St.John's Church - An ecumenical partnership serving the needs of the Grove Green and Weavering communities

Being right with God is not depend upon us.
It is dependant upon God. God makes us right with himself.How?
2 answers in this reading: faith and Jesus.
Now you might think that the former (faith) is something that's our, its what we bring to the table, and that the latter (Jesus) is the gift of God to us. But even our faith is from God. Ephesians 2:8&9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast. So even our faith is God, our willingness and ability to believe in him and trust him, even that is not really our own invention or idea or creation but is the gift from God. What credit can we take for anything? Nothing.
Jesus said to his disciples: “You didn’t choose me, but I chose you”(John 15:16). Now the danger is that this sounds a bit fatalistic, like there’s no part we can play and what will be, will be.God does everything, we do nothing and that’s that. What do the Spanish say? “Que sera, sera” The Muslims say “Insha Allah” – if God wills it. But before all this makes us humans sound too passive I should quickly add that we can play a part, and there’s things we can do.
For a start we can resist God, and say no. God made us in his image to be his children and part of that is that we have a will, and we can, to a certain extent, make choices and decisions. As well as resisting God and opting out we can also opt further in, as it were. The Bible says that if anyone lacks faith then they need only ask God for the gift of faith, or for more faith, God hears and answers prayer and will help us to believe in him and know him and love him and serve him. It’s a bit like a child getting a well-wrapped present and the first they do is ask for the scissors. God has given us himself in his Son, but we might need help taking hold of this gift, uwrapping it, owning it, loving and using it. We need faith – we need to believe and trust in God – to be saved but we don’t have to grow our own.It is the gift of God and we can ask him for it or pray that others will be given it.
So to recap: we are made right with God by faith, by believing and trusting in him, but even that is the gift and wok of God. Once we have faith God counts us as right with him. The Bible has a word for being right with God and that word is “righteous”, so God gives the gift of faith and then calls us or counts us righteous, but there’s another thing.
Are we righteous?
No, not really. But God sees us as righteous, reckons us as acceptable. We’re not actually right with him, but he sees us right with him and so therefore we are right with him.
What God says, goes. If God says something is so, it is so. Our Epistle reading today puts it like this: “God also speaks of things that do not exist as if they do exist.” (Rom 4:17), so if God is happy to call us righteous, to count us as right with him, then in a sense we. After all, who’s going to deny or contradict God? So we’ve looked at faith and at righteousness, both of which are the free gift of God and the Bible has a word for that, too: grace.

Bible Word Means

Faith Believing and trusting in an invisible God

Righteousness Being (made or counted) right with God.

Grace A free gift from God (from “gratis” = “free”)

We also need hope. Faith has a daughter called Hope. Hope is where faith meets tangible, material, physical reality. Abraham had received promises from God, but these promises looking increasingly unlikely. God is invisible and spiritual but he acts on and in this material and physical world and that is where our faith becomes hope. We have faith IN but we have hope THAT.
Let’s say that again: We have faith IN but we have hope THAT.
We have faith in God and maybe to a lesser extent in ourselves or in others but we have hope that this or that will or will not happen. Hope is a sort of solid faith and Abraham had faith first – faith in God – and then he had hope that the God he had faith in would deliver on this or that promise tangibly in this material and physical world. (Does that make some sort of sense? If this is all too much on a Sunday morning then do re-read this on the website or ask for a print-out so that you can spend time thinking and praying it through). I meet Christians who have faith but who lack hope. Dammit, sometimes I’m one of them.
We believe in God but we don’t or won’t believe that God will do this or that. Sounds familiar?
God’s up there, invisible and intangible, and I have faith in him but when it comes to this or that situation then no matter how much I pray I still lack hope that things will be ever change, will ever be different and better. We’ve all got situations that we are or rather should be hopeful about. Issues or situations about which we’re praying and maybe have been for a very long time, but where there seems to be no change, no progress, no difference.
Let’s look at Abraham and his wife Sarah as a case study, because I think we can learn two things from them. But first let’s recap their story: Abraham and his wife Sarah were very old (100 yrs) and have had no children of their own. In modern language they have fertility problems, then they were visited by God himself, who told them that they would be the ancestors of a mighty nation and that their descendents would outnumber the sand on the beach or the stars in the sky. What was their response? Both Abraham and Sarah, quite separately and individually, laughed up their sleeves, behind God’s back (Which didn’t amuse him very much). So their response was hardly the stuff of faith. Instead of hope and trust and belief and faith they laughed in doubt and mockery and became cynical and sarcastic. Oh dear. Yet that response is pretty typical. Normal, one might say, or natural. But did it help?
No.
Of course, in the end God wins: what he promised came to pass because it had to, because he’s promised it.
So what can we learn from all that? Well, two things. We’ve already met two lovely ladies today: Faith, and her daughter Hope. But before we end let’s meet two more: Verity, and her daughter Patience.
Verity means truth. If God has promised something then it will be so. BUT we have to make sure that our hopes and prayers are indeed in accordance with the will and word of God, otherwise we are barking up the wrong tree. Abraham and Sarah had no excuse for their cynicism and lack of faith – after all God himself had visited them in person, and promised them a child quite explicitly. We have to be a bit more careful, but we do have two things that Abraham didn’t have: the Bible and the Holy Spirit.
>By reading our Bibles with prayer we can hear God speaking to us. It might a general promise – about salvation, heaven, our resurrection from the dead. If he truthfully promises us something then it will come true. That’s Verity – truth: we have to make sure the promises we are holding on to and hoping for are indeed from God and for us, otherwise it’s just wishful thinking.
It’s no good holding on to or hoping for something that God hasn’t promised because it might or might come true. Verity means listening to God to find out the truth, his truth for us.
Verity has a daughter – Patience. Sometimes – not always but sometimes – God plays a very long game. He’s in no hurry. In fact his timing is always perfect. He’s never early or late. But we get impatient.
If we have a promise from God we know he will deliver, but we still have to wait. Patience is a virtue --- it’s one of the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
So to recap:
We need

1. Faith – and her daughter, Hope

2. Verity – and her daughter, Patience.

The first two in each pair is a gift directly from God; the second is a also a gift from God but like a little girl we need to nurture and tend it. We are responsible for how much Hope and Patience we have! Like little girls they are sometimes weak and poorly or else running off away from mum. So likewise sometimes our Hope and Patience is weak and lacking and sometimes its missing altogether! But if we have their mothers – Faith (in God) and the Verity (of God’s promises), and if we do our best to keep and grow Patience and Hope, then we will be going forward in and with God, and into his unfolding promises.

13 Abraham and his family received a promise. God promised that Abraham would receive the world. It would not come to him because he obeyed the law. It would come because of his faith, which made him right with God.
14 Do those who obey the law receive the promise? If they do, faith would have no value. God's promise would be worthless.
15 The law brings God's anger. Where there is no law, the law can't be broken.
16 The promise is based on God's grace. The promise comes by faith. All of Abraham's children will certainly receive the promise. And it is not only for those who are ruled by the law. Those who have the same faith that Abraham had are also included. He is the father of us all.
17 It is written, "I have made you a father of many nations."(Genesis 17:5) God considers Abraham to be our father. The God that Abraham believed in gives life to the dead. Abraham's God also speaks of things that do not exist as if they do exist.
18 When there was no reason for hope, Abraham believed because he had hope. He became the father of many nations, exactly as God had promised. God said, "That is how many children you will have."(Genesis 15:5)
19 Without becoming weak in his faith, Abraham accepted the fact that he was past the time when he could have children. At that time he was about 100 years old. He also realized that Sarah was too old to have children.
20 But he kept believing in God's promise. He became strong in his faith. He gave glory to God.
21 He was absolutely sure that God had the power to do what he had promised.
22 That's why "God accepted Abraham because he believed. So his faith made him right with God."
23 The words "God accepted Abraham's faith" were written not only for Abraham.
24 They were written also for us. We believe in the God who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. So God will accept our faith and make us right with himself.
25 Jesus was handed over to die for our sins. He was raised to life in order to make us right with God. (Romans 4:13-25; NIVr)

Amen