Why pay attention to a dim and distant figure like Abraham? The New Testament explains, when it says that everything that was written in the Old Testament was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope (Romans 15:4).

The Scriptures give us the kind of encouragement that gives us hope, and hope is the one thing we cannot live without. Abraham lived 3500 years ago, but his place in Holy Scripture gives him a voice at our table and a place in our heart.

It also gave him a prominent voice at the Jewish table and a prominent place in Jewish hearts, not least in the heart of the Apostle Paul, who found Abraham relevant on two counts: his faith in God's promise and the fact that his faith began before he became a Jew. Paul talks about all that in Romans four.

Abraham and Faith
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter - this matter of having a right relationship with God? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about - but not before God. What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Believing God was the big deal, and Paul makes a big deal out of that in verses 4-5.

Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. Your paycheck is not a gift; it's an obligation. A right relationship with God is all about a gift that God promises to those who have faith in Christ. Verse five puts it this way: However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.

The gift that God promises to those who have faith in Christ is caught in those words, God who justifies the wicked. It is a promise that on the day when God judges humanity impartially, He will absolve of their guilt those who belong to Christ and will treat them as He would treat the innocent. How do we know He will do that? He promised. How do we know He promised? He offered Jesus Christ as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

We who believe in Christ trust God to do what He promised. But in what sense will a righteous God treat a sinful human being as He would treat the innocent? Verses 6-7 quote Psalm 32 to answer that.

David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered." God doesn't pretend we are innocent. That would be a travesty of justice. God knows our transgressions and for the sake of Christ is prepared to forgive us for them. He forgives us and then treats us as he would the innocent. Verse eight states the divine intention in particularly compelling terms. "Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him." As 1 Corinthians 13:5 puts it, Love keeps no record of wrongs.

We who believe in Christ trust God now to treat us that way on Judgment Day. Such faith is at the heart of the gospel. That is why Paul found Abraham so instructive; he was a man of faith. Paul also found him instructive, because his faith began before he became a Jew. That's Paul's point in verses 9-11a.

Abraham the Gentile
Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith, while he was still uncircumcised.

Paul is saying, "There was a time when the great Abraham was not a Jew. He was just another Gentile, and look at the favorable way God treated his faith when he was a Gentile. That's the model of how God treats Gentiles who believe in Jesus."

Now, verses 11b-12: So then, he (Abraham) is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised (it is perfectly okay to remain thoroughly Jewish) but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

The New Testament never asks Jews to stop being Jews, including Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah. On the other hand, it does ask Jews who believe in Jesus not to demand Gentiles who believe in Him to submit to Jewish rituals. In fact, it asks them to accept Gentile believers as full members of the Jewish covenant without those rituals.

How did Paul think that would work in real life? I don't know. I don't know if he knew. He certainly did not draw up any blueprint for how it might work. But he longed for it to work. If it ever does work, if Jews and Christians ever come to see themselves as part of the same covenant with God, we will be on the way to solving the problems of the Middle East. I know that is a drastic statement. We will say more about it in chapter 11. In the next five verses Paul turns to the content of God's promise to Abraham. We know his faith in God is important, but what, precisely, did he trust God to do?

Abraham and God's Promise
Verse 13 states the promise. It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise (here it is!) that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes through faith. Verse 17 explains what it means to be heir of the world. As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations." In other words the nations of the world will look back on you as the human source of their greatest spiritual blessings.

Verses 13-17 make for some difficult reading. Let me summarize the punch they pack. Paul is saying, "We Jews make a big deal about being the children of Abraham. We see his calling and our calling to be the human source of humanity's greatest spiritual blessings. How do we Jews think that's going to happen? Do we seriously suppose the rest of the world is going to become Jewish? Get real! The only way we will fulfill our calling is for the rest of the world to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as we Jews do.

"That's why faith in Jesus Christ apart from any Jewish rituals becomes absolutely central. Such faith is within reach of the whole human race. So, let us Jews be just as Jewish as we wish, but let us see Jesus the door by which the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob leaves the Jewish ghetto and is free to walk among all the nations of the earth and forgive and include in His covenant all who believe in Jesus. The model for this arrangement is none other than Abraham himself."

Abraham and the Impossible
There was just one thing wrong with God's promise to Abraham. Abraham had no children and no prospects of having children. That is where his faith in God became crucial. Paul prepares us for the central drama of Abraham's life by describing in verse 17 the God Abraham believed in as the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. Why did Paul put it just that way?

Verse 19 gives one explanation as it summarizes the central drama of Abraham's life, which revolved around a heart-wrenching biological reality. Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead - since he was about a hundred years old - and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Their biological clock had struck midnight. The bitterness of barrenness belied the rhetorical flourish about being a father of many nations.

Did it happen around a night fire in the highlands of the Promised Land that strangers asked Abraham his name and, learning that it was Abraham, which means the father of a multitude, asked him how many children he had? And when he told them he had none, did they mock him behind his back that the father of a multitude should have no children to call his own?

Yet, say verses 20-21, he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

In verse 19 the apostle characterizes Abraham as: without weakening in his faith; in verse 20 as: he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God. The great evidence of his unwavering faith is the emotional roller coaster ride of his life. We think people of great faith are immovable rocks. That's a myth.

People of great faith experience dramatic highs and lows, because there are times when what they believe seems highly unlikely. The ancient Hebrew spoke truth to God when he said:

But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold.
For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure;
in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.
When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you. (Psalm 73)

The great Anglican pastor and poet, George Herbert, expressed the same frazzled and fragile faith when he wrote:

I struck the board and cried, No more!
I will abroad.
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store ....
Not so, my heart: but there is fruit,
And thou has hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures: leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit, and not. Forsake thy cage,
Thy ropes of sands ...
And be thy law.

I like what the great American short story writer, Flannery O'Conner once said about faith. "What people don't realize is how much faith costs. They think of faith as a big electric blanket, when of course it is a cross. It is much harder to believe than no to believe," (quote in Catholics, the Media and the American Public Square, 24).

Faith endure the challenging, changing circumstances of life, but precisely because people hold on to the promise of God, those circumstances can at times toss people around like rag dolls. You trust God? You don't know anything yet. Life will shake you and turn you every way but loose. What you thought was certain will become uncertain. You'll want to give up the faith, go with the flow, take the path of least resistance. Abraham wanted to do that. In the end he held on. He believed God's promise that He is the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.

This, says verse 22, is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." God loves it when we trust Him and stay true to Him, when all around our soul gives way. God is pleased whether He finds the faith in an observant Jew or a non-observant Gentile. That faith transcends religious achievement and moral failures.

Old Abraham lived 3500 years ago, but his place in Holy Scripture gives him a voice at our table and a place in our heart. His experience of faith gives us the kind of encouragement that gives us hope, and hope is the one thing we cannot live without. Paul drives the point home in verses 23-25.

Abraham and Us
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. He was delievered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

Like Abraham, we have a promise from the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. The content of God's promise to us comes in verses 24-25. We believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. We can trust Him or we could refuse Him, but we trust Him. That is where we stand. Stand with us. Let us stand together.

Also like Abraham, we find our faith at times battered by our circumstances and our own weakness. Moments of brilliant faith alternate with moments of grave doubt. "Living life to the end is not a childish task" for the person of faith.

When you doubt, I know it is difficult, but keep the faith, hold to His promise. When God doesn't come through the way you wanted, leaves your prayers unanswered, when His actions make no sense to you, keep the faith. Hold to His promise.

When evil persists and the innocent suffer, it can shake your faith to the very core. Your faith may not seem to matter any more, may seem to be useless in the face of such horror. Keep the faith, hold to His promise.

When other Christians disappoint you, it can be a bitter experience. You expected so much, you received so little from them. It is easy to see the Church as a vast network of irredeemable hypocrisy. Don't despair. Keep the faith, hold to His promise.

When you disappoint yourself for the thousandth time, it would be so easy to give up. You are never going to change. The leopard doesn't change his spots. Don't despair. Keep the faith, hold to His promise.

The future belongs to the Church, because the Church belongs to Christ. We have been caught up into the eternal purpose of God. So, keep the faith, hold to His promise.