Did anyone look at the lottery jackpot this week? I think one of them is pushing half a billion. It went over a billion a year or two ago.
Did you fantasize a little about what you could do with that money? No more house payments. No car payments. No more worry about bills or bill collectors or how much tip to leave.
Did you ever wonder what it would be like to suddenly win the lottery and say, “I’m not starting from way down here? I am starting the rest of my life from up here.”
Now that would be something. It’s something to fantasize about anyway.
We continue our exploration of faith, so let’s begin with what should be a very familiar defining verse from the King James Version.
The last time we talked about the substance of things hoped for using the faith of the Son of Timaeus as an example of faith having real touch and feel.
Before that we bit into faith and perseverance, taking counsel from James to consider it pure joy when our faith is tested, knowing that we will grow if we don’t give up.
If we turn back the calendar a little further, we get to where we find our faith enabling us to say, I am crucified with Christ. Christ lives in me.
As I am strolling down message memory lane, let’s go back another week. It was one of those challenging weeks. I warned you in advance that the message could be a might prickly and I challenged you to see if your faith had taken you to a special place. That place, that condition, that state was that Jesus was not only your Savior but your Lord as well.
Do you remember walking by faith not sight? There was some challenge there as well. We have been on a journey filled with both challenge and support from God’s word that began with these words.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
And now we come to this point where we read the righteous will live by faith. Do not understand this as right living gets us to salvation. Do not read this as being right with God causes us to live by faith.
Understand that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. God kept on loving us anyway. The blood of his Son atoned for our sins. God himself made us right with him.
We receive the gift of salvation by faith. We call this gift grace because we didn’t deserve it. It is unmerited forgiveness from God. It is living in his favor because of what he did for us and not the other way around.
Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.
Paul notes that he is not ashamed of the gospel. Whether he is proclaiming this good news to his fellow Hebrews or to pagans who have been left to figure out right from wrong by what God has intrinsically placed in every creature made in his likeness, this prolific New Testament letter writer says it is by faith regardless of who you are that you come to receive the righteousness of God.
From first to last, richest to poorest, most education to the ignorant, everyone must come by faith.
You might know the law inside and out, but only faith connects you with God’s righteousness.
You might not know diddly about theology, but faith will bring you into God’s righteousness.
You might think that someone in the remote regions of Nepal isn’t getting this message, but God has left all people without excuse as to knowing that he is real.
When someone says there is no God or makes up their own god or hops on the flavor of the month theology train, they know what they are doing and saying. They have deliberately ignored the truth and deluded themselves.
By the evidence of creation itself, people know there is a Creator. There is a being that brought everything into existence. We are also told that Satan has blinded unbelievers.
We know our Creator to be God almighty. He is righteous. He is just. He is love. He is our heavenly Father. He has redeemed us from the Evil One. We are his.
Do you remember these words? I am crucified with Christ. Christ lives in me.
We got to this point by our faith. Some may have studied more than others. Some may have procrastinated for a long time. Some responded the first time they heard the gospel, but we all got to where we are by faith.
Out of blindness into the light. We have been saved by God’s grace which we have received by faith.
I doubt there have been any big revelations thus far, but let’s go further. Regardless of where we started, we have come to where we are now by faith.
The question for today is, how will we proceed from here?
Faith got us to the point that we received the best gift ever—salvation that came straight from God’s heart—but what now?
We have been made right with God, but what now?
God has claimed us for all eternity but what now?
What now?
Too many see salvation as the finish line. Yippee! I am saved from sin and death and hell. I’ve checked the block now let me get back to living.
That’s cause for celebration for sure. What if we celebrated all of that but instead of getting back to living, moved forward to real living, abundant living, living in faith.
What if our life from this point forward was lived completely in faith? We all had a journey to get here, but there is a journey ahead. It’s not just, “OK, let’s sit this thing out until eternity.”
The righteous will live by faith. From first to last, it’s faith. Faith got us here. It is faith that moves us forward.
God made us right with him. His grace that we received by faith got us here. Going forward we must live by faith, not because of rules but because of our identity.
We are truly God’s children, his heirs, brothers and sisters and friends of his one and only Son. We are family and this family lives by faith.
Amen, hallelujah, and what exactly does that mean?
Let’s start with thanksgiving and praise. That is now our nature. We are a thankful people.
Let’s continue with bringing glory to God. This gives us purpose. In everything we do, we have an easy answer as to what to do or how to do it. Does this bring glory to God?
Let’s go farther and affirm that we are people who live in truth. We live in the light. Nothing is hidden from God, so let’s not hide anything from ourselves.
Let’s go further and testify that we will live wisely, not as the pagans who tout their foolishness as wisdom. We choose wisdom now more than ever because the days are evil.
Where did I get these things? We need only read a little further in the chapter. Paul is still talking about humankind having no excuse for not know there is a God. Knowing God through Jesus comes later in this book, but Paul wants all to understand that we have no excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Paul gives us the negative examples here. Paul tells us of those who chose darkness over light, but that is not who we are.
We are people of righteousness. That sounds a little bold, don’t you think? I hope it does.
Do you remember when I asked about winning the lottery? I said it was a fantasy, but in actually some people do win. The odds are against it. I think they are something like 50 to 1 against winning the 400 million. Maybe it’s more like 50 bazillion to 1.
But you have won more than the lottery jackpot. We have been made right with God. The odds were against it but God doesn’t care what the odds are. God chose you to be in right standing with him and he did everything needed to make that happen.
We won the billion dollar jackpot!
We are in right standing with God because of what the Lord Christ has done for us. Why would we ever be timid about that?
Because we don’t feel righteous. We are still more comfortable belonging to the world than to Christ.
Guilt, shame, and darkness still have a home in who we are. It’s time to deliver some eviction notices!
Do you remember this one? I am crucified with Christ. Christ lives in me.
The righteousness that comes from God is from first to last. Our starting point does not determine where we finish. Jesus said, it is finished. Our future is secure.
Sin and death have no power over our eternal destination. They can only impact the abundant life that we are to know now.
But why let them?
Let’s talk the lottery again. I don’t know the stats but we hear the stories time and time again. Somebody wins. They have life-changing money. They could live out their days without worry but somehow, they end up broke, even in debt, strung out on drugs, or dead.
The lotto money was going to give them a new life but they couldn’t let go of the old one. All of their worldly cravings were just put on steroids for a while.
The righteous shall live by faith. We are the righteous. God has done this for us. We have a new starting point. We don’t have to work our way to righteousness. God put us here.
Now we are to live by faith, not by our old models.
We are to live by what God tells us not by what the world says is better.
We are to step out following Jesus even though the worldly path seems well paved and has many lanes.
We give thanks in all circumstances even though the world tells us to take it all for granted.
We praise the name of the Lord every day and at every opportunity even when the world says we are fools. You want something to praise? Here’s an actor or a football player or a high you get from a drug.
The world wants us to praise and worship people or things within the creation. We worship only the Creator!
The righteous will worship God alone. The righteous will live by faith.
God made us right with him. We are the righteous. Now we live by faith.
The righteous will live by faith.
We live by faith!
Amen!
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