Romans 4:13-25 -- Impossible Righteousness

Romans 4:13-25: “Impossible Righteousness”

Have you ever noticed how relationships make demands on you? Whether in families or friendships, relationships often move us out of our comfort zones.

And since confession is good for the soul, this morning I’ll admit one time where my friendship infringed on comfort! Not long after coming to Parkview, I was returning from a July 4 dinner with the Bullocks, in Wheaton. And I came upon a police roadblock, where they were pulling every car over and checking ID. I pulled up with a smile, only to have the officer say, ‘Sir, pull over here. Your license is suspended.’ What? There is some mistake! ‘No, no mistake. Do you remember a speeding ticket in Ohio?’ And then my mind went to an unpaid speeding ticket. And my heart sunk. I pulled over, with a group of people who, like me, couldn’t drive away. In many ways it was journalistic: I was the only white male detained...and I saw firsthand how minorities can be treated by some suburban police. But there I was: stuck, late at night on July 4. One great question before me: who could I call? I couldn’t call Dr. Bullock and tell about my suspended license! :-) Then, inspiration! ‘I’ll call Dan Perkins!’ So I called Dan. Good ole’ Dan! He came out, drove through late-night suburbia crawling with police, and picked me up. For sake of friendship, he moved way out of a comfort zone!

And that is the nature of relationships, sometimes. We humans instinctively know that relation brings demands. Perhaps that is why we sometimes would rather have faith be about religion and rules, than about relation.

This is why some people had a problem with the Apostle Paul. They said he had gone off the deep end. To people comfortable in ritual, the Apostle comes and preaches that rightness with God comes through relation to God, through faith in Jesus Christ: Rightness is about faith-relation, not religious rituals and sacrifices.

Such preaching caused problems. ‘We’ve been doing it this way for hundreds of years!’ Some even wanted to stone the Apostle…a huge argument echoed over the entire early Church, threatened to rip it apart.

And this is the drumbeat behind today’s text: the argument over what makes us right with God. One group of people, a very powerful and connected group, a group with the old money, said it was by keeping the law. It was by keeping the rituals of the Torah, the Hebraic way of life. One stayed right with God by offering God the proper sacrifices, attending the proper services, wearing proper clothes and keeping proper roles -- a predictable, manageable religion.

And this mindset is still around. I talked to one person recently who believes that true worship of God must be on a Saturday, the original Jewish Sabbath. Turn on Christian TV and you’ll hear rightness with God linked with how much ‘seed-money’ you give: ‘To get blessings you have to sow the seed. Sow by this number on the screen.’

Many Christians unconsciously think that they are right with God by the services they attend, or the ministry they give God.

It is precisely here that our text speaks: how are we right with God?

Religion says that by keeping certain rules, performing certain rituals, we are right before God. But God cries to Israel, ‘My People! Do you think I need ritual? Do you think I need sacrifices of bulls and goats? If I were hungry, I would not tell you!’ ‘No! I desire mercy more than sacrifice’ [Ps. 50]. I want your heart and not your buy-offs.

‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ – I desire the inner workings of a relation of love: obedience, faithfulness, mercy…

This was the message of the Apostle, in a long line of Hebrew prophets. But he was accused of selling out the true religion. He was accused of watering down the Law of God.

But in answer, the Apostle reached back to Abraham and Sarah, to show that true relation with God has always been about faith relation, even for People of the Law.

This kind of relation is not comfortable, and cannot be managed and controlled. It changes us in friendship…with God.

When God called Abram and Sarai, He called them from a life of comfort, away from family, away from Ur, the urbane center of civilization, its running water, indoor plumbing and social prestige. He called them to cross a barren desert, to live in caravan of animals, frail tents on burning sand, following the stars until He showed them a land.

“What is this Lord, a game of divine hide and seek?” “You call us and then hide the map?”

Divine relation cost them everything of their comfortable life, but in the effort God called them His own. God gave them new covenant names. Not only did God call them from former Ur-bane life, God called them from former selves to new selves, from false selves to true selves: New names: Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah.

And this relation went from level to level, faith calling from ‘deep to deep.’ As if it wasn’t enough, to call them away, the Lord then promised them a son – after they were too old to bear children: a whole new level in the call! The first level took everything they had, this level took more than they had…and Sarah just had to laugh.

“Lord, have you lost your mind? Does a woman bear a child when her body is incapable of bearing?” “How can you promise something that is impossible to accept…and then call us to accept that impossibility?”

Living in relation with God took everything they had: body, soul and spirit.

Yet, God wasn’t through. After the miracle, after the promised son, God asked for that son. “Now that I’ve given you the son, give him back to Me on the Mountain.”

“But God! You gave him to us! You promised him, and now you ask us to sacrifice him?”

How can God be so cruel, so demanding in the calling?
As one rabbi said, “G-d, you treat your friends this way -- it’s no wonder you have so few of them!”

But by now, it’s about relationship. Abraham and Sarah know…by now, this is a God who calls to the impossible. This is a God whose relation makes demands. And they believed. As Kierkegaard put it, “Abraham believed God by virtue of the absurd.” Only God could call to something like this…

They obeyed God…Abraham saddled the donkey with firewood, sharpened his knife and headed up the Mountain of God…only to find God give him back his son, and give him back the impossible dream: a generation of righteousness. Verse 18: 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.”

Faith relation takes away our comfortable, managed spirituality…living into the calling takes everything we call our own. But it makes us children of promise in the process.

In friendship with God we find ‘the just shall live by faith.’

Question: Are you in relation with God?
Answer: Have you dreamed any impossible dreams lately? What does your faith journey look like during the week? Is it about managing God in ritual…or does divine friendship make demands on you?

Oh! What does it mean for us to hear the words, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’

Faithfulness, not ritual…
Obedience, not religion…
Wonder, not management of God.

Because we find, like Abraham and Sarah, that righteousness is impossible. Righteousness is the impossible dream. It is something we cannot attain, only something we relate to through Christ, and have granted us in faith.

Yet there, in divine relation, we have credited to us this impossible thing:
Verses 18ff: 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.” Yet he did not waver through unbelief…being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Verse 23-24: The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness -- for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

Here is the great secret of impossibility: Righteousness is ‘credited to those who believe,’ to those who dare relate in faith. Then let us believe, relate…and be credited righteous! We will enter the impossible through faith!

Amen.