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Written by Pastor Darrell Cooper
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Friday, 01 August 2008 14:46 |
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Romans 4:1-5; 13-17
February 17, 2008 - Lindsborg Cov.
“Meet Johnny & Carl”
(Salvation by Faith)
Sermon Outline
I would like you all to meet Johnny. This is Johnny Johnson. He is nine years old and he lives in this house with his parents. (Gesture to where I am standing on stage right) Johnny knows a great deal about his parents, but the one thing he knows about his parents more than anything else is that his parents have rules - lots and lots of rules. There are so many things Johnny’s parents expect him to do.
For example, they expect him to make his bed every morning. They expect him to keep his room clean. They expect him to take out garbage once a week. They expect him to do his homework every day. They expect him to help wash dishes after supper. And on and on goes the list of rules in the Johnson household.
Johnny is afraid. Johnny lives in constant fear that he is going to fail to meet his parents’ expectations. Then they might be angry. They might punish him. Perhaps they will stop loving him or even cease to be his parents altogether. So he not only tries to obey all the rules, but he makes up a few of his own.
For example, Johnny has a garden in his backyard where he tries to grow all his own food. This way he doesn’t have to eat the food his parents provide. He is also taking sewing lessons in the hope that he will be able to make all his own clothes. He also does various odd jobs. In the summertime he mows the neighbor’s lawn. In the wintertime he shovels their sidewalks. And year-round he has a paper route. All of this in an attempt to earn all his own money, pay all his own bills, and in this way avoid being a burden to his parents.
Johnny talks to his parents a lot, but when he does it is mostly to find out how he is doing and to apologize for his frequent failures and to promise that he will do better in the future.
Make no mistake, Johnny’s parents love him. They show him that by smiling at him, offering him hugs, and giving him nice toys. But that only makes it worse. Their kindness only deepens Johnny’s insecurity. It makes him even more fearful that he is going to lose their approval, so he just tries even harder to keep all the rules.
By all accounts, Johnny is a very faithful son, but to be honest, he is not very happy. In fact, truth be told, he is downright miserable. This is Johnny Johnson, and this is where Johnny lives.
Two doors down from Johnny lives Carl. Carl Carlson. Carl Carlson, is also nine years old, and like Johnny, he lives in a loving family. Unlike Johnny, Carl is adopted.
Like Johnny, Carl’s parents have lots of rules, but strangely enough, unlike Johnny, Carl believes he doesn’t have to follow any of them. Carl believes he is exempt from his parents’ rules. Carl reasons like this: “I was only three years old when my parents adopted me. I was too young at the time to even know what the rules were, let alone follow them. So, obviously my parents did not choose me because I was a good boy. Since I didn’t do anything good enough to get accepted into the family, then I don’t need to do anything good enough to stay in the family. Therefore, it is not necessary for me to obey any of my parents’ rules.”
Carl believes that the one thing his parents want from him more than anything else is simply that he believe in them. They want Carl to believe in them. They want him to believe that they exist, believe that they love him, and believe that they really did adopt him when he was only three years old.
An Carl does believe these things. In fact, Carl has memorized an impressive list of facts, figures, and stories about his parents and the family history. For example, he knows their names (of course), he knows what year they were each born, the city in which they were born, the high schools from which they graduated, how they met, their wedding date, their address, phone number, e-mail address; he even knows how much money they paid the adoption agency for him. And he could go on and on. Suffice it to say that Carl knows and believes an astonishing number of things about his parents.
Furthermore, out of a sense of obligation, Carl performs certain family rituals. For example, once a week he gathers with his other adopted siblings and recites the family history and sings the family song. And once a year he celebrates the anniversary of his adoption.
The rest of the time he mostly ignores his parents. He spends very little time with them, mostly going to them to collect from them the things he needs, like food and clothing. The rest of the time Carl is on his own and his parents have little or no bearing on his life.
Now, if you were to ask Carl if his parents love him he would say, “Yes, of course they do.” If you asked him how he knows that, he would cite the amount of money they paid to adopt him. If you asked Carl if he loves his parents he would say, “Yes.” If you asked him if he ever does anything for his parents to show them he loves them he would reply that they don’t expect anything like that from him. If you asked him how he demonstrates his love for his parents he would confidently begin to recite the family facts and history.
By all accounts, Carl is reasonably happy, but he is not very faithful to his family and certainly not at all close to his parents.
Now, I think you would all agree with me that neither Johnny nor Carl have very healthy relationship with their parents. They are not the kind of relationship you would want with your parents, nor the kind of relationship you would want with your children, for that matter.
I tell these two stories by way of analogy. You see, Johnny and Carl represent two different aberrations, if you will, two kinds of religion. Johnny represents the old religion or legalism, and Carl a new religious legalism.
Back in the days of Jesus many Jews lived at Johnny’s house. They had reduced their entire Jewish faith to a long list of rules that had to be kept. They believed that the way you got your life right with God was by keeping the law as perfectly as possible.
There were certain heroes from the Old Testament whom they held up as models of this kind of faithful obedience. Abraham was chief among them. They admired Abraham as a shining example of one who obeyed God. Abraham was so committed to obeying God, in fact, that he was even willing to slaughter his own beloved son, Isaac, when God demanded it. Abraham was considered by many as the pre-eminent model of one who earned his own salvation by rigid obedience to God’s law.
So, this is the kind of theology Paul was up against when he wrote his letter to the church in Rome. In Romans chapter four Paul is trying to attack and discredit this kind of theology. Listen to what he says in verses 13-14: It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath.”
In these two verses, Paul is saying that there are two big problems with living at Johnny’s house (trying to earn our own salvation). The first problem is that law brings wrath. In other words, try as we might, we will never be good enough for God. God is holy. God demands absolute perfection. If we mess up one time the law of God condemns us and the wrath of God falls on us. So, the first problem is that we will never make it back to God by being good enough.
But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you are an exception to the rule. Let’s say that you are one of those rare people who is exceptionally righteous. In fact, you are perfect in every way, and so you are able to secure your own righteous standing before God. That brings us to the second problem Paul raises in these verses: the promise is worthless.
Think about it for a moment. Let’s assume for the moment that you really are perfect. If you were good enough to get into Heaven then you would not need Jesus, would you? And if you didn’t need Jesus in order to get into Heaven, then you wouldn’t need Him once you are there either, would you? Having a relationship with Jesus would then be totally unnecessary, wouldn’t it?
That is why Paul says, “First of all, you cannot ever make it. Secondly, even if you could, the promise would become worthless. It would become unnecessary.” So, Paul is saying, “No, it is not through law. It is not by obeying the law. It is not by earning our salvation. That is not it.” Again, he says over and over in this passage, “It is by faith. It is by faith so that it may be by grace, so it may be a gift from God.”
And so, Paul is encouraging people to move out of Johnny’s house. But here is the trouble: many people who move out of Johnny’s house move into Carl’s house. They trade the old religion for a new one, and the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other.
Many people who are Christians today live in Carl’s house. They believe that it is not by law that we are made right with God. It is not by keeping the law that we are saved. It is by faith alone. That is true as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough.
The reason I say it does not go far enough is because of the way faith is often understood. Many sincere believers think of faith as merely believing certain facts about God, simply giving mental ascent to a certain set of historical creeds or biblical doctrines. Many think, “If I believe all the right facts about God, that is faith, and if I have this kind of mental conviction about God, then I am saved.” I believe that is a terrible misunderstanding of what the Bible teaches about faith. It is itself a false religion, a terrible legalism that breathes no life into anyone but only produces a dead otrthodoxy.
The truth lies SORT OF in the middle between these two errors. The truth lies in both of these AND IN NEITHER. Now, this could be a little confusing. The distinction I am about to make is subtle, so please listen very carefully.
It is not that God wants us to believe a right set of doctrines about Him and then follow all the rules He gave us. It is that He wants us to trust Him and therefore surrender to His good will for us by obeying what He says to do. Do you see the difference? Let me say it again. It is not that God wants us to believe certain things about Him and then obey the laws He gives us, it is that He wants us to trust Him personally and obey Him, not the rules, but Him.
This is why we cannot separate faith from obedience, as is so often done. We cannot separate faith from obedience because obedience is the natural fruit of genuine faith. If I say I believe in God and that I trust Him, but I do not obey Him, then I don’t really trust Him, do I? If I don’t obey God, then I really don’t trust that He has my best interest at heart, do I? Obedience is a fruit, it is an indicator of genuine faith.
I want to try an experiment here. I want to rewrite this passage just a little bit. My concern is that when Paul says that it is by faith we are saved, that when many of us hear that word “faith”, we automatically translate that to believing a certain set of facts about God, and faith is reduced to that list of facts and doctrines about God.
So, in order to avoid this tendency, I want to substitute the word “relationship” for “faith” and the word “religion” for “law”. This will probably be too difficult to read in your own Bible, so we will put it up on the screen so you can follow along.
Starting in verse five, my revised version goes like this:
(v. 5) “However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his [relationship] is credited as righteousness . . . (v. 13) It was not through [religion] that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by [relationship]. For if those who live by [religion] are heirs, [relationship] has no value and the promise is worthless, because [religion] brings wrath . . . (v. 16) Therefore, the promise comes by [relationship], so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring.”
Do you hear Paul’s heart there? As he is talking about faith he is talking about relationship. It is a relationship with God and it is characterized by trust in God. Again, not trust in doctrines about God, not trust in creeds and formulas and facts and history stories, but trust in God Himself. It is personal. And that trust in God is manifested by obedience to God. Again, not obedience to a bunch of rules, not obedience to a codified law, but obedience to Him. It is very personal.
So, I will close by introducing you to one more person. I want you to meet Chris Christian. Chris Christian lives right here (point to middle position, halfway between Johnny’s house and Carl’s house), in this house, with his parents. Chris, like Carl, was also adopted.
When Chris’ parents adopted him they rescued him from a horrible orphanage. The adoption was finalized when he gave his whole life over to his new parents and placed his trust in them for his future. Chris knows that his parents are good people, that they love him and have his best interests at heart because they had to sell everything they owned in order to adopt him.
Chris learns about his parents’ past and gets to know their heart by reading the family history and by having long talks with his parents. He enjoys spending time with his them. Chris’ greatest fear is that he will do something to damage their reputation or worse yet, hurt and disappoint them. However, he knows that even if he were to do something like that they would be quick to forgive him. So, he does not suffer from the fear that his parents will ever stop loving him. Chris is secure in his parents’ love for him.
In fact, his relationship with his parents is characterized by love and trust, and this love and trust is demonstrated in obedience. Because of his deep gratitude for how his parents rescued him and in response to their deep love and lavish generosity, Chris listens carefully to his parents’ instructions and tries his best to obey them and do the things that please them. That is Chris Christian and he lives in this house (gesture to the middle place).
So, what I am saying this morning is simply this: maybe you find yourself over here (gesture to the right), you find yourself living at Johnny’s house. You feel like you are always trying to be good enough for God. You are always trying to strive and obey the rules and keep all the laws and make God like you better by being good enough for Him. If that is the case, then I want to encourage you to move out. Move out of Johnny’s house.
But be careful when you do that you don’t move in with Carl. Perhaps this is where you find yourself today, thinking of the faith as mostly just a list of codified facts about who God is, believing in certain history stories, having all the right ideas and facts and figures about God. That is good as far as it goes, but don’t stop there. Move in with Chris.
Don’t trade one religion for another. Don’t trade one legalism for another. Because God is not interested in religion. God is not interested in legalism. God is interested in you. He is interested in us. God wants you, personally. He wants us, corporately. He wants us to be His people and He wants to be our God. That is what He wants today. That is what He has always wanted. So, please don’t settle for religion. Religion will strangle the life out of you. Seek out a relationship with the living God. Let’s move in with Chris.
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