Faith

Last week Graeme spoke to us about the covenant which God made with Abram. It was an unequal agreement where God made all the promises and Abraham was only required to say “Yes!” That “Yes” is his statement of faith.

Now we are actually moving backwards in the text from Genesis Chapter 17 to Chapter 15. In Chapter 17 the covenant is addressed directly but in 15 it is more indirect. Here the covenant is celebrated with an ancient sacrificial ritual in which God binds himself to Abram. Again it is one sided, little is demanded of Abram.

The covenant is offered at least four times, in chapters 12, 13, 15 and 17. Chapter 15 is the third time God made his promise. On this occasion the text says, “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” (NIV) All that Abram offered was faith and God accepted that as enough to consider him as innocent as Adam before the fall. This was Abram’s “Yes!”, and it was enough.

In Romans 4, Paul picks up this statement and points out that it is faith that precedes the law, that our acceptance by God is not by law but by faith. It is still enough.

It was enough even though Abram was slow to understand. It takes at least four occasions before he actually gets it.

It is enough even in the face of doubts. God promises that through aging Sarai he would be the father of many nations. Even in this passage he is lamenting that this has not come true and that one of his relations will inherit his belonging. God repeats the promise again. At another time when God repeats the promise, Sarai laughs because she still can’t believe it.

It is enough in the face of disobedience. In the beginning of the very next chapter (16), Sarai concludes that it cannot happen and insists that Abram have a child with her slave Hagar – and he does.

In the story of Abram faith is all about promise. He is asked to believe promises that are impossible without divine intervention and yet we can see that they have happened.

For us faith is still about promise. Jesus came promising the Kingdom of God; God’s perfect life. He didn’t just talk about it, he lived it. He revealed it’s values and qualities in his own life and then called us to have faith in him, enough to follow him. All we have to do is say “Yes!” and mean it.

Obviously that “Yes!” has consequences for our lifestyle and our behaviour, and clearly, like Abram, we will not always measure up to our “Yes!”, but God will always be true to his promise. His promise comes with the example of Jesus to follow, and the cross as our guarantee of forgiveness when we fail. It also comes with the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit as our helper.

This is the covenant God has made with us and however impossible we might think it is that all people will do the will of God, it will happen. This is our faith. To that we say “Yes!”, and “Amen”.