Think of the Bridge!
If you’ve followed our ministry for a little while or perused our website, then you already know I am a song-writer. When I’m not performing all of my priestly duties I prefer to be writing and playing music. I have written my fair share of songs. Some are worship songs, but many are not. Many are actually love songs…surprise, surprise. After 28 years of being together Kate has the equivalent of a boxed set of love songs written just for her, which I am slowly recording here and there. Anyhow, love songs can be funny things. You’re trying to capture the intensity of your emotions for this person and the level of devotion and commitment, and if you’re not careful you can end up saying a lot of pretty outrageous things.
Nothing captures this better in my opinion than a scene from the classic show Flight of the Conchords from a few years back. It was a show about a folk-rock band from New Zealand living in New York City in search of stardom. The two band members are Jemaine and Bret. They actually still travel as a musical comedy act and are nothing short of amazing. Anyhow, Bret meets a girl named Coco in one episode and writes her a love song. He shares it with Jemaine, and it begins like this, “I’d climb the highest mountain, I’d swim the deepest ocean. I’d walk along the longest path to be with you if you want me to.” Then time elapses and comes back to him still singing, “I’d solve the hardest puzzle. I’d eat the biggest meal to be with you, Coco.” And he ends. Jemaine flatly responds, “It’s a bit long. It’s two hours long.” Bret says, “Ok, anything else?” And Jemaine says, “I’d climb the highest mountain. Would you actually do that?...because you’re kind of promising her that you would.”
Bret responds, “Well, no it’s a metaphor.”
Jemaine: “A metaphor for what?”
Bret: “That I’d do anything for her.”
Jemaine: “Would you climb a mountain for her?”
Bret: “No.”
Jemaine concludes: “You might want to make it more realistic.”
Such is the way of love songs, sadly. So many love songs are full of promises no one intends to keep. Not mine of course, but others. We’re like politicians telling you everything you want to hear, lobbying for someone’s love. That could be the title of a song. “Lobbying for your love!”…is there anything more romantic than a Lobbyist? Answer, no. Anyhow, I love Flight of the Conchords for highlighting this tendency of ours to exaggerate or embellish when we write love songs or when we try to articulate our devotion to some one. Because it is very funny, and it actually is a problem. If the promise is no good, if there is no intention of keeping it or no capability to keep it, then there will not really be any trust there. How can there be if you know it’s never going to happen? There won’t be any faith.
This is the nature of faith, how it comes into being…it requires a promise…something in which to believe…and it is only as good as the promise made. This is where Paul turns in Romans 4 (one of the lectionary readings of this week). Our common understanding is that faith is something that we somehow possess, that is somehow ours, that we generate. We think faith is something we have to muster up from within ourselves. We say things like, “He’s got really strong faith.” Or the literally incredible statement “I need to work on my faith.” We think faith is something that belongs to us and that we control. But that is not the case. Faith does not exist on its own. It is not something that we muster up from within. Exactly the opposite. Faith only comes into being after a promise has been given to believe in.
Paul quotes Genesis 15 at the beginning of chapter 4 saying, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Abraham’s belief, his faith, was in something, namely God and His promise. God told Abraham that he would have a son and that his offspring would be greater than the number of stars in the sky. God made Abraham a promise first, and then faith came alive in Abraham because now he had something in which to believe.
Paul explains that this is critically important because if righteousness did not come by faith, but did in fact came through the law, which is the way we all are predisposed to think, then God’s promise itself would be void. If righteousness came through the law, meaning your works or your ability to perform, then you would never need God’s grace. Eternal life would simply be what is due to you. You would have earned it. There’s no need for the gift when you can do it all yourself. Doesn’t that just sound lonely?
Thankfully, as is clearly seen from the first few chapters of Romans and as Paul clearly says again here, the law does not bring about righteousness. It can’t. You’re gonna hear us say this again and again because as I said we as people are predisposed to think that righteousness comes through obedience to the law, which is just another way of saying through our own power. It is our default programming because of our sin. That’s the lie of Satan in the Garden…that you’ll become like God (Gen. 3:4). You can do it on your own and work your way up to his level. You can be righteous on your own. You don’t need God. But it does not work. As Paul says, “the law brings wrath” (Rom. 4:15). It shows us that we are not perfect, we are not good. The law’s job is not to bring about righteousness. Its job is to bring wrath. It tells us what righteousness is and exposes the fact that we are not righteous, that we are sinners. The law demands that our problem with sin be fixed, but it cannot do the fixing…nor can we. Paul is telling us that that is the job of God’s grace through faith.
That’s the main promise we hear in this chapter, yes, that Abraham would have offspring, but Paul puts that promise the greater context of the rest of Scripture. He quotes David’s Psalms in verse 7 and 8, “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” That is the meat of God’s promise that he will forgive sins. That’s what is contained in the promise about Abraham’s offspring…it’s that God would bring about the forgiveness of sins through his offspring.
That’s why Paul includes David in this chapter. He wants us to have in view the full scope of biblical history to show that it has never been through any other means. Salvation has never been through the law, but has always been by faith. David was Israel’s great king, known as the one after God’s own heart, and yet he was also the great sinner, murdering one of his men so that he could take his wife for his own. David knew his sin was something he could not undo, but he had the promise that God would not count his sin against him, that God would forgive his sin and that gave him faith. David himself is another reference point for the promise, that the Savior would come from the line of David. The very forgiveness of sins he hoped for and that Abraham hoped for would come through their very own offspring.
Now this is all wonderful. It is beautiful and poetic and amazing, but is it just “an old-fashioned love song” to borrow from Three Dog Night’s amazing 1975 hit? Listen here. Is this just another example of exaggeration and embellishment…making promises that won’t be kept? Can we really trust it? You’ve probably experienced broken promises before. Live long enough and you will. How is this any different? Well, that’s where Paul turns next. He focuses in on the One making the promise. As we said before, faith is only as good, or as strong as the promise made, or I should say the one making the promise. It all depends on them, doesn’t it? Paul says that Abraham believed in God because of who God is. He is the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into being the things that do not exist” (4:17). He is the creator God, the one who spoke everything into existence. He brought everything out of nothing, which is nothing short of bringing life out of death. This is the God that makes this promise to Abraham and his descendants. And he creates faith in us the same way he created the world. He speaks it into being…God speaks his promise and faith that was not previously there springs to life.
Paul explains that Abraham’s faith was strong because the one who made the promise to him was strong. Abraham looked at his own body and the body of his wife, Sarah, and should have been thoroughly discouraged because he was 100, and she was 90…as Paul said, they were as good as dead. If it were up to Abraham and Sarah to make the promise happen, then it would be impossible. There is no biological way that their bodies could reproduce. But it is not by works, it is not a result of our effort or ability, rather it is in spite of our ability. It is by God’s grace…it depends on him to bring life out of death, and giving life to the dead is just his cup of tea, as minister and author Robert Farrar Capon said. This is what he does. He calls into being the things that do not exist. Because of who God is Abraham was fully convinced that God was able to do what he promised.
The amazing news is that we now know God has done just that. He has kept his promise to Abraham and to David, and ultimately to you and me. As Paul says, “the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” God has accomplished the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ, Abraham’s and David’s offspring. Jesus, God incarnate, lived and died and rose again to forgive our sins, to take God’s wrath away from us, to set us free. He is the object of our faith. He is the promise, the creative Word that brings faith to life in us. Jesus is the one in whom ultimately Abraham and all of his descendants believe. He is the good news, the gift for you and for me.
When you doubt or when you are afraid or feel like you don’t have any faith, remember the answer is not in you. It is not about your effort or ability to drum up more faith. The answer is in the promise. Faith comes from hearing the promise again. I want to close with an illustration that 19th century preacher Robert Dabney received when he was on his deathbed and was full of fear and doubt. He wrote his friend Clement Vaughn, a lay person, confessing his doubt, and Vaughn wrote back:
“Do you remember, in the stress of your trial, how faith comes? Let me remind you, although you know it. ... Suppose a traveler comes to a bridge, and he is in doubt about trusting himself to it. What does he do to breed confidence in the bridge? He looks at the bridge; he gets down and examines it. He doesn't stand at the bridge-head and turn his thoughts curiously inward on his own mind to see if he has confidence in the bridge. If his examination of the bridge gives him a certain amount of confidence, and yet he wants more, how does he make his faith grow? Why, in the same way; he still continues to examine the bridge.
Now, my dear old man, let your faith take care of itself for a while, and you just think of what you are allowed to trust in. Think of the Master's power, think of his love; think of what he has done, his work. That blood of his is mightier than all the sins of all the sinners that ever lived. Don't you think it will master yours?…
May God give you grace, not to lay too much stress on your faith, but to grasp the great ground of confidence, Christ, and all his work and all his personal fitness to be a sinner’s refuge. Faith is only an eye to see him. I have been praying that God would quiet your pains as you advance, and enable you to see the gladness of the gospel at every step. Good-bye. God be with you as he will. Think of the Bridge!”
Amen.
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