Abram has moved from being a naturalist, a pagan thinker. Step by step, he's moved in response to the voice of the living God. He's come to believe that there is a creator. He's come to believe that there is an owner, a possessor of heaven and earth. And now he stands, looking at the blazing hundred billion stars of our galaxy and listens to the voice that tells him that his offspring are going to be like that. And without any evidence physically that ever he will produce a child, he bows his head and he believes God. And the world changes and countless millions including us in the twenty-first century have come to see that as the paradigm of faith and trust in God.
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That shows us, ladies and gentlemen, that one of the biggest battles we have in our contemporary culture is the definition of faith. What does it mean to believe? Because many of our atheist colleagues think that their atheism is not a belief system. Ours is a belief system, and they've redefined faith to mean believing where there's no evidence. That's dangerously wrong.
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Abram's faith was not blind. It was not based on no evidence. He'd had evidence building up constantly until this point. He had as yet no evidence that he would ever produce a child. But he had every evidence that God was trustworthy. And that is utterly crucial, that we realize that whatever the Christian faith is, it is not blind belief. It is commitment based on solid evidence.
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We need to be absolutely clear that works and faith are regarded as opposites. Faith is not a work. It is not a contribution to salvation. And it is not that we have the faith to do the works that will grant us acceptance. Because of course if our works were adequate, God would be obliged to give us justification. It would no longer be an act of grace anymore than it would be an act of grace for an employer to give an employee the wages she had earned.
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And it's this that brings peace with God, the realization that receiving salvation is not contributing to salvation. Receiving God's gift, and it was that that transformed the life of Abram. But Abram was human like we are. And he wanted to be sure. And we want to be sure, don't we? It's only when we have a secure basis for faith. It's only when we've got confidence in God that we can go out and face the world.
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God didn't dismiss his request for certainty and assurance, but did something that spins up towards us through history and is of utterly fundamental importance. He made a covenant with Abraham. It's a very odd story, isn't it? God said to Abraham, bring me a heifer three years old. Well, how on earth is that an answer to how can I know? Bring a heifer and a few other animals. And he brought them, and he was told to cut them all in half. I don't know whether that's the way you help people with assurance, but that's the way God helped Abraham.
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Now here's the very interesting thing. Just listen to what happened. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him... And when the sun had gone down, and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and flaming torch passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord God made a covenant with Abram, saying, "'To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.'" Abram did not pass between the pieces. He was asleep, actually. God did.
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This is how God gave Abram certainty, because this covenant, this agreement was like a testament. It was God committing Himself to fulfill everything. And all Abraham had to do was to trust God. That's magnificent, you know. And on it hangs all our salvation, because this is how the Bible explains to us how we can be certain. It's what gives us stability as we face the world.
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It's crucial that we realize that coming down from the days of Abraham, Abraham, our security lies in that new covenant made on the cross where God fulfilled the conditions. And all I have to do is to trust him. When peace like a river overflows my soul, what a fantastic gospel it is. It's utterly unique, which is why the religious mind finds it very difficult to grasp. Because our whole mindset, our whole education, our whole knowledge of life is, you only get what you earn and what you deserve. And God comes into the situation and says, you cannot earn it, so I'm going to do something utterly unique.
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Nothing can alter the fact that your name is written effectively into that original covenant that we're reading about. So we are involved. I know it's all surrounded by legalese. But my, I would like to know, ladies and gentlemen, notice what the promise said. You're going to be heir of the world. Do you believe that? That's very concrete, isn't it? Of course, Abram was told, first of all, just about the land, but we'll not fault God for extending it to the entire world, will we?
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I meet so many people in middle life, and they've never really grasped this, even as Christians. They're constantly trying to earn their acceptance with God. They haven't understood the gospel, that the whole basis is that God does us something, and all we have to do is receive it and not earn it. It needs to permeate our souls, doesn't it? Because sometimes we get so confused, we feel that it's our Christian work that's earning us acceptance with God. And we're stressed to pieces from inside out, because we're driven by uncertainty.
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To know that we're accepted by God, quite independent of who we are, is one of the biggest things in life, isn't it? That's what keeps life stable.
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To know that we're accepted by God, quite independent of who we are, is one of the biggest things in life, isn't it? That's what keeps life stable.
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Solving the problem in the energy of the flesh, in the way in which we think is wise, retrospectively isn't always seen to be the best thing. And, of course, instead of simplifying life and realizing God's purposes, they learn, Abram and Sarah, a bitter lesson of what can go wrong when you use others as instruments to further your ends, rather than treat them as people with significance in their own right.
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Harshness, injustice, or no way to deal with the consequences of my own wrongdoing. And isn't it so true to life that when we do something wrong, we can so easily overreact and damage others and injure them to crawl our way out of it when the whole thing is proceeding from our own self-pity and our own knowledge that we are the ones that have done the wrong.
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God inquiring after the geographic location of a person has only happened once before in the Garden of Eden. Where are you, Adam? Where have you come from? Hagar's learning about Psalm 139, which I love and Sally does too. You know my down-sitting and my uprising. Hagar discovered that this God was interested in her, not simply in Abram. He was interested in her, and we mustn't forget it.
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Isn't it interesting that the New Testament follows exactly this pattern? When Paul in Romans has discussed justification by faith, instead of it all leading to absolute glory and wonder, it leads to a horrific struggle inside Paul, inside Paul, with the old flesh. And we all know about that. And we all have to learn it. We all have to learn what Paul once said, I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. I have the desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out. You feeling like that? You know there's nothing more debilitating. You've been a Christian many years. And then you suddenly find you're repeating a sin. And you struggle. And the old flesh rises up. And there it goes again. And there it goes again. And you begin to despair. Do you know anything about that? Of course we all do.
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Notice he didn't say, you are Abraham Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless. There it is. You have apparently blackened out. You are brothers, all bab siete. And they are we are now up to a crack Aum! I know you laugh, but I hope you get the point, because that's what we sometimes feel, you know. Do you notice the metaphor that's being used? It's to do with walk, and it comes at exactly the right point in Abram's experience, according to the New Testament analysis. Because what is it that Paul teaches us? That we are to walk after the Spirit, relying on the power of God Almighty. That's what the New Testament begins to teach us. And I have to learn it, and you have to learn it.
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He thought his own strength was enough to fulfill the promises of God. And he found his flesh was insufficient, even as a man who believed God, insufficient to work it out. Before we came to Christ and were saved, we couldn't please God through the flesh. And it's exactly the same after we come to trust Christ.
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It was a pretty blunt and graphic way of reminding Abram where not to put his trust. I leave you to work that out. I'm putting it as delicately as I can, ladies and gentlemen. And it was meant, it's a brilliant metaphor actually once we see what's going on, it was meant to indicate the abandonment of all trust in the flesh in the moral sense. Listen to this now. Here's the key verse. "'For we are the circumcision,' says Paul, "'who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.'" That is the major lesson that it was meant to teach.
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There is a reality that corresponds to the rite of circumcision. It is circumcision of the heart. It's not a physical ritual at all. The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, that you may live. You see, my unregenerate heart cannot make itself love God. If ever I'm going to love God, I must be cut loose from the flesh and planted in the Spirit.
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Therefore says Paul, as you've received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith. And he goes on to say, in Him also you were circumcised. Well, what kind of circumcision? With some physical right? No. Notice how carefully he says it. With a circumcision not made with hands. I have no rituals, dare I say baptism included, are made with hands. Have you ever seen anybody being baptized without somebody using their hands? This is far deeper than that. This is the circumcision of Christ. And what's it telling me? Something glorious that when I trusted Him, a cut was made deep down in my being that cut out that rootedness in the flesh and implanted me in the Spirit. This is a spiritual reality. And it is God's provision. With all the trips and falls and everything else, it's God's provision for us.
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Lot clicked his way into Sodom, and it destroyed him. He pleads with the angels who say, you've got to get out. He speaks to his children. They don't listen. And the angels have to drag him out. And he still wants to stay. He said, look, let me stay in this little city, Toar. It is a little city. He can't get away from it. And the angels allow his request. What a denial of moral reality.
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God rescued him from a disastrous situation. He could not remove the consequences. Lot loses everything. Family, home, career, wealth, reputation. He thought he could protect the Lot by going to Sodom. He was saved, though, as though by fire, literally. Remember those solemn words of Paul, that the day will come when our works and our lives will be assessed, not in order to get into heaven or not. If any man's work is burned up, says Paul, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
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