whole sin mess

is what God then requires from each of us

before we are allowed to share in that debt payment.

What does He ask from us?

And with that part of the whole thing

He could have set up anything He wanted to set up.

He could have established a highly refined,

clearly defined system of religious duties

that we had to fulfill in exchange for our share in the death of Christ.

He could have required us

to offer our first born

in exchange for His only begotten Son.

He could have placed a probationary period on our entrance into His family,

giving us a certain amount of time to prove our commitment

before we entered into an eternally secure union with Him.

He could have set up any kind of requirements He chose to.

But look at what He did!

He went back to the very first offense

that His creation ever committed against Him,

He went back to Adam and Eve

and then gave each of us

the freedom, the ability to face the same choice they faced.

All He asked from them

is that they choose to believe what He had said to them about that tree,

to choose to trust Him at that one point,

believing He was telling them the truth.

All He asked from them was one act of trust.

And with each of us now

it’s exactly the same.

All He asks is our willingness to choose to believe

that He’s telling us the truth

when He tells us our sin debt is paid in full forever by Christ.

Act 16...Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved...

That’s what He asks from us.

That’s all He asks from us.

And that is what He was screaming to the world

through His interaction with Abraham.

What he asked from Abraham was the same thing -

just believe what I’m saying to you at this one point.

And in exchange for that one act faith, belief

God granted Abraham a share in the payment that He Himself would one day make

for the sin of the entire world.

Gal 3:6 Even so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Paul then goes on to tell these Gentile believers

that their faith in what God has told us about Christ

has actually allowed them to become the children of Abraham,

that is, to share in the blessing that God promised would be passed down through Abraham’s bloodline.

Gal 3:7 Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.

He then goes on to assure them

that even from the time of Abraham

God had planned for the entire world

to share in the salvation He would bring through the Jewish Nation.

Gal 3:8 The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "All the nations will be blessed in you."

Gal 3:9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.

And I do love that title given to Abraham...Abraham the believer.

That was his great legacy to the human race -

a man who simply chose to believe his God.

Paul then takes several verses to contrast this simple belief

with the absurdity of trying to reach God through our righteous performance,

telling us that...

Gal 3:11 ...no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, "The righteous man shall live by faith."

And he then concludes this 5^th proof of salvation by faith alone

with a clear, simple picture

both of what Christ did for us

and what God ask from us in return.

Gal 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us--for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"--

Gal 3:14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

We receive the promise of the Spirit of God through faith and faith alone.