Genesis 15:6
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Tonight, we are going to be thinking through the idea of belief. What is belief? It's something our culture gets terribly wrong. You don't have to go far or be around too many people to hear someone say, just believe, believe in yourself. Or maybe you've walked into a room with a cheesy poster of an eagle, you know, full wings out and just belief. written under it. There's a popular book that sold over 30 million copies that kind of reflects this idea that our culture seems to embody. It has quotes like, your thoughts are the primary cause of everything. The secret is to assume and believe it before concrete proof shows up.
In other words, what you believe brings about what happens to you. You can manifest things purely by just believing in it hard enough. Is this all there is to true belief? If we can muster enough confidence in whatever we desire or whatever we want, the universe just kind of rewards us with making it happen. In contrast to this idea, the passage we will look at tonight shows us the true nature of belief, the true nature of belief.
And that is this, true belief is trust in God that results in salvation. True belief is trust in God that results in salvation. If you want to look at the front of your bulletin, I will read the verse that we're going to talk about tonight. And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. So we're going to look at this in two parts, just kind of splitting the verse straight in half. We're going to look first at true belief is trust in God.
And then secondly, we're going to look at true belief brings salvation. So true belief is trust in God. Where are we at in the story of Abraham or Abram? We are in Genesis 15. What's come before this? In Genesis 12, well, God calls Abram to leave his father's house, to leave the comfort of the land that they have, and to go out to the place that God has told him to go to. So Abram, at 75 years old, he goes out, he leaves his homeland there, and he goes and follows the Lord's call.
In between, in Genesis 13, he goes down to Egypt, is deceitful about his wife. And then in chapter 14, right before here, there's this kind of epic story about how Abraham's nephew Lot is captured. And he musters this army of 318 men. And in the dark they go and they capture, they bring back Lot and they have all these riches.
And then this king of Salem, Melchizedek, blesses Abram. So lots has happened. God has showed favor on Abraham in ways up to this point in the story. And that brings us to chapter 15, which begins with God appearing to Abraham in a vision and reiterating to him that he will be very great. Well, Abraham questions God and he says, how can this be so? Because I have no heir. I have no son.
You've promised me that I will be great, but I have no son. So in verse 5, it says, he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able. number them. And he said to him, so your offspring shall be. That brings us to our verse tonight where Abraham responds to God promising this and says to him, and says in the, Moses says he believed the Lord. So the word believe here, it means something like absolute reliance. In other words, it is, I am uniting myself to this thing that I'm trusting in, in a way that I cannot be separated from the thing that I'm trusting in. So we, as a family, decided over Christmas that we are going to get passes to Kentucky Kingdom, and I forget the name of the thing, but, you know, it
kind of turns sideways and goes like this. If, you know, you get in this thing and you strap, it's not even a strap, you put this big metal thing over top of you and you are united with that thing. You're trusting that that thing is going to hold you up because you're going up in the air and you're spinning around in the air. This is more of the idea of what belief is than just I'm going to manifest things in my head right the idea of belief is I am I am uniting myself to this thing and I'm trusting this thing and if this goes bad then uh it's going to go bad for me because I'm putting my full trust into something and this is what we mean by belief this is what we mean as Christians when we talk about faith I am staking my life on this claim for Abraham here it is that he would have a son.
But I think it expands beyond that. If you read Romans 4 and 5, Paul basically says Abraham trusted God. He believed God. He staked his claim on God's promises. Paul says in Romans 4 that Abraham was fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. that he was able to bring about all the things that he said he was going to bring about. I think it's good to state it plainly like that.
As Christians, our belief, our faith is in the God who created the universe that he is going to do what he said he will do. Specifically, it is the objective truth that God sent his son to be born into this world. And he was born the man Jesus Christ. He lived a perfect life. He always obeyed God in everything. He was delivered to death on a cross for our sins.
He was raised for our justification. He ascended into heaven. And now he sits at the right hand of God interceding for us. God has given us his son as Christians. Jesus has promised us many things. He's promised us life everlasting. He said he is the way to God. He's promised us living water that we drink of, we will never be thirsty again. He's promised us that if we come to him, no one can snatch us out of his hands.
He has said that he will be with us always, even to the end of the age. The object of our faith is completely trustworthy. Believing in Jesus is not a superstition. It's not religion. It's putting our faith in something solid that does not fail. Everything that he has said, he will do. And so that brings us to the second part of this verse. And our second point, which is true belief brings salvation.
So Abraham believed the Lord and it was counted to him as righteousness. What did this belief or faith bring to Abraham? He's counted as righteous. Abraham was already an impressive guy. He had already done quite a bit to deserve praise and admiration. But you know, if he was already righteous, the Apostle Paul says, it would not need to be counted to him as righteousness. I don't have an honorary degree from Harvard, but if I had already had a degree from Harvard, They wouldn't need to give me an honorary degree from Harvard.
Abraham was not righteous. Even with all the good things that he had done, it needed to be given to him, not earned. It, it was counted to him. What is the it? Is it his deeds, his courage in going to rescue Lot, his blessing that he was given from Melchizedek? No, the it is his belief, his trust in God.
And what about the word righteousness? What is this righteousness? I think the best way to think about it here is perfect obedience to the law. This, we know from the testimony of Scripture, is impossible. The law actually does the opposite. It shows us our sin. It exposes our sin. In Romans 3, Paul talks about this. He says, both Jews and Greeks are under sin, as it is written.
None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. Since through the law comes knowledge of sin. There is only one way that any human other than Jesus can be called righteous.
And that is, it's given to us. It's given to us. We cannot do it on our own. So, what are some implications of this? What are some things that come out of this? I mean, if you think about it, the whole of the Christian life, right? But I've just thought of a few because I don't want to spend all night here talking about the whole of the Christian life. So we're just going to talk about a few. So the first thing is we cannot boast.
Any good that you do, any goodness that you have within you is all of grace. We did not bring anything to God to make us worthy of saving. It's all of grace. If you consider yourself to be a mature Christian, be on guard against pride. Remember that you were saved by grace through faith. It's all of grace. So whether you trusted Christ this morning or if you've been a Christian for 50 years, we all bring the same merit to our salvation.
That is none. All the merit is Christ. We bring nothing. We have no boast before the Lord or before men. Second thing is we have peace with God. We have peace with God. As a child, I remember one time when I had lied to my parents and just remember that sinking feeling being around them and knowing that this thing stood between us, that I had sinned against them and that that sin, you know, had consequences.
How much greater is the fact that the God of the universe sees everything? He sees sin that we don't even see ourselves in our own hearts. Who can stand before a holy judge? Who can stand before the righteous God of the universe? Only those of us who have been given a righteousness that is not our own. Because of that, we have peace with God. Our peace rests upon Christ's work, not our own.
Because of this, our sin is as far as the east is from the west. And we can rest in that truth. That God's wrath is no longer turned upon us. It has already been turned on Christ for us. A third thing, we have the hope of heaven. We don't have to live in generalities hoping that we were good enough, hoping that we'd done enough things to make us right before God, that we would be accepted before God.
We haven't done those things, but we know that we will be with Christ forever because of his work on our behalf. He has not and he will not fail. So we can face anything in this world knowing that our hope and our home is in heaven. And I think practically this means we can do difficult things, things that other people don't understand because of this truth, that our hope is not in this world.
Our hope is not to justify ourselves before God or before men in this world. And that might look different for different people. It might look like crossing cultures like Drew and Han, leaving friends and family behind to share the gospel in another place. It might mean opening up your home for foster care or adoption. It might mean walking across the street and inviting your neighbor over for dinner. We can do all these things because we have been saved and our hope is secure in heaven because of Christ's work, not our own.
Lastly, I think we ought to be the most thankful of all people. Think about this. A promise made to a man thousands of years ago that was taken up by the Jewish people as their promise, the Apostle Paul says, was given to him so that we could believe. And that our faith could be counted as righteousness through Jesus Christ.
It is an amazing thing. It is something that ought to well up thankfulness in our hearts towards God. That he would graft us into this promise. That we could hold on to this same truth that we read here in Genesis 15. So I would encourage you all to memorize this little verse in Genesis. and bring it to mind as a reminder that we are saved by grace through faith and that we have been given a righteousness that is not our own.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your work in our lives and saving us through your son, Jesus. I pray that you would help us to treasure this truth, that you would help us to hold on to the truth of our salvation and that it is found in Christ alone. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.