The Characteristics of Faith Pt. 2
Romans 4:18-25
As we approach the end chapter four in Romans, Paul gives us a vivid picture of what saving faith looks like as he shows us what it looked like in the life of Abraham.
And the interesting thing about this picture of saving faith that Paul paints for us is that it looks just like the picture of sanctifying faith as well.
You see, the faith that saves us is the same faith that sanctifies us.
Therefore, there is no difference between saving faith and the faith by which we must live the Christian life.
The whole Christian life from start to finish is a walk of faith—that is believing God to the degree that we believe in God or trust God to have done what He says He has done and to do what He has promised to do.
So, as we consider this picture of true saving faith—don’t fall into the trap of thinking it only applies to your salvation and not your sanctification or the way you are to live your life as a Christian.
These characteristics of faith that we will look at this morning were the means of our salvation as well as are the means of living the Christian life successfully.
What this means is that the faith that saved you is the same faith that causes you to persevere and endure trials and intense suffering that you do not understand.
It is the same faith that believes God does have a plan and a purpose for you when everything in life seems to indicate just the opposite.
It is the same faith that causes you to not quit when you have failed the Lord.
It is the same faith that keeps you pursuing holiness when all you are seeing is your sin.
Saving faith is living faith—it is the faith by which we are to live if we are to persevere in and enjoy the Christian life despite the difficulties and even impossible situations that come our way.
So let’s turn to Romans 4:18-22 and look at the characteristics of true faith and see what this kind of faith does and why God deems it so very precious in His sight.
As you are turning, let me also remind you that this kind of faith is not natural to man.
We are not issued this kind of faith at birth.
Rather, it is a gift of God that God calls into existence in our lives so that we can believe in Him.
Thus, the faith we are considering today has nothing to do with the power of positive thinking or optimistic thinking—no—it is a divinely originated and living faith that is able to see that God does indeed exist and rewards those who seek Him by believing in Him and relying upon His promises even when they seem impossible.
1. True faith believes God will do what He has said He will do in spite of the odds. (18)
The phrase, “In hope against hope he believed” is literally rendered, “who beyond hope on hope believed”.
Probably the ancient preacher, Chrysostem, had the best explanation of this phrase saying that Abraham’s faith went far beyond human hope to rest upon divine hope.
You see, Abraham had every reason, from a human standpoint, to give up on the hope of having a son.
He was simply too old and Sarah was barren. From a human perspective there simply was no hope of God’s promise that they would have a son coming true.
So Abraham had to go beyond human hope and rest on another kind of hope—divine hope.
Abraham had to move beyond what he knew by way of human experience and beyond what he could see to rest in another kind of hope—the hope of relying upon God’s promise and God Himself.
And as a result of moving beyond human hope and believing God so as to rest upon the promise of God in spite of the fact that what God had promised was humanly impossible—Abraham did indeed become the father of many nations through his son Isaac and eventually the Messiah—Jesus Christ.
2. True faith realistically takes into account the impossibility of the situation and believes God anyway. (19-20a)
Now, in moving beyond human knowledge, experience, and hope Abraham did not, as some would say, “take a leap into the dark” without taking into account the impossibility of his situation.
No, Abraham’s faith took a realistic view of his situation and realized that from a human perspective—having a son was an impossibility given his and Sarah’s age and her inability to have children throughout their entire marriage of probably some 70 to 75 years.
Now for those of you with the KJV, I need to mention that the word “not” in the phrase: “he considered not his own body, now dead” in verse 19, was not part of the original Greek manuscript of Romans.
The word “not” was added sometime after 1516 and found its way into the Textus Receptus, which is the Greek translation of the New Testament from which the KJV came.
So, the correct rendering is: “he considered his own body, now dead”.
Thus, Abraham contemplated his own body and the deadness of Sarah’s womb and realized that what God was promising him was impossible from a human perspective.
And yet—he did not become “weak in faith”.
In other words, realistically taking stock of his impossible situation did not cause him to doubt God, God’s Word and specifically God’s promise concerning him.
Listen, realism and the hard cold facts do not diminish true biblical faith.
Some people see faith as being divorced from realism or from the facts of their situation and what they claim to be faith is nothing less than denial.
Others just don’t want to know how bad their situation is thinking that if they don’t know—it can’t hurt them or really affect them.
And so instead of exercising great faith to deal with great problems and impossible situations—they try to diminish their problems and their situations so as to diminish the degree of faith in God that will be required to get through these struggles.
And then there are others still who believe Christians simply don’t have problems or aren’t supposed to have problems or impossible life situations and so they try to deny them entirely rather than seeing them as opportunities to exercise faith.
But, real faith—true faith—biblical faith is not afraid of the facts—and neither is it hindered or paralyzed or weakened by the facts—it in taking account of the impossibility of the situation—believes God anyway.
As Paul says in the first part of verse 20, “yet with respect to the promise of God [Abraham] did not waver in unbelief . . .”
This does not mean that Abraham never had a doubt about God’s promise of a son—we know that he had doubts because the Bible tells us that he did.
What the phrase means is that Abraham, while having momentary doubts and hesitations regarding God’s promise, avoided an attitude of deep-seated disbelief, distrust, and consistent doubting of God’s promise, God’s ability, God’s kind intentions toward him and thus, God’s character.
And how he avoided this kind of disbelief toward God is revealed to us in the next part of verse 20.
3. True faith grows stronger as it focuses upon God and His glory rather than upon us and the impossibility of our situation. (20b-22)
Now the last phrase of verse 20 is very important for us to understand because it really teaches us what builds and strengthens our faith.
It says: “but [Abraham] grew strong in faith, giving glory to God.”
Now does this mean that as Abraham grew strong in his faith that this glorified God?
Well, I think it is true that when we grow in our faith and exercise our faith that God is certainly glorified but I don’t think this is what this phrase is specifically teaching.
You see, the phrase, “grew strong in faith” is better rendered “was made strong in faith”. It is an aorist indicative passive tense verb and so we must understand that the action is being done to Abraham’s faith rather than by his faith.
In other words, something is acting upon Abraham’s faith to strengthen it rather than Abraham’s faith making itself strong.
The other thing to note in the phrase is that the words “giving glory” come from the Greek word, (dous), which is an aorist active participle, which simply means that the action of giving glory to God is both preceding and contemporary to Abraham’s faith being made strong.
In other words, Abraham’s faith was strengthened after and as he continued to give glory to God.
The word “glory” is translated from the Greek word (doxan).
It’s basic meaning is to recognize a person or thing for what it is.
When used in reference to God, it means to not only recognize God for Who He is—it also means to think about God as He is and to give Him the honor and the praise that He deserves for Who He is and what He is like.
Finally, when used of seeing God as He is—as He has revealed Himself to be of necessity also means seeing everything else as it truly is in relation to God.
And thus, as Abraham was looking at God and recognizing who God is and reveling in who God is and marveling at God’s attributes……his impossible situation suddenly became possible because nothing is impossible with and to God if it is his will to do the impossible……..and thus Abraham’s faith was strengthened.
Have you ever wondered why the universe is so big?
I mean the crew on the space shuttle is overhauling the Hubble Telescope so we can continue to see into space and deeper into the universe so that, according to NASA scientists, we can see within 100 million years of the BIG BANG to understand better how it all began.
Well, I have news for those scientists…….they won’t get any closer to the BIG BANG because their was no such thing.
But what Hubble will reveal is that Space is even bigger, deeper, and more mysterious than they ever thought.
Which again begs the question, why did God make it so deep and so huge and so astronomically beyond our capability to comprehend?
I mean, our sun, which is our nearest star, is 93 million miles away. That's why the sun, which is a million times the size of the Earth, looks so small. At 500 mph it would take a jet 21 years to get there.
And when we leave our solar system, we find our sun and its planets are just one small part of the Milky Way galaxy, which is a huge city of stars, so big that even at the speed of light, it would take 100,000 years to travel across it.
And beyond our own galaxy lies a vast expanse of not thousands or millions but billions of more galaxies.
And with its outdated telescope and camera which has just been replaced by the space shuttle astronauts—Hubble actually detected a galaxy 78 sextillion miles from earth—that is 78 with 21 zeros behind it. That’s 13 billion light years from earth.
So again, why did God make the universe so vast and so big?
Well to answer that….let me ask you another question…..If God wanted to create something to show us that He is Big enough and powerful enough and creative enough to help us and to keep his promises to us…..how big would it have to be?
Listen, when we look at God and all that God is and all that God has done our faith will be strengthened but if all we look at is our impossible situation and our own inability……our faith will grow weak and we will waver in unbelief.
The word “waver”, by the way in verse 20, is used figuratively to refer to being at a cross roads and not knowing which way to go but not because you honestly don’t know which way to go but rather because you are wondering if believing God is the best way to go.
Literally, it means to be divided. Thus, the idea here is that when you look at your impossible situation rather than at the God of the impossible…..you will be divided or as James puts it, double-minded…….living in uncertainty and wondering if God’s way is the right and best and only way to go.
On the other hand, when you focus on God and see God as He is and thus glorify God, your faith in God and in His promises are strengthened and your impossible situation, which loomed large in your heart….is cut down to size.
And in Abraham’s case, this led to him being fully assured that what God had promised to do—God can do—and God will do!
And when he came to the point where he was fully assured of God’s promise and God’s capability to perform His promise and of God’s intent to fulfill His promise—so that he fully believed in God—God credited His own righteousness to Abraham’s account and saved him because of his faith.
CONCLUSION
Now, someone may ask…..why would God justify and save a person simply because he believed in Him?
Why is belief or faith in God more important and esteemed more highly and precious in God’s sight than religious works or sacrifices?
Well, the answer to that question comes back to that word, , which again means to see and think about God as He really is—to recognize Him for who and what He is.
You see, because of Who God is and What God is like—the greatest insult and offense to Him is to not trust Him and to not rely upon Him and to attempt to live your life independent of Him.
Given the character and majesty and sovereign authority and power of God—He is utterly and absolutely credible and trustworthy and therefore—He demands to be believed, trusted, relied upon, and embraced wholeheartedly as true to His Word.
And when a person consistently and ultimately fails to believe God and to trust God and to rely upon God—that person has offended and insulted and sinned against the All-glorious God in such a way as to deserve eternal punishment in hell for all of infinity.
Look at Romans 1:18-21.
Those who are under God’s wrath are those who knowing about God and understanding His basic attributes and divine nature through general revelation still refuse to honor him…..that is believe Him and trust in Him.
Listen, the first initial and appropriate response to God that glorifies Him is to believe Him simply and solely because He is God.
Believing God must precede loving God and even worshipping God for how can you love and worship who you do not believe to be what He claims to be?!
Thus, the reason why God, when He saw Abraham’s faith, credited His own righteousness to him so as to justify and save him.
The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 1:7 that it is the proof or the authenticity of our faith that is precious to God and in fact more precious than gold, which is perishable.
And the reason why it is so precious to God is because when it is exercised it brings God praise, glory, and honor.
Can you imagine moms and dads—being in a swimming pool and on the side of the pool is your little three year old child—who so badly wants to jump in but is afraid you won’t catch him.
So you promise him that you will catch him and that his head won’t go under the water.
And then you notice that this drama is being watched by other parents and children—all waiting to see if the little child is going to believe you and then trust in you to keep your promise.
Now—what must that child do if he is going to make you look good in front of all who are watching as well as enjoy the thrill of jumping into the pool?
He must jump.
You see, when we are fully persuaded that God is able and willing to catch us if we will simply trust in Him and jump—then He is praised, glorified, and honored and we get to experience the thrill and joy of seeing God work on our behalf.
He gets the glory and we get the joy!
Our salvation and our sanctification are both dependent upon faith in God and in His promises.
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