There was a man who got lost in the desert. After wandering around for a long time his throat became very dry, about that time he saw a little shack in the distance. He made his way over to the shack and found a water pump with a small jug of water and a note. The note read: "pour all the water into the top of the pump to prime it, if you do this you will get all the water you need". Now the man had a choice to make, if he trusted the note and poured the water in and it worked he would have all the water he needed. If it didn’t work he would still be thirsty and he might die. Or he could choose to drink the water in the jug and get immediate satisfaction, but it might not be enough and he still might die. After thinking about it the man decided to risk it. He poured the entire jug into the pump and began to work the handle, at first nothing happened and he got a little scared but he kept going and water started coming out. So much water came out he drank all he wanted, took a shower, and filled all the containers he could find. Because he was willing to give up momentary satisfaction, he got all the water he needed. Now the note also said: after you have finished, please refill the jug for the next traveler.” The man refilled the jug and added to the note: “ Please prime the pump, believe me it works”! We have the same choice to make, do we hold on to what we have because we don’t believe there are better things in store for us, and settle for immediate satisfaction? Or do we trust God and give up all that we have to get what God has promised us? I think the choice is obvious. We need to pour in all the water, trust God with everything.
In Romans 3, we explored God’s grace. We discovered that it is only by God’s grace that we are made righteous before our Maker. This week as we travel this Roman Road to a savior, we start to encounter the good stuff. Paul spent much of the first two and half chapters indicting the human race. Then when we thought we could not take it anymore, he introduced grace into the conversation. Yes, humans are indeed sinful and deserving God’s punishment, but God punished His son instead. And through the spilling of the blood of God’s only Son, all who confess Jesus as their Lord and Savior have been made righteous before God. What a relief. We are not condemned. We have been set free through God’s incredible Grace.
As I said last week, even though grace is free, humans often have a hard time accepting it. I think Paul knew this, so before he leaves the subjects of faith and grace, he uses an illustration from our Old Testament, but for him this illustration came for the Law. He goes all the way back to Abraham in Genesis 15. Paul focuses on Genesis 15:6 which says “Abraham believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness” Paul points out that Abraham was declared righteous before the law was given. The law was given through Moses much later. In fact, there was somewhere between six to seven-hundred years between the time God promises to make Abraham the father of many nations, and the time that God gave the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. Abraham was not credited to be righteous through the Law. Abraham never even heard of God’s law. Abraham’s belief in God’s promise to him was credited as righteous because he believed God when God made him a promise that he would be the father of many nations. God made this promise to Abraham, who was still Abram at this point, by telling Abram “Look up to the sky and count the stars- if indeed you can count them. Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be’” Let’s not forget that Abraham was approaching 100 years old when God made him this promise. No one would have blamed Abraham if he didn’t believe God. God’s promise meant that the laws of biology were going to be violated, but Abraham had faith that his God was the maker of the laws of biology, so if God said it was going to happen, then it was going to happen. This is what Paul was referring to when in verse 18 he says “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed, and so became the father of many nations just as it had been said to him, ‘So, shall your offspring be’”
Abraham did not do anything, but believe God and God called him righteous for it. Notice that it does not say that Abraham believed in God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. It says Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. While it was obviously true that Abraham had faith that God exists, but he was made righteous by believing that God would do what he said he was going to do. There is a difference between believing in God and believing God. Many Christians need to learn this lesson from Abraham. A true Christ follower actually believes the words of Christ. I don’t have time to go through all the teachings of Christ, but I want us to think a few of his core teachings. Jesus says that we are to love God with all or our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength. He also said that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus also tells us to forgive those who have wronged us, and to love our enemies. We are to give to God what is Gods, and give to Cesar what is Cesar. Jesus also teaches us that we should pray. Of course, as I have covered over the past two weeks, Jesus teaches us to confess our sins. Jesus also tells us not to worry, to trust him, and to believe that he is coming back for us. Some of those things are easier to do than others, but the teachings of Jesus are relatively easy. Jesus tells us in Matthew 11 28-30 “28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus did not come to burden us with a bunch of rules that we can’t follow. He came to teach us to love God and each other, and to trust God with our lives.
Even though the Christian life is relatively simple, Christians have a history of making being a Christian much more difficult that it needs to be. I know I struggle with this. There are nights I lay in bed and think about all the prayers I didn’t say or the scripture I didn’t read. No matter how many times we hear sermons that we hear that tell us we are saved by faith alone, almost all of us have things that we do in order to remain in God’s good graces. But, Paul wants us to understand that it is truly only through faith in Jesus Christ that we are saved.
For a long time, John Wesley struggled to be good enough to be accepted by God. In fact, it is the reason why he started his holy club that eventually became the Methodist church. Despite being an ordained Anglican priest, Wesley was obsessed with living a life that was worthy of God. He even made a list of rules to live by. Here is the list he made not long after becoming ordained. 1. Begin and end every day with God; sleep not immoderately. 2 Enjoy all spare hours in religion, as able. 3. Avoid drunkards and busybodies. 4. Never on any account pass a day without setting aside at least an hour for devotion. 5. Avoid all manner of passion (I am guessing he was not a sports fan). 6. In every act reflect on the end. And, 7, Begin every important work with prayer. Now are you beginning to understand why people began to call Wesley’s faith methodical? Wesley was determined to live a life that honored God, but he could never allow himself to be sure that he was in favor with God. That changed through a course of events in 1737 and 1738 almost 14 years after he was ordained. On a trip back to England from the colonies during the last week of 1737, Wesley’s ship encountered a storm and everyone on board assumed they were going to drown. Everyone was scared, and Wesley feared that he had not done enough to go to heaven. The ship did not go down, but Wesley saw something during the storm that intrigued him. He noticed that the Moravians, another group of Christians, on the ship remained calm in the storm that Wesley was certain would lead to death. Upon investigation he discovered they were calm, because they had complete assurance of their salvation. A couple months after returning to England, on May 25, 1738, Wesley attended a service where he heard a reading of Luther’s preface of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Listen to what Wesley wrote in his journal after that experience. “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” Wesley had spent his entire life trying to live a holy life so that he could when favor with God. He believed in God. He believed in His son Jesus Christ. He believed in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, but it was not until he saw the faith of the Moravians in action that he began to think that there was something that he was missing. Then on May 25, 1738 I believe that he had an encounter with the risen Christ. It was then that he finally understood that he could never be holy enough to win favor with God. But the good news was that he had already won favor with God, because he had faith in Christ. For the first time in his live he was filled with the blessed assurance of salvation through faith in Christ alone.
Belief is defined as acceptance that something is true or that something exists. Faith is defined as complete trust in something or someone. We are not saved because we believe in God, or even because we believe in Jesus and the Gospel. We are definitely not saved because we go to church, pray, or read scripture. We are saved because we have faith and complete trust in Jesus Christ.
If we confess to have faith in Christ, we are saved because we have complete trust that his death on the cross paid the penalty for our sins and that his resurrection had granted us eternal life. However, Christ has promised us so much more than the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. Listen to just a few of his promises: In John 14:12-14 Jesus promises answers to our prayers. Jesus promises to abide in us if we abide in him in John 15:7. Just a few verses later in John 15:11 Jesus says “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” In the beatitudes Jesus promises to bless the poor, to comfort those who mourn, fill those who hunger with righteousness, and show mercy to the merciful. He goes on to promise that will we called children of God and that we will see God. And in Revelation 22:12-13 Jesus declared “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Our Savior not only bled and died for us, but also has promised us a life full of blessing both in this life in the next. If we only believe in Christ and His Gospel, I believe we will go to heaven and spend eternity with our Heavenly Father. However, if we fail to believe the words of Christ found in the four Gospels, we will miss out on abundant life that comes with walking through this life with Jesus abiding in our hearts.
I said this on my first Sunday here, and I will probably say it many more times. Jesus did not come to give us religion. God’s people, the Jewish nation, already had religion. Jesus came to give us the words of life. Jesus came to teach us that God loves us and will meet all of our needs if we will just surrender to him. But it starts with belief. We have to believe the words of Christ. Yes, we have to believe the core of the Gospel that Christ died for our sins, and rose again on the third day to grant us eternal life. But, we also have to believe Christ when he taught us that we need not worry, because God knows what we need. We must believe that God will answer our prayers. We must believe that we are forgiven, and therefore have no reason to walk around feeling guilty. We must believe that God wants to bless us in this life. We must belief that God protects us from evil. We must believe that God is for us, and that no one can be against us. We must believe that God never abandon us. We must believe that God has given us His Holy Spirit to help us walk through this life. And, we must believe that God is in complete control, and one day Christ will return and that death and all evil will be defeated forever. If we don’t believe this thing we are forfeiting God’s peace and joy, and opening ourselves to a life of guilt, worry, doubt, and fear. And if we live a life of guilt, worry, doubt, and fear then we cannot call ourselves true Christ followers. When we refuse to believe the promises of Christ, we live as if we don’t have the words of life that are found in the Bible.
We must not only believe in God, his Son, and His Holy Spirit, we must believe God will do what he has promised he will do in His Word. I am not suggesting this is easy. We live in a world that tries to tell us that the promises in the Bible are not true. We also have an enemy will use every tool he has to try to convince us that the promises of God are not true. And, to be honest there are and will be days when it seems as if the promises of God aren’t true. But, that is when we must lean into and stand the promises of God. God does not promise a life without trouble, but he does promise to never leave us, to offer us unending forgiveness, mercy, and grace, and to love us with an everlasting love. Those promise are why Jesus humbled himself to be born in a manger and crucified om a cross. God has preserved Paul’s letter to the Romans along with the other 65 documents in the Bible so that we can be daily reminded of his promises. I believe God cries tears of joy when just one sinner repents and accepts Jesus as his or her savior. But, I believe God cries tears of sadness, when his children refuse to believe his promises to them. God does not promise religion. He promises love, mercy, forgiveness, joy, peace, provision, and protection. Those are just few of God’s promises to us. But, in order to experience God’s promises we have to believe that his promises are true. Don’t miss out. Don’t fall into the trap of believing God’s blessings are only found in the next life. Your Heavenly Father, My Heavenly Father, our Havenly Father is waiting to pour out his promises and blessing into our lives if we will just believe. Amen.
