The Promises of God
Romans 4:13-25
Second Sunday after Pentecost
Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savoir Jesus Christ amen. The sermon text for the second Sunday after Pentecost is the epistle reading Romans 4. I remember going on a virtual reality ride several years ago. I fastened myself in a chair, put goofy looking goggles on and looked at a movie screen directly in front of me. Once the ride started my chair moved from side to side. As I watched the screen it looked as though I was traveling through space at a very high speed. It gives you the same sensation as if you were on a roller coaster. The combination of the moving chair and the images on the screen made it seem as if I was moving very fast. It seemed so real that many of the people around me screamed and yelled and laughed as they watched the screen. If I had trusted my senses at that moment, I would have concluded that I was traveling around planets. At that moment if I had trusted what I saw and what I felt, I would have come to the wrong conclusion. But I did not come to the wrong conclusion because I had knowledge of the situation that I was in. I knew that I was sitting in a theater on a chair that moved back in forth looking at a movie screen. It was a reminder to me that you cannot always trust what you see and what you feel.
As Christians we live a life of faith in Christ as we go through our pilgrimage here in this world. As Christians we understand that we don’t gain intimate knowledge about God from what we see or hear or feel even though what we see and hear is very real (unlike the virtual reality example). We don’t gain special knowledge about God by using human reason. If we only looked at what we see in this world and if we only looked to human reason to understand God, then we would come to the wrong conclusion about our Lord. As people of God we can only understand the Lord through the promises He has given to us in His Word. In our epistle reading for today Paul tells us about the promises of God and how we as His people receive those promises by faith.
To demonstrate this Paul speaks about the promises that God made to Abraham. God promised Abraham that he would have a son and that he would be the father of many nations. Abraham heard the promises of God and he believed the Lord. It was the Lord’s promises that created joy in his heart. Paul said these words in verse nineteen. “He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb”. Abraham knew that he and his wife Sarah were much too old to have children, but He also knew that God would keep his promises. If Abraham had only looked to his senses and what he saw around him he would have doubted God. If Abraham had only looked to his human reason his hope would have been dashed. But what we see is that Abraham looked to God’s promises for comfort and he received those promises of God by faith.
When we look at this sinful world and try to understand it through our own human wisdom, we will sometimes have difficulty seeing God ‘s goodness and grace. There are many things that go wrong in this life. There are many things that are hard to understand. As a Pastor I have visit several people living in nursing homes over the years. Most of you have visited them yourselves. When we visit a nursing home, we of course notice several people that can no longer take care of themselves. We see people that sit in their rooms by themselves with no visitors that come to see them. When we see things like that, we may start to doubt God’s love. We have all been to hospitals or at least visited them. In each hospital bed is a person suffering from some sort of ailment. When we see people suffering, we may start to doubt God’s goodness. When we see the state of the world we may start to doubt God’s grace. There are many things that can go wrong in this fallen world. We face challenges in our own life all the time. People face marital strife, trouble at work and depression. When we experience those sorts of things we may start to doubt God’s care.
When we look at the fallen world and try to understand it with our limited human reason then we will have difficulty seeing God’s compassion. That is why God comes to us in His Word and explains the situation that we are in. God reveals the truth to us. He tells us that sickness and war and strife came into being because of the fall into sin. With that knowledge we can now look at the world in the proper light. When we see war, sickness and strife we longer need to doubt God’s love, but we are given the understanding that we need the Lord. We see very clearly that we cannot escape sin on our own. We see that we cannot escape the effects of sin by ourselves. We see the helplessness of human beings. When we see the fallen condition of this world, we realize that we need God’s grace to deliver us from sin, sickness, strife and death.
We see in God’s Word that it is the Lord’s desire to give us a life with Him that will last forever. We are given the assurance by God that we have been redeemed through Christ Jesus. God has made several promises to all of us. He gives us the assurance that He will keep them all. He tells us that our sins have been forgiven because Christ sacrificed Himself on the cross. God gives us the promise that we have been given eternal life. God’s Word tells us that Christ has overcome sin, war and strife in this world and we will see the fulfillment of that at His second coming. God has made us a promise that all things are worked for our good. God has made the promise that He will never leave us and He will continue to bless us. When we look at the Lord’s promises given to us, we see God’s love. As people of God we can only understand the Lord through the promises He gives us in His Word.
We can now live in complete assurance that we have been rescued from sin and death and have been given eternal life because Jesus rose from the dead. Our Lord who has conquered sin, Satan, and death is the One who gives to us life. We also have great confidence in the Lord because every promise He has made in both judgment and in grace He has kept, from the flood to the coming of the Savior into the world. God promised Abraham that He would make him the father of many nations and Abraham believed that promise and received it by faith. Paul said these words in regard to Abraham in our text. “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised”. If we think about the promise, why wouldn’t Abraham believe it? God has the power to bring things into existence. God has the power to give life to the dead. It was God who indeed kept His promise to Abraham. Paul reminds us that God will keep His promises to us. Amen.