Pastor Slaughter
Second Sunday of Lent
3-5-2023
Theme: Saved through Faith not by Works
Text: Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
Have you ever thought you were doing something helpful but were actually not helping at all? I remember when I was Vicaring. I was visiting someone in the nursing home. On that particular day, he was a little confused and so we were in a boat. While he was lying in the bed he said, “Hey vicar, can you push that button over there.” Sure! And I push an imaginary button. I wish you could have seen the look he gave me with a smirk on his face. It was that look that you give your children when they are trying to be helpful but really are making more work for you. I remember doing something similar as a kid. My dad rented apartments. And I think he had to take me to work one day. I remember helping him paint one of those apartments. But now that I think back to that day I am sure that he had to redo everything I did.
I guess the point of my illustration is simple. There are times when we think we are doing something helpful, but really it doesn’t help at all, in fact what we do is more of a hindrance then it is a help. People want to contribute, people want to be helpful and it spills over in our spiritual lives as well. The desire to contribute, and be helpful is a great thing except when we are talking about matters of our faith and our salvation. If we think we contribute to our salvation, it hinders seeing the grace of God. If we want to help with our salvation, then it lessens the saving work of Jesus on the cross. Today we are going see we are saved through faith not by works.
In chapter 3 Paul just showed how no on is righteous, how people have turned away. There is no one who does what is good: there is not even one. How can Paul say something like that? It’s because of sin. It’s because of sin we were dead in our transgressions and sins. Paul is addressing people who think that they can earn righteousness, people who think that they have a relationship with God by keeping the law. By doing so they alienate themselves from God because God’s law demands perfection. And who can claim that they were perfect in every thought, word, and deed? Certainly not me.
We take pride in what we do, don’t we? Maybe it’s your job and you take pride in a project that you completed. Maybe it’s your hobby, and you take pride in what you made. There is a certain level of satisfaction in the work that we do. I think God intended it that way in a perfect world. Like Adam working in the garden of Eden, he would’ve been able to find satisfaction in his work.
For us it is simple. You work and get something in return. A paycheck, a cool craft, a complement, a thank you card. It’s something that is so ingrained in us and is found in so many different areas of our lives, has the thought spilled over into our spiritual lives? Do we think we are saved by how good we are? Do we think someone else is saved by all the good things they do for people?
If any person could have had that claim, it would have been Abraham. I mean God came to him one day, told him to pack everything up, take his wife leave his family and go. And he went. God told him that he would make him into a great nation and he believed. God asked him to sacrifice his Son Isaac and Abraham trusted in God to provide the sacrifice or raise Isaac from the dead.
What do the Scriptures say about Abraham? If Abraham was justified, declared not guilty by what he did, he would have had something to boast about but not to God. Paul goes back to the Old Testament and says, “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
How do we know that Abraham’s belief, his faith wasn’t a work? Because Paul goes on to describe it as a gift as opposed to a wage. If a person agrees to work for an employer for a certain rate of pay, then the wages at the end of the day are something the worker has earned. When someone works his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.
However if a person doesn’t work and still gets something at the end of the day , that is a gift being credited to that person. Paul turns the focus back to spiritual life as says in contrast to the person who works, “But to the person who does NOT work but believes in the God who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness.” Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness.
I think there is two sides to this coin. On the one hand you have people who think they can earn salvation by what they do, that Jesus did most of the work but leaves the rest up you. And on the other hand I see people who think they are beyond salvation. That there is no way God would forgive them or save them, like they simply beyond hope.
Just look at the gospel for today. Who did Jesus come to save? Whom did God’s love extend to? Only the Pharisees? Only the righteous? No. “For God so loved the world that he have his only-begotten son, That whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” The focus is on Christ and what he did for the world. If we take the focus off of ourselves and focus on the work of Christ then we recognize that we can’t earn salvation and that we are not beyond salvation.
I think back to the Samaritan woman at the well. She was divorced not once, not twice but 5 times. And now she is committing adultery by living with someone who she is not married to. The Bible describes how Jesus had to go to Samaria, Jesus had to talk to his lady. Why? To bring her salvation.
But people like to make comparisons. They either look at their life and think they are like that Samaritan woman at the well and think that there is no hope for salvation because of past or current sins. Or people think along the lines of the misunderstanding that Abraham was somehow saved by how good he was and so they can as well. Both are so far from the truth. On the one hand you are not beyond salvation and on the other you are not good enough to be saved on your own. Where does that leave us? At the foot of the cross. As Paul says, “God justifies the ungodly.”
When you hear someone say that they aren’t good enough to go to church or that they are not good enough to be saved, remind them that you aren’t either. But that is precisely the people that Jesus came to save. He saved a great man like Abraham. He saved and adulterer at the well. He saved you and me by giving his perfect life as a free gift.
Abraham’s righteousness did not come by doing but by believing. What did Abraham do? Nothing! When we think about Abraham’s life, God did it all: He made all the promises; he gave the inheritance; he gave the child, God made Abraham into a blessing for all nations. Abraham simply received the promises of God by believing that the one who made the promises was faithful.
And what happened? God acted again and credited this faith to Abraham as righteousness. This is the righteousness that every person needs to stand in God’s presence. This is the righteousness that the sinful woman at the well, and even faithful Abraham lacked. This is the righteousness that God gives. We are people like Abraham, like the woman at the well, who believe that God justifies the wicked. And so God forgives our wickedness and calls us righteous—no even more— he gives us righteousness in the place of our wickedness.
My family, anytime we start to think we can become righteous by the things we do, we start acting like children and think we are doing something helpful but it doesn’t help at all. Let us remember that Christ is the one who saves us! He is the one who makes us righteous! Amen.