{"id":3643,"date":"2024-02-26T14:08:37","date_gmt":"2024-02-26T14:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstpresvaldosta.org\/?p=3643"},"modified":"2024-02-26T14:08:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-26T14:08:37","slug":"righteousness-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstpresvaldosta.org\/index.php\/2024\/02\/26\/righteousness-of-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Righteousness of Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

Righteousness of Faith<\/span>
\nRomans 4:13-25<\/span>
\nFeb 25, 2024<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m sure we have all met those dreamers\u2026. maybe you are one of them, or maybe I\u2019m one of them\u2026.you know, one of those people that has the most \u201cout there\u201d idea that it could not possibly come true.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0For example, when my oldest grandson was about four years old, he loved for his Daddy to take him down to the park which was by a water stream, maybe it was a river. In any event, he had been watching cartoons, and on this particular cartoon the characters had been using a net or a basket of some sort to catch fish. He told his Daddy he wanted to go fishing, and when his Daddy explained they didn\u2019t have a fishing pole, he pulled out from the kitchen cabinets an asparagus steamer basket, and showed it to his Daddy, exclaiming, \u201cwe can use this.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Now, I don\u2019t know if you all know what an asparagus strainer looks like, but it is pretty much an open basket with gaps that are open all the way around and up and down of about an inch or so in each section, certainly not the best tool for catching fish.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Nevertheless, our four year old grandson had no doubt that he could catch a fish if he could just convince his Daddy to take him down the park. So, after trying to explain to his young son that this wasn\u2019t possible, yet to no avail of convincing him, his Daddy decided to play along. He tied a string to the asparagus pot handle which would allow them to cast it into the stream, and off they went, down to the park.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I can just imagine the excitement our little grandson was anticipating in the catch that was to come, and I can also imagine his Daddy\u2019s skepticism of the fact that this was not going to happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0So as they approach the banks of the stream, our grandson tosses out the asparagus basket, and pulls it back in\u2026and yes, you guessed it, the basket came back empty. So he tosses again, with the same excitement and anticipation as before, and still the basket returns empty.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0In wanting to encourage his son to not give up, his Daddy reaches for the basket and say, \u201clet me throw it a little further out,\u201d again not expecting the basket to return with anything in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0However, when our grandson slowly pulls in the mostly open asparagus basket, much to our son\u2019s dismay, and to our grandson\u2019s glee, there in that open basket was a fish!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0If only we all had the faith of a child.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Although, looking at today\u2019s story in our scripture, if only we had the faith of the man of old, the faith of Abraham.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Paul refers in our scripture today of Abraham\u2019s faith as \u201choping against hope.\u201d This means hope in spite of apparent impossibility. \u201cAgainst hope\u201d is exactly that, an apparent impossibility. It\u2019s something that we perceive, usually on past experiences of ourselves and others, that it cannot be done or it cannot possibly happen. It might even be considered wishful thinking.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Here in their old age, Sarah, Abraham\u2019s wife remains childless, and God comes to them to tell them they will have a child, and that Abraham will be the father of many nations. Sarah laughs when she is told she will give birth to a child, after all she is beyond this possibility of hope.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Yet Abraham trusts in God\u2019s promises, and puts his faith in God to deliver the divine promise. Abraham left room for hope, because in his full life, he had learned one thing if nothing else, and that was that he could trust what God tells him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Paul explains that this faith and trust, this hope that Abraham placed in God\u2019s word took action on Abraham\u2019s part.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Too often we dismiss something too soon in believing it can be a possibility, we say we have faith, yet we are the first to run up the bank, away from the water from which our baskets can be filled.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0One of my commentaries summarized it this way, \u201cWhen serious troubles are still unresolved, our choice is between hoping too much or hoping too little. The story of Abraham and Sarah and Paul\u2019s words about hoping against hope suggest that we who trust God would do well to err on the side of excessive hope.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Now let\u2019s look at the next part of this scripture that talks about Abraham\u2019s faith being reckoned to him as righteousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Reckoning is establishing something in a particular way, and in Abraham\u2019s instance, it was his \u201crightness\u201d in his believing in God\u2019s promise.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Paul says these words were not written for Abraham alone, but for ourselves also. So what does this mean?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When we believe in the promises of God, with the same trust and hope, the same faith that Abraham believed in God\u2019s promise, then we are also reckoned to righteousness. We do the right thing in God\u2019s eyes, trusting in what he tells us in his words will happen, and we are credited by God to have righteousness or rightness of our faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0When God sees our faith in the divine promise of Jesus as the Son of Man, the one God sent to fulfill the new covenant, God gives us credit for our faith, and we are justified by faith. Justification then is the act by which God moves a willing person from the state of sin to the state of grace, or a state of righteousness through the birth, death and resurrection of the one sent by God.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0We are therefore, justified by faith, and this faith is what unites us to Christ.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0This faith is the belief in the truth of the gospel, as well as trust in the God of the gospel, the same God of Abraham.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Our justification before God by faith results in the creation of a family of faith that includes all believers. It\u2019s what drives us to come here on Sunday mornings so that we can be present with God and our family of faith here in this community.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0We are justified by faith alone; however, it comes with a good and loving heart, a willing heart to act in the same ways that Christ did when he loved others unconditionally. In these actions we bring glory to God.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Like Abraham, we believe in the God of the gospel. We believe that it is true and trust that God will deliver his promises, just as he delivered the Christ child, just as he delivered the lamb for the cross, and just as he raised Christ on the third day.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Kevin McFadden, author of \u201cFaith in the Son of God,\u201d says \u2018justification by faith does not draw attention to ourselves and our great faith, but rather to Christ and God\u2019s great work of redemption through him.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0All the divine works of God seem impossible to us as humans when we consider \u201cjustifying the ungodly,\u201d or \u201cgiving life to the dead,\u201d or \u201ccalling into existence the things that do not exist,\u201d however, all of them are fundamental to Christian faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The very basis of our \u201chope against hope\u201d is trusting in the God who created the world, raised Jesus from the dead and invites sinners into fellowship. It is God\u2019s divine promise.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0So whether we are a child of God with a basket full of holes trying to catch a fish, or a woman or man in our old age trusting in God\u2019s word, the very basis of our righteousness of faith, is believing in God, and all that is provided to us through his divine promises through Christ by whose death our sins were forgiven, and by whose resurrection, we have a new life. To God be the glory!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Cover Art by Unsplash+, used with subscription<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Righteousness of Faith Romans 4:13-25 Feb 25, 2024 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m sure we have all met those dreamers\u2026. maybe you are one of them, or maybe I\u2019m one of them\u2026.you know, one of those people that has the most \u201cout there\u201d idea that it could not possibly come true. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0For example, when my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nRighteousness of Faith - First Presbyterian Church Valdosta<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.firstpresvaldosta.org\/index.php\/2024\/02\/26\/righteousness-of-faith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Righteousness of Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Righteousness of Faith Romans 4:13-25 Feb 25, 2024 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m sure we have all met those dreamers\u2026. maybe you are one of them, or maybe I\u2019m one of them\u2026.you know, one of those people that has the most \u201cout there\u201d idea that it could not possibly come true. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0For example, when my […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.firstpresvaldosta.org\/index.php\/2024\/02\/26\/righteousness-of-faith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"First Presbyterian Church Valdosta\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-02-26T14:08:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.firstpresvaldosta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Faith-Forward-Future-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"FirstPresValdosta\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"FirstPresValdosta\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.firstpresvaldosta.org\/index.php\/2024\/02\/26\/righteousness-of-faith\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.firstpresvaldosta.org\/index.php\/2024\/02\/26\/righteousness-of-faith\/\",\"name\":\"Righteousness of Faith - 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