San Diego, Caliofornia, United States - First United Methodist Church’s Daily Devotion for Monday, 17 November 2014 – Sunday, 23 November 2014 - Sermon theme: Crossroads Celebration: Heritage-Promise Realized through Faith by Craig Brown Text to read: Romans 4: 16-21
Scriptures:
Text to Read:
Text to read: Romans 4:16 This is why the fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God’s promise arrives as pure gift. That’s the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions and those who have never heard of them. For Abraham is father of us all. He is not our racial father—that’s reading the story backward. He is our faith father.
17-18 We call Abraham “father” not because he got God’s attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn’t that what we’ve always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, “I set you up as father of many peoples”? Abraham was first named “father” and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, “You’re going to have a big family, Abraham!”
19-25 Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.” Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.
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John Wesley’s Notes-Commentary:
Text to read: Romans 4: 16-21
Verse 16
[16] Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
Therefore it — The blessing.
Is of faith, that it might be of grace — That it might appear to flow from the free love of God, and that the promise might be firm, sure, and effectual, to all the spiritual seed of Abraham; not only Jews, but gentiles also, if they follow his faith.
Verse 17
[17] (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
Before God — Though before men nothing of this appeared, those nations being then unborn.
As quickening the dead — The dead are not dead to him and even the things that are not, are before God.
And calling the things that are not — Summoning them to rise into being, and appear before him. The seed of Abraham did not then exist; yet God said, "So shall thy seed be." A man can say to his servant actually existing, Do this; and he doeth it: but God saith to the light, while it does not exist, Go forth; and it goeth. Genesis 17:5.
Verse 18-21
[18] Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. [19] And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb: [20] He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; [21] And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
The Apostle shows the power and excellence of that faith to which he ascribes justification.
Who against hope — Against all probability, believed and hoped in the promise. The same thing is apprehended both by faith and hope; by faith, as a thing which God has spoken; by hope, as a good thing which God has promised to us.
So shall thy seed be — Both natural and spiritual, as the stars of heaven for multitude. Genesis 15:5.
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Daily Devotions:
Monday, November 17, 2014
Sermon theme: Crossroads Celebration: Heritage-Promise Realized through Faith
How do you usually handle a crossroads in life?
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Sermon theme: Crossroads Celebration: Heritage-Promise Realized through Faith
What role does God play in the crossroads we all face?
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Sermon theme: Crossroads Celebration: Heritage-Promise Realized through Faith
What opportunities are present at crossroads?
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Sermon theme: Crossroads Celebration: Heritage-Promise Realized through Faith
Are crossroads a choice between "good" and "bad"?
Why not?
Friday, November 21, 2014
Sermon theme: Crossroads Celebration: Heritage-Promise Realized through Faith
Text to read: Romans 4: 16-21
Read this week's Bible text.
How did Abraham handle his crossroads?
What can we learn?
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Sermon theme: Crossroads Celebration: Heritage-Promise Realized through Faith
What crossroads are ahead in your life?
How are you preparing to address them?
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Sermon theme: Crossroads Celebration: Heritage-Promise Realized through Faith
Pray for all who face difficult decisions this week.
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First United Methodist Church
2111 Camino del Rio South
San Diego, CA 92108
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Sermon Story "Saints on a Pedestal" by Gary Lee Parker for Sunday, 23 November 2014
Text to read: Romans 4:16 This is why the fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God’s promise arrives as pure gift. That’s the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions and those who have never heard of them. For Abraham is father of us all. He is not our racial father—that’s reading the story backward. He is our faith father.
17-18 We call Abraham “father” not because he got God’s attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn’t that what we’ve always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, “I set you up as father of many peoples”? Abraham was first named “father” and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, “You’re going to have a big family, Abraham!”
19-25 Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.” Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.
How many of us place saints from the past whether relatives, friends, or from Scripture on a pedestal? Here we have the Apostle Paul writing to the Messianic community in Rome about Abraham. Paul goes on to share that Abraham was not chosen because he was perfect or a saint, but by faith. He shares that God called Abraham father before he even had a bilological child. Abraham trusted God to do what He is promising Abraham by faith through grace. He goes onto say that Abraham was considered a dead man at 100 years of age when his biological son was born through Sarah who, herself, was 90 years of age. Abraham is not our bilogical father, but our faith father because of his faith in God's promise for a biological son and believed that through this son there would be so many descendants that one could not count them just as one cannot count the grains of sand on the beach. This faith resulted in many descendants by faith from the Messiah, Yeshua, who came as God in carnate as a man who lived, suffered, died, resurrected, and ascended to redeem a sorry looking humanity. All we have to do is trust Jesus salvation for us as Abraham trusted God for a biological son and many, many descendants. What character do you relate to or not relate to? How do you understand Abraham as a spiritual father, not just a bilogical father? What is God calling you to trust Him fully to be spiritual father maybe as a or not as a bilogical father?
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Gary Lee Parker
4147 Idaho Street
San Diego, California 92104-1844, United States
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