Blessed Children of Abraham

Well, let me have you guys, turn in your Bibles to Galatians chapter 3. Galatians chapter 3 for our time of study in the word this morning. And, For those of you that are visiting with us, we're doing a verse by verse study through the book of Galatians, one of the books in the Bible, which is God's word, and we're seeing what God has to say to us. And then our responsibility is to respond by changing whatever we believe, and whatever we've been practicing to bring it into conformity with God's word.

And in our passage this morning, it just seems like the soul intent in terms of speaking to believers is to bless and encourage. So I think you'll really like the message today if you didn't bring your Bible with you this morning. We have hardback Bibles on the rack, hopefully a chair in front of you somewhere close by. And if you need to find Galatians, just find the tag that's in the middle.

And then after that go to page 145, and that is where you'll find the passage that we're going to be looking at. this morning, and the title of the message is Blessed Children of Abraham, Blessed children of Abraham, and that is you. If you are a believer in Jesus, and we're going to see that demonstrated, this morning. let me start with this though.

I pulled this out, yesterday, just in thinking about the message today. I have, in my hands, an ID card from my childhood. And I thought about scanning it and putting it on the screen, but there's a picture of me on it. And I was about 12 at the time and was having a really bad hair day.

But this is a military ID card, and my dad was in the Marines for 20 years, and so we moved around a lot as, when I was a kid. And, and I was issued one of these. I forget what age this was originally issued to me, but it was good up until I was 21 years of age. but basically, what this car did is it entitled me to rights and privileges that did not belong to the average American citizen.

but, there were rights and privileges that belonged to me. Solely by virtue of the fact that I was a son of William Thomas Vincent, First Sergeant William Thomas Vincent. And with this card, I could go on to a military base and I could shop at the commissary where the deals, the, the costs were a little less than than elsewhere, and there were other rights and privileges to go into the gymnasium at the on the military bases where we lived and to work out or whatever. If I could show them this card, then I was entitled to those.

Essentially, the government of our country had made a promise to my dad that he and his wife and his children would be entitled to certain rights and privileges. by virtue of the fact that he was serving our country in the armed forces. I remember as a child, with picture aside, really like, I, I liked having this and I liked what it entitled me. To.

I also remember as a child when we lived in South Carolina, we would go to air shows from time to time. And I loved going to the air shows to check out the planes and hear the noises and stuff. It was always an amazing experience for me as a child. But one of the things that made it extra special was the fact that my dad was a VIP, a very important person.

And because he was a VIP, he always got to sit in the VIP section, which was the closest to where the air show was. And I would always, I and my siblings would get to sit with him in the VIP section. I was not a VIP. I was definitely not an important person.

I was a snotty nosed kid. But nonetheless, I got to sit with my dad and enjoy the blessings and privileges by virtue of the fact that I was a son of William Thomas Vincent. And I've been thinking about that this week in connection with the message today, because this very dynamic is what Paul is going to be talking about in Galatians chapter 3, verses 6 through 9. There is a VIP on the pages of Scripture, an extreme extremely important person.

And that is a guy named Abraham. And because we are sons of Abraham, that's going to be Paul's point in chapter 3, and even in our passage this morning, we are entitled to incredible rights and privileges by virtue of our relationship. to Abraham. Now, some of you may, know a lot about Abraham and others of you may not.

We're not going to be able to go through his life story. But let me just say a few things about Abraham, to help us understand the significance of being, children of Abraham. If you want to read the story of Abraham, go to the first book of the Bible, go to chapter 11, and just start reading from somewhere in chapter 11 through chapter 25, and you will get the life story of Abraham. He was an amazing man who lived about 4000 years ago.

All right. But Abraham is not just spoken about in, in Genesis 11 through 25. His name appears over and over again throughout the scripture. In fact, there are people to this day that would argue that of all of the People who have ever lived in human history, there is no historical figure that looms larger and cast a broader shadow over a greater swath of people than Abraham.

Even to this day, guys, our lives are dramatically impacted by a guy named Abraham, even aside from the fact that we have believed in Jesus, who is himself a descendant of Abraham. and the reason why we're impacted by this is that Abraham, 4000 years ago had a son named Ishmael, from whom the Arab race has descended. And then Abraham had another son named Isaac, from whom the Jewish race has descended. And the Arabs call Abraham their father, the Jews call Abraham.

Their father, and because of their connection to Abraham, they, both the Arabs and the Jews have been fighting for millennia up to today over the land in the Middle East, land that both groups feel entitled to by virtue of the fact that they are descendants of, of Abraham himself. And even if you've been reading the headlines this week, George Bush has been involved in And at least making some announcements about his hope for peace in the Middle East and some of what he's involved in to try to make that happen.

It won't work, but nonetheless, he is trying to make that, that happen. And think about it, guys, no country is allowed to be a bystander in this drama that is escalating in, in the Middle East.

In fact, what happened on 9/11 The thousands of Americans that were killed on 9/11 and just all the horror that we experienced, all of that can be traced back to a man named Abraham who lived 4000 years ago. those twin towers were destroyed by some sons of Ishmael. who are ticked at the United States for a number of reasons, one of which is that they believe we have sided with the sons of Isaac, the Jews, in the whole dispute over who does the land in the Middle East belong to.

And so we are dramatically to this day and only increasingly so impacted by this man who lived 4000 years ago, whom we call Abraham.

think about it, even in Scripture, after his story in Genesis, God and speaking to Moses from the burning bush, introduces himself by saying, amongst other things, I am the God of Abraham. Jesus, in a dispute with the Jewish leadership in John chapter 8, flashes his Abraham credential by saying, Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. So he's saying Abraham looked ahead, he saw my day that I am in right now. And he was glad and rejoiced in it.

You think about the story in Luke 16, the story of the rich man and Lazarus. You guys read that story, where Lazarus, the poor man, ends up dying, and where does he go? To Abraham's bosom. That's what it's called in the Jewish Talmud, Abraham's bosom was a title that they used to describe heaven or paradise.

And when the rich man was in hell and crying out for a drop of water to cool his tongue, who did he cry out to? Father Abraham, Father Abraham. You read through Hebrews chapter 11. which we call the Hall of Faith.

There's a number of biblical characters that are mentioned, in there along with the deeds they did that demonstrated their faith in God. A number of individuals are mentioned, but no individual in the Hall of Faith gets more ink. than Abraham does. He is even the premier individual, in Hebrews 11 in the hall of faith.

The Jews cherish the fact that they are sons of Abraham. Even as Jesus is talking to the Jews in John chapter 8, we hear them saying, we are Abraham's descendants. And part of their point is, don't talk to us the way you're talking to us. Don't say the stuff you're saying about us.

We're not slaves of anyone. We are Abraham's descendants. You don't talk to us that way. John 8:53, they speak of our Father Abraham.

John 8:39, Abraham is our Father. you're just throwing that name around. They cherish their connection to Abraham. And because of that, they believe that they are entitled to certain things and that they should not be spoken to the way that Jesus was speaking to them.

Interestingly enough, Muslims today call Abraham. Their father Abraham is an extremely prominent, one of the most prominent figures in Muslim thought. In fact, how Muslims pray 5 times a day. At the end of every one of those prayers, they invoke the person praying invokes the blessing of Abraham, that's Abraham upon himself.

He prays and ask God to bless him the way that God blessed Abraham. So every practicing Muslim at least 5 times a day has Abraham on his lips. In fact, Abraham to this day is such a significant figure that in September of 2002, Time magazine did a cover story, and guess who it was on. Abraham.

All right. Think about that. He lived 4000 years ago, and he makes the cover of Time magazine. That's just a stunning thing.

imagine in 6000 AD you're on the cover of some Magazine that has wide circulation. That's just, it's bizarre to think about, but Abraham made the cover of Time magazine. And in that article, the author says, Abraham is the only biblical figure who enjoys the unanimous acclaim of all three faiths, the only one referred to by all three as father. Christians call Abraham their father.

And Muslims call Abraham their father, and the Jews call Abraham, their father. It seems that everyone is vying for a piece of this guy. Everyone wants a piece of Abraham. Everyone wants to be attached to this man.

And it begs the question, why? Why does everyone want to be associated with this man? Well, there's a reason, and that is because 4000 years ago a promise was made. To Abraham, a promise that anyone who reads it would think, I want in on that.

I want a piece of this. Listen to the promise that God makes to Abraham, 4000 years ago. He says to Abraham, I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great. And so you shall be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you, I will curse.

And in you, or in relationship with you, or in connection with you. All the families of the earth shall be blessed. Do you get it now? Everyone wants to be attached to this guy, because of this promise that God made.

That is Abraham, I'm going to treat you right. I'm going to bless you beyond your wildest imagination. Anyone who blesses you, I'm going to bless them. Anyone who curses you, I'm going to curse them.

And in you, in connection with you, all the families of the earth are going to experience blessing. I know that none of you woke up this morning and said, Lord, thank you for making me a son of Abraham. If you did, let me know because I, that'd be a curious thing for me. But I know we don't normally think about that.

Abraham, I'm a son of Abraham, and wow, this is incredible. But I hope that by the time we're done this morning, you'll understand what a great blessing and treasure that is. And hopefully tomorrow, Morning, perhaps you will get up and say, God, thank you for blessing me and Abraham, and for making me by virtue of my faith in Christ, a child of Abraham. Now the reason Paul, in fact, if you look at Galatians 3:6 through 9, Abraham's name is mentioned in verse 6, verse 7, verse 8, and verse 9.

If you're into the keywords as you study a passage, try Abraham. he shows up in every verse. Look at this verse 6, even so, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Verse 7, therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith.

Who are sons of Abraham, verse 8, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying all the nations will be blessed in you. Verse 9, so then, those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer. Paul is talking about Abraham. The point of this passage is to demonstrate that we are sons and daughters of Abraham.

In fact, go to verse 29, to the very last verse in chapter 3. Paul says, and if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants and heirs, according to promise. Now, the reason Paul is wanting to talk about Abraham, is because Abraham was looming large, even in this whole debate that was raging in the Galatian congregations. And here's essentially what commentators say was happening.

the Galatian believers had heard the gospel of salvation preached from Paul regarding Jesus, and they had deposited their trust in him. They had received the forgiveness of sins and the Spirit of God. They had been brought into relationship with God, and it was totally by faith and not by works. And so they're running well, they're enjoying this reality.

They're enjoying this blessing of being children of God, saved by faith alone in Christ alone. But in the midst of that, some Jews come along. And say to them, hey, share with me your testimony. Oh man, it's amazing, and they tell their testimony, a testimony of faith, apart from works.

And these Jews said, well, you, you left out some details. Do you mind if I ask you some questions? Sure, go ahead. Have you, have you been circumcised?

Oh no, no, I haven't. I'm a Gentile. Paul said that I didn't have to be circumcised in order to experience all this. And the Jews winced and said, well, actually, You must be circumcised to be fully saved, and because you have not been circumcised and therefore you're just a Gentile, you are not a son of Abraham.

You have not yet been brought into the blessing of Abraham. And so what you're going to need to do is, yeah, believe in Jesus, but you need to be circumcised and, and maybe do a few other things to become Jewish. And if you do that, in addition to your faith in Christ, you will truly be a son of Abraham and be entitled to the blessings and privileges that come to those who are true children of Abraham. And so this was the line of thinking and so now these Galatians are like, well, oh my goodness, maybe I'm not really saved, maybe I'm not really a child of Abraham, and they're doubting this.

Their faith is shaken. Paul in verses 6 through 9, wants to make 4 points, 4 points, wherein he demonstrates to them conclusively, that you are indeed by faith, a child of Abraham. In fact, Paul's arguments here are absolutely deadly and fatal to the arguments of the Judaizers. Anyone who says you have to be circumcised to become a child of Abraham.

Hi, what Paul is going to say in these verses absolutely destroys the arguments of the Judaizers who were insisting on this, and Paul's intent is to affirm the Galatian Christians and to affirm us in the belief that we are children of Abraham by virtue of our faith in Christ. And so 4 points we're going to look at this morning that Paul makes that are designed to show us how it is that we Gentiles are blessed children of Abraham. Point number 1, verse 6, at the very beginning of verse 6 that Paul wants to make is a historical point of fact, and that is that in the narrative of Abraham's life story, it is stated that Abraham believed God.

And Paul wants to linger there.

Look what he says in verse 6, even so, Abraham believed God. This is a quote from Genesis chapter 15, that I'm going to show you on the screen here in just a second. Abraham believed God, or in the Hebrew text, Abraham believed in God, whichever way you want to, to translate that. So Abraham was a believer in God.

That's the first thing. If you want to know anything about Abraham, the most important thing to know about him is that he was a believer in God. Now, I know to us today that doesn't mean a lot. You can talk to, 9 out of 10 Americans, probably 9.5 out of 10 Americans, and they will tell you, I believe in God.

I'm a believer in God, but it doesn't really mean anything. When the Bible says Abraham believed God or believed in the Lord, what does that mean? I think you guys will be startled to understand what that really means to say that Abraham believed in the Lord, and to set you up to really appreciate this. If you go back to Genesis chapter 11, And the narrative of the story at the very beginning, we learned that Abraham married a woman named Sarah.

Now we know from the account of Scripture that she was a beautiful woman, an absolutely stunning woman, who even in her, when she was 90, she was so attractive that Pharaoh, she caught Pharaoh's eye, and he wanted to take her as his wife. So, What would she have looked like, looked like when she was 20 and 30 years old? She was a beautiful woman. However, in the scripture, we learn that Sarah was barren and had no child.

Now, nowadays for a couple to To get married and try to have children and to not succeed in that. For some, that's a great burden, for others, it's a disappointment. but you need to understand that back in this day, to be barren, it had a significance that often it doesn't have in our culture today for better or for worse. to be barren was a sign of the judgment of God upon a person.

That's how people would view someone who was barren. If a woman was barren, people automatically assumed that that woman was under the judgment of God, and it was a disgrace. In fact, in Luke chapter one, where And the angel appears to Zacharias and says, you and your wife, though you are old, you're going to have a son and name him John. His name's going to be John the Baptist.

You guys know that story? Well, after Elizabeth, who's going to give birth to John the Baptist, while this is all happening, and she learns about this, she says in Luke chapter 1 verse 25, so this is how the Lord has dealt with me, and how he has shown me favor to take away my disgrace. In her heart, it wasn't just that she, she wanted a child, although she did all of the years of her marriage, but she also was pained by the fact that she was looked down upon by other people.

She was judged unfairly by other people because she was barren.

And so, Abraham is married to Sarah, and they were married for a number of decades and no doubt tried time after time hoping and praying to have a child, and they never succeed in that, and it soon becomes evident that Sarah is barren. That is a glaring fact. It is obvious to anyone who knows Abraham and Sarah, and no doubt they felt the sting of that from the stares and the comments and the words of other people and even in their own heart as they long for a child, and yet God for some reason chose not to grant them that child.

They were locked in this state of disgrace.

And the minds of others, and many others view that as a judgment of God, even though certainly it was not. And there was nothing that Abraham could do, or Sarah could do in their own strength to deliver themselves out of that. the story unfolds. We come to Genesis 15, and Abraham is 75 years old.

All right, 75 years old. We don't know how long he had been married, but imagine being 75 years old. You've never had a child, you have tried, tried, but you have failed. And at the age of 75, God speaks to Abraham, and listen to what God says.

It says now after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abraham, Abraham in a vision. Saying, do not fear, Abraham, I am a shield to you. Your reward shall be very great. And just stop right there for a second.

If you were 75 years old and God came to you and said your reward is going to be very great, Being 75 years old, your thought's going to be, well, I'm not going to be around here for very much longer. I don't know how great of a reward you can give to a 75-year-old man, especially in light of the fact that my lineage is going to die with me. For a 75 year old man, that the greatest reward he can think of is a reward that will survive his own lifetime and be passed down to his descendants.

And so Abraham, who when he's thinking reward, well, I'll tell you the one reward I would want.

It's a child. Verse 2, Abraham said, O Lord God, what will you give me since I am childless? What could you possibly give me since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus? Eliezer was a home born servant who was not even a blood relative of Abraham.

Verse 3, and Abraham said, since you, God, have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir. Lord, My will is already written up and all that I have is going to go to this home born servant who's not even a blood relative, because you have not given me. A son. Well, look at how the Lord replies verse 4.

Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, This man will not be your heir, but one who shall come forth from your own body. He, meaning a son, shall be your heir. Verse 5, and he took Abraham outside and said, Now look toward the heavens and count the stars if you are able to count them. And he said to Abraham, so shall your.

Descendants be. To this 75 year old man, God says, there will be a son who comes forth from your loins, and from him will descend a great nation that is more innumerable than even the stars of the heavens. He takes Abraham outside at night and says, look at the stars. Try to count them.

Abraham maybe tried for a couple of minutes, and God said, that's how your descendants will be. And understand, guys, when Abraham looked at the stars, he didn't see what we see today. The stars looked different back then. When we look up into the heavens at night, living in Riverside and Moreno Valley, where there's this hazy, glow, not just the haze from, that's in the air, but even the city lights that end up hazing out the, the, the stars and our ability to see them.

Abraham was living in a time where there was not a glow of city lights to just fog out the stars that were in the heavens. I got a glimpse of this, this past summer, unlike ever before, and I know many of you have had this experience, but we were driving back from New Mexico and we should have stopped at a hotel at about 11 at night, but I Insisted we're going to go all the way home and so we're driving through the desert like 23 in the morning. And there were miles and miles and miles where there was no light to be seen anywhere.

And as I'm driving, I just see out of the corner of my eye up in the sky what looked like clouds, and it caught my eye, and I was thinking there's no moon anywhere in the sky, so it's not the moon shining against the clouds.

And so I'm driving, the rest of the family is sound asleep, and I'm like trying to look up to see what it was, and I realized eventually that this is a pretty unsafe thing to do. So I pulled off the side of the freeway. And at a turnout point. And I got out of the car and I looked up and I, I saw that like the Milky Way.

I saw the stars more vividly than I've ever seen them in my life before. And many of you have had that experience and I was so pumped. I got the family up. It's like, you guys got to wake up, come, come out and look at this.

And we stood out there and just gazed at the stars. And, and when I, when I read in Genesis where God took them outside and showed them the stars, I think that's That's what Abraham was seeing, which is way more impressive than what we see standing in Riverside or Moreno Valley and looking up into the heavens, and God says that's how your descendants will be. When you see the stars and all their clarity, it is so dense, it actually looks like a cloud when you're looking right at the bands of the Milky Way.

And so God makes this promise to this 75-year-old man who has been childless.

His wife is barren, and God says, You're going to have a child, and from you there will be a great nation, the population so great it will be as the stars of the heavens. Now my question to you is, how would you respond? If God gave you that promise, what would your response be? You've tried for decades, can't have a child.

You're 75 years old, and now he's pointing at the stars saying that's what your descendants are going to be like. What would you do? Well, this is the most amazing fact about Abraham, the very next verse, then he believed in the Lord. That's just Abraham heard this promise.

And says he believed. And what that means is he believed the promise. God, I believe that this will happen. And the location of his belief was in the Lord, not just in the promise.

God, knowing you and knowing your power, and knowing your heart, the way that I do up to this point in my life. I know that you are able, and I know that you are willing. And if this is what you want to do, I know that you can make this happen. And I believe that it will happen.

So Abraham just stood there and believed. He didn't go out and do any works and then come back and say, Lord, I believe. Plus, here's some good deeds I did after you gave me this promise. No, he just stood there and listened, and then just believed.

That's not all that happens in this instance. The second point Paul wants to make is that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. In that moment of faith, God then did something. Look what it says in verse 6.

Even so, Abraham believed God, and his faith was reckoned to him. As righteousness. Abraham stood there doing nothing. And he believed what God had said.

God looked at his faith, and he reckoned that faith as righteousness to Abraham. Now, that may not seem like a big deal to some of you, but I want you to think this through. What is righteousness? Righteousness, according to the Bible is full, complete conformity to what God rightfully expects of us.

That's the basic concept of righteousness. in the Greek and the Hebrew, it just means conformity to what's rightfully expected. In fact, the term, the adjective for righteousness was not always just used in a religious context. It was used to speak of anything that conformed to what was rightfully expected of it.

If I planted an apple tree in my front yard, And a couple of years later, apples begin to grow on that tree. If I were speaking Hebrew, I would say that is one righteous tree. Because this tree is conforming to what I rightfully expected of it. And so righteousness, perfect righteousness is full, complete conformity to what God rightfully expects of us.

So if you want to know what he rightfully expects of you, read the law, read the 10 Commandments, and you'll see exactly what God rightfully expects of every one of us as His creatures, as we live and move. Move in him and have our being. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness.

You shall not commit adultery, not even in your mind shall you ever commit adultery. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor, in any way, shape, or form. Honor your father and mother. You shall never have anything before me, God says, on and on the list goes.

Complete perfect conformity to God's rightful expectations. As revealed in his law is what righteousness is. Now, how many of you in this room raise your hand, would say to me, Pastor Milton, from birth to this day, I have completely and I have fully conformed to everything that God rightfully has expected of me as communicated in His law. Just raise your hand with mine.

OK, no one's hand has gone up, all right? Abraham would not have been able to raise his hand. In fact, before this incident, he lied about his wife to save his own skin. Even after he believes in the Lord, he's going to lie again later in his life.

He's going to end up having physical relations with his wife's handmaid. in order to produce a child through her because his wife was not able to produce a child and give birth to Ishmael, that creates a lot of conflict that we are ravaged by even to this day. Abraham has and will make some bonehead decisions and fail to be as righteous as he should be. However, in this moment, Abraham believes in the Lord and God.

reckoned it to him as complete and perfect righteousness. God looked at his faith and said, what I'm going to do here? I'm going to credit to Abraham's account. Perfect.

And complete righteous conformity. To everything I would ever have expected from him, even though in his life he's not done that, I will credit that to his account as if he has done that. Abraham believed God's promise. And He Had it credited to him.

As righteousness. Now what's interesting is you think about when this happened. How old was Abraham? 75.

Here's a question for you. Was Abraham circumcised at this point in time or not? No, he was not. Abraham was an uncircumcised man.

And would not undergo circumcision until 24 years later. So here is an uncircumcised man who is not a Jew at this point. He is a Gentile. who believes in the Lord.

And he is declared righteous, completely apart from circumcision. Paul actually makes this point explicitly in Romans 4, speaking of this moment in Abraham's life. He says, In Romans 4:9, faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness, and then he says, how then was it credited while he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not while he was circumcised, but while uncircumcised.

So Abraham, as an uncircumcised man, believes in the Lord, and it was credited to him. As righteousness. If I were a Judaizer listening to this being read, I would be squirming in my seat because this is actually a death blow to the argument of the Judaizers telling these Gentile Christians that in order to be saved, in order to truly be justified, you must be circumcised, and you've got to do that in order to be a child of Abraham because Abraham himself was circumcised. He's the father of the Jews.

Paul says, no, OK, if you want to go back to Abraham, let's go back there. And what do we find? He believed he was justified, declared righteous. And he was not even circumcised.

So if you want to use Abraham as your argument, then I'll be happy to go to Abraham and show you how the gospel you are preaching. is actually not the way Abraham himself was saved. Wow, what assurance this would bring to the Gentile believers here. And that leads to Paul's third point, which is the inference that he draws from these two historical facts.

0.3 is this those who believe are true sons of Abraham, those who believe are true sons of Abraham, look what he says in verse 7. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are Faith, who are sons of Abraham. The word that is translated be sure is the Greek word for no and its present tense, literally, therefore, be knowing, be continuously knowing. Don't let anyone persuade you otherwise.

Know this today, and know it tomorrow, and know it the next day. Be always knowing that it is those who are of faith, who are sons of Abraham. Those who are saved by faith and not by works, those who hear the staggering promise of God, and believe In God's message of salvation through Jesus. They are the ones who are the true sons of Abraham.

Abraham did not depend on circumcision to be what justified him. And Paul is actually in a backhanded way saying anyone who is depending on circumcision to be what saves them is not a true son of Abraham. But those who are putting their trust in Christ And being saved by faith alone, they are the true sons of Abraham. And that leads to the 4th and the final point that Paul wants to make, and that is that those who believe are blessed with Abraham.

See, the whole point of being a son of Abraham is not just so we can walk around and say I'm a son of Abraham. The point of being a son of Abraham is that gets us in on the blessing of what God has promised to Abraham, the blessing of Romans of Genesis 12. Look at what Paul says beginning. In verse 8, He says the scripture, for seeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith.

That's what happens to all of us now, to this day that believe in Jesus. That's what happened to the Galatian Gentiles, who simply believed in Jesus, and they were declared righteous. The scripture foreseeing that in a future day, God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying all the nations will be blessed in you. I hope now when you guys go to Genesis 12, and you read God's promise to Abraham, those who bless you, I'm gonna bless, those who curse you, I'm gonna curse, and in you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

All the families of the earth will be blessed. I hope whenever you read that promise, You will cherish the fact that God was thinking of you. And of me. Paul, this is an amazing thing.

We know what God said to Abraham in Genesis 12. Paul is telling us now what God was thinking when he said that to Abraham. God was looking ahead. To the day in which he would save us by faith.

And thinking of that, he said, oh, Abraham, in connection with you, All the families of the earth, the nations of the earth, the Gentiles of the earth are going to be blessed. Verse 9 OK. So, then, Those who are of faith Not of works, but those who simply believe. In the promises of God, those who are of faith are blessed.

With Abraham, the believer, that word blessed is present tense. They are perpetually blessed. They are continuously blessed day after day after day after day and on through all of eternity. They are blessed with or in connection with Abraham, the believer.

Because we have believed the same way Abraham believed, we have been justified the same way Abraham was justified before God. That makes us sons of Abraham, descendants of Abraham. Therefore, we are brought in on the promise of Genesis 12, and we are blessed in Abraham. Now, we have to be careful with this.

This does not mean that every promise that God gave to Abraham applies to us as Gentiles. God promised Abraham, I'm going to make you a great nation, and this land, the land of Israel, essentially will belong to them. It'll be their possession forever. That does not apply to us as Gentiles.

There were some promises that were exclusively, for the Jewish people. However, we should never minimize the fact that according to this passage and other passages of Scripture, we get a huge chunk of the Abrahamic blessing that God promised to him and to his descendants. We actually are his descendants. And so we are blessed every single day by virtue of our faith in Christ.

Here's the thought that's blessed me this week, because I am a child of Abraham. When I look at the ways God blesses me today, I just think of yesterday. How did God bless you yesterday? Were you reading your Bible?

Did he show you something in His word? Did he assure your heart? Did he encourage you in some way? Did he show his love to you?

What ways did God bless you yesterday and the day before? When you think of the blessings of God that you experience in your life, understand that God is doing that because he loves you. And he's promised to bless you because you believe in Jesus. But God is also fulfilling a 4000 year old promise.

God is doing for you what he does, because he's carrying out a promise that he made to a guy named Abraham, 4000 years ago. God keeps His promises. As if he made them yesterday. And on this day, God, millions and in billions of ways.

will be faithfully discharging the promise that he made to Abraham in our lives and in the lives of believers all around the world. Sometimes we I know there have been times unfortunately I've told my kids I would do something and I forgot. and I need to be reminded, and I'm like, oh, that's right, I need to do this, or I'm reminded after the fact, Dad, you said you would do this and you didn't. And it's like, it's a grief to me to ever have that happen.

But what? God never forgets the promises that he makes. A 4000 year old promise to a guy who lived 4000 years ago is being fulfilled in our lives by virtue of our faith in Christ. Now guys, as we, as we just sum this up, let me, let me try to say this asinctly as I can.

Because I want to make sure that the gospel is understood by all of us. And by those who need to hear the gospel for the very first time. In a nutshell, There is a God who has created us, and who holds us together and sustains our lives. He is an infinitely good, righteous and holy God.

He has given us His law in His word, and he's put it in our hearts that we must live by. Every one of us have failed to live by that law. We have failed to be as righteous as we should be in order to get into heaven. None of us has a righteousness that is good enough to get into heaven because there's only one righteousness good enough to get anyone into heaven, and that is a perfect spotless righteousness.

But fortunately, God sent His Son Jesus into the world, who did live an absolutely perfect. And perfectly righteous life. Jesus died around the age of 33 being crucified on a cross, dying for not his sins, but for the sins that we have committed. He died for our failures to be righteous before God.

God raised him from the dead. He's now seated at the right hand of God. God speaks to people today, Jew and Gentile does not matter. And God says, if you put your trust in me, in my Son, and what we have done for you, You will have your sins forgiven, all of your sins, and the righteousness of Jesus, I will credit that to your account as if you did.

All the righteous things that he did. That's an incredible bargain. Bring me your sin. Guys, the only thing we ever contribute to our salvation is our sin.

Right? God says, bring your sinful self to me. And understand that you cannot save yourself just like Abraham and Sarah could not make themselves have a child. All of their efforts had been for naught.

It was vain. You cannot save yourself. You cannot contribute anything to your own salvation. But what you could not do, I have done, and I have done it all through my Son Jesus.

If you just sit there and believe, understanding your bankruptcy, and then seeing the fullness of what we have done for you. If you just believe in my staggering promise of my love, and of the blessing I want to give to you through Jesus, and the salvation that I want to grant to you, if you just believe Your sins will be forgiven. And I will credit perfect righteousness to you. And you will be qualified for a relationship with me.

And an eternal home in heaven. That's how Abraham was saved. That's how we are saved today. And let us praise God for this.

Let's pray together. Lord, we are the recipients of a staggering generosity from you. You made some mind blowing promises to Abraham 4000 years ago, because even then you were dreaming of what you were going to do today. Abraham saw in a sense, this day and rejoiced.

He was glad. We're actually living in the day that he looked ahead to. Lord, we We're sons of God. We have a relationship with you and we are, we're sons of Abraham.

We're brought in To this great cosmic drama that goes back for 4000 years, and we are now brought into this, this blessing. And may we walk. Humbly But gratefully each day as sons of Abraham. Blessed in connection with him, because we have believed the same way this man believed 4000 years ago.

May we trust your promises. You made promises to Abraham long ago, Lord, and you are fulfilling them to this day. And as we open up your word tomorrow morning, tonight, we're going to see other promises that you make to us. May we realize that you are a promise keeping God.

You mean what you say, and you say what you mean, and you delight to carry through with the promises that you have made. May we never doubt you. Or your promises to us. This is a message that we should relish.

This is a reality that we need to pass along to others that they too can become a descendant of Abraham. By believing in the same old way that he did long ago. Thank you, God. Thank you for this grace.

That we came to you. As broken sinners with nothing to offer but our sin. And you saved us. We had no plea.

We had nothing we could point to and say, Hey, save me because I've done this. Nothing. We came to you, Lord, just as we were, and you. saw our faith, you credited to us, the righteousness of Jesus and forgave us of our sins.

Lord, if, if, if you could remove the scales from our eyes, and we can grasp the glory of this. We will so love you. Each day. So take us deeper, Lord, into the glories of Calvary, as we continue working through this book.

But in the meantime, help us walk as children of God. And blessed children of Abraham. And all God's people said,