Latest / Belin Memorial UMC / Pastor Sam Hale - "What About Abraham, What About You?"
Transcript
- Belin Memorial UMC: Romans chapter 4. verses 1 through 5 and then 13 to 17 and it's entitled the example of Abraham. Well then what can we say about our ancestor Abraham? If he became acceptable to God because of what he did then he would have something to brag about but he would never be able to brag about it to God. The scriptures say God accepted Abraham because Abraham had faith in him. Money paid to workers isn't a gift it's something they earn by working. But you cannot make God accept you because of something that you do. God accepts sinners only because they have faith in him. God promised Abraham and his descendants that he would give them the world. This promise wasn't made because Abraham had obeyed a law, but because his faith in God made him acceptable. If Abraham and his descendants were given this promise because they had obeyed a law, then faith would mean nothing, and the promise would be worthless. God becomes angry when his law is broken. But where there isn't a law, it cannot be broken. Everything depends on having faith in God so that God's promise is assured by his great kindness. This promise isn't only for Abraham's descendants who have the law, it is for all who are Abraham's descendants because they have faith, just as he did. Abraham is the ancestor of us all. The scriptures say that Abraham would become the ancestor of many nations and this promise was made to Abraham because he had faith in God who raises the dead to life and creates new things. To understand this, we need to back up just a little bit and understand what the law of Moses is that Paul's talking about here in his letter to the Romans. And not only does it involve the Ten Commandments, but it also involves all the laws that were given to Moses through by God in the first five books of the Old Testament called the Torah or the Pentateuch, as we would call it. And laws are good, are they not? We need laws for ⁓ structuring society and for guiding us in what we should do and how we should act, and also for safety. Now, if there weren't any laws about the speed limits on ⁓ the bypass I-17, there'd be a lot more accidents than there already are. I can tell you that. But the Old Testament laws were given to, for God was building a nation, Build on faith. And like he says here in the Bible, if there is no law, then no one can be guilty. Suppose I had ⁓ a neighbor who had a tree growing in his yard and when the fall came, most of the leaves happened to blow over into my yard and after a while I got tired of that, so I went over and chopped this tree down. If there wasn't any law against going on somebody's property without permission or destroying their property without permission, then I would not be guilty. But there is such a law, I guess. I don't know, I haven't chopped any trees down lately. I also heard on the TV that apparently some of the people in Myrtle Beach are having trouble with wild and crazy parties. get out of hand. And apparently people come and rent a house or a B &B for a while, and then they invite all their friends. It causes not only traffic problems, but it causes a lot of noise to the neighbors and also there's property destruction. apparently the police couldn't do much about it because there wasn't a law against it. So now there's a law against it. So now they can have the ability to kick people out and send them home and send them on their way. Most laws are written because something happened that somebody didn't like either, somebody of influence didn't like, or ⁓ the general population didn't like either. So I decided to look up some laws and I found some really strange ones. I'm only gonna give you a few. This one is from Alabama, Georgia and New York and it says that you cannot have an ice cream cone in your pocket. Now what's interesting is in Alabama it can't be on a Saturday. In New York it can't be on a Sunday. And in Georgia you cannot have an ice cream cone in your pocket ever. In Arizona donkeys cannot sleep in bathtubs. Arkansas, a man can legally beat his wife, but not more than once a month. In California, no vehicle without a driver may exceed 60 miles an hour. who they give the ticket to in that case. Also in California, detonating a nuclear device within city limits resolves in a $500 fine. In Florida and Oregon, all residents must wear clothing while bathing in a bathtub. Apparently they used to do that. In Illinois, it's a felony offense to eavesdrops on your own conversation. In Kansas, if two trains meet on the same track, neither one may move until the other has passed. Somebody didn't think that went through. And in Maine, you may not step out of a plane while it's in flight. In Nebraska, if a child burps during a church service, his parents may be arrested. In New York, the penalty for jumping off a building is death. Makes sense to me. In Pennsylvania, it's illegal to sleep on top of the refrigerator outdoors. I don't know who ticked off that guy. In South Carolina, horses may not be kept in bathtubs. In Tennessee, driving is not to be done while asleep. And this is a good one. In Memphis, it is illegal for a woman to drive by herself. A man must walk in front of the vehicle waving a red flag in order to warn approaching vehicles and pedestrians. And the last one, in Virginia, no clergyman shall tell a funny story from the pulpit. So I guess I'd have to stand over here to do that. I don't know how that works. Speaking of laws, the Pharisees were micromanagers of the law. The 613 weren't enough for them, so they made up 1,500 extra laws. Most of them dealt with the Sabbath. The Bible says we're not supposed to work on the Sabbath, so most of their laws had to do with ⁓ the Sabbath day and the importance of keeping the Sabbath. ⁓ And some of them were rather silly. One of them said, on the Sabbath you're not allowed to spit on the ground. Another one said, on the Sabbath you're not allowed to collect insects. And this is an interesting one. If you're walking around and you had a needle in your pocket, on the Sabbath you were doing work and were to be punished. They micromanaged. And the Jews had to keep all the laws. I mean, that was their thing. That's what God said. They had to keep all the laws. Then Paul comes along and he says, we are made right with God by our faith in God, not by keeping all the laws. And then the Jews who were listening to Paul say, well, that's really new. We never heard that before. And then Paul says, it's not new. Abraham didn't have any laws to go by, did he? But he was counted righteous before God. Why? Because of his faith in God. And the Pharisees, again, they were so caught up in this works thing that they made up this story that Abraham actually knew the law somehow, some way. He knew all 613 laws and he followed them anyway. And then Paul says, it wasn't even about Abe, it was all God. It was all God. God's promised to make Abraham a great nation and it wasn't because of anything Abraham did, it was because that Abraham had faith in God. And there are two Greek words for promise. And the first is conditional, and it's hu-po-sk-ay-sis, if you want to know that. And it's a conditional promise. And it's like, mom, If you let me go to the movies with Tommy this weekend, I promise to keep my room clean for the whole summer. It's conditional. If you do this for me, I do that for you. And some of us may have done that, excuse me, ourselves. God, if you'll just get me through this difficult situation, if you'll heal my sister. If you'll get me out of this financial mess I got myself into. If you do that, I promise to go to church every Sunday. That's conditional. But there's also, there's another word in the Greek that's an unconditional promise, and that's the word that Paul uses here when he talks about Abraham and God, it's epigalia. So Paul uses the unconditional ⁓ word for promise when God promised Abraham to make Abraham into a great nation. See, the Jews spent their life trying to earn God's favor by keeping all these laws. And when you look around the world today, you'll see that other religions are doing the same thing. They have this list of rules and regulations and these laws and the things that you're supposed to do or not do and that's somehow supposed to get you into heaven. Sometimes I run across somebody, even church people, and we start talking about, either joking about or talking about the afterlife, and maybe somebody just passed away, and they're saying, well, I hope I get there too. And that was kind of my story. I grew up in the church, well, not physically in the church, I had a home. But my parents were involved in the United Methodist Church back home and they were on boards and committees and dad taught Sunday school and mom was on the different women's organizations and things like that. And so we had to go to church every Sunday and there were six of us kids. So there were eight of us in the house and there was one bathroom. And it wasn't a log cabin, by the way. I'm a little older than that. But anyway, it was kind of an interesting ⁓ time on Sunday mornings and we all had to get ready for church at the same time. But I wasn't, like I said, I was in church a lot and so I heard the gospel, you know, I heard that Jesus was my savior, I heard that he died for my sins, I heard that over and over and over again. And I went to college. At the University of Iowa, I was going to be a dentist. See how that worked out. And I got closer to a guy named Terry. And he left a couple doors down for me in the dorm. And we'd do everything together. We'd go shopping. We'd play volleyball till we dropped dead on Saturdays. And ⁓ I remember one day we were downtown shopping, I guess. I don't remember. the topic, we talked about everything. And the topic came around to religion. And Terry asked me. How do you get to heaven? And I said, by being good. And then he said, how good do you have to be? Wow, I never thought of that. Now I knew God was good. I mean, I heard that over and over and I knew from experience that God was good. He's been good to me all my life. But then I thought, if God is good, he would have set the bar somewhere where we would know if we make it or not, right? It's not like, okay, Sam, you go to heaven and God says, ⁓ man, one more good deed, Sam, and you would have made it, but sorry, the down elevator's over there. So that really got me thinking. fact, I was upset. So I had this dilemma. I went back and looked and I also realized that the Bible did not say if you obey all these laws you'll get to heaven. It never says that anywhere in the Bible. So I had this dilemma. What do I do? And I'm sure you're all familiar with the Sermon on the Mount. Most of us think of the Sermon on the Mount as just, know, blessed are those who are poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, et cetera, et But Jesus goes on. in the Sermon on the Mount. I'm going to read portions of it to you. He says, Don't suppose that I came to do away with the law and the prophets. I did not come to do away with them, but to give them their full meaning. Later on, he says, You know that our ancestors were told, not murder. A murderer must be brought to trial. But I promise you that if you are angry with someone, you will have to stand trial. If you call someone a fool, you will be taken to court. And if you say that someone is worthless, you will be in danger of the fires of hell. You know that you've been taught an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I tell you not to try to get even with anyone who has done something to you. Somebody slaps you on the right cheek, let them slap your other cheek also. If they sue you for your shirt, give them your coat. Then he talks about love and he says, you have heard people say, love your neighbors and hate your enemies, but I tell you to love your enemies and pray for anyone who mistreats you. What was Jesus doing here? Jesus was opening up the law to show people that you really can't obey the law. It's impossible because this is the spirit of the law, not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law. One of the laws in ⁓ Exodus 21 says that if you say something ill about your parents, you deserve to die. How many of us would be in the room today if that was enforced? But then what really got me was at the end of this section on love, he says, if you love only those people who love you, will God reward you for that? Even tax collectors love their friends. And if you greet only your friends, what's so great about that? Don't even unbelievers do that? But you must always be perfect like your Father in heaven. I don't know about you, it didn't take me long to realize I wasn't perfect. Ask any of my kids, they'll reinforce that. Don't tell him I said this, but Will and Sandra aren't perfect either. None of us is perfect, but Jesus is perfect. And Jesus took our place on the cross. So that if we have faith in him, then we are seen as perfect by God. So that solved my problem finally, and it took me quite a while to get there. But I don't want anybody leaving this room without knowing that as well. For us and for Abraham, it was faith. It wasn't something we did to make God happy like I always thought when I was younger. Because if you're hoping you're good enough, you're not. It's not possible. So have faith in Jesus and live the best life you can as a thank you to God for what God has done to our Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Our God, you've done it all for us. You came to visit us and walk among us in the form of your son Jesus the Christ. He was willing to give up his life for ours. that by believing he was who he said he was, the Son of God, we might live forever with you. No more tears, no more sadness, no more pain. Just a joyful time of being with our Lord and Savior. Thank you for loving us enough to do that and help us to continue to live our lives as a grateful thank you for all that you have done for us. In the name of Jesus Christ.