1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts, be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word as we continue with our Summer sermon series, “What Can Faith Do?” based on Hebrews 11 is taken from Hebrews 11:8-10, it’s entitled, “Be Faith Abraham,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Hebrews 11:1 & 8 says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. . . . By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:1, 8). Aside from Jesus, no one has been as fought over as Abraham. The Muslims have their take on him. The Jews have theirs. Jesus’ brother James and the apostle Paul even seem to disagree over how Christians should regard Abraham. Is it surprising that Christians today often clash over him? What’s the issue? It all really comes down to, “What saved Abraham?” Was it his works, his faith, a combination of the two, or something else?
3. When you talk about the salvation of Abraham, his justification, people like to put Paul and James side by side to see tension there in the Bible. James 2:21-24 says, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” It sounds like James is saying Abraham, and you and I, are justified by some combination of faith and works.
4. But Paul, talking about the very same Abraham, writes in Romans 4, “What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’ Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom 4:1–5). And Paul says in Ephesians 2:8–9, “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Paul says Abraham, and you and I, are justified by faith alone apart from works.
5. Do you see the tension? James says Abraham was justified because his faith produced works, and Paul says Abraham was justified because he believed apart from works. Which one is it? How should we understand the justification and righteousness of Abraham if the Bible seems to be painting these two completely opposite pictures?
6. How can we be sure of our own salvation before God? If Abraham is saved because of his works, then you and I have to do the same works in order to be justified. God calls Abraham to leave his homeland and wander into a land promised to be his, trusting that his yet-unborn children would inherit it. It’s in the context of that work that the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” If you have to be saved by the same work as Abraham, you must leave everything to follow Christ. You must sell all you have, give your money to the poor, take up your cross to die, and follow Jesus.
7. Did you catch that? This is where Lutherans start to get nervous, since all of that sounds exactly like what Jesus said in the Gospels, doesn’t it? The good work of Abraham is the good work that God expects of the sons and daughters of Abraham. Even in the New Testament, Jesus says, “A good tree produces good fruit”; “Sell all you have and give to the poor”; “Take up your cross”; “Turn the other cheek”; “Give your tunic, your mite, your tithe”; “Whoever loves father and mother more than me is unworthy of me”; “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 7:17; 19:21; 16:24; 5:39–40; 10:37; 22:39). Good works are not optional for the Christian. That can make a lot of complacent Christians uncomfortable with themselves and their lives, because a simple review easily shows that you haven’t been living and working a very Abraham-like, faith-filled kind of life.
8. We Lutherans are a little too quick to jump over to the apostle Paul and cry, “Salvation is by faith apart from works,” as an excuse not to do works—or, at least as a means of pardoning our own consciences for the works we know we should’ve been doing. Which also brings up the question: Would Abraham have been saved if he hadn’t done the works? If we’re justified by faith apart from works, as Paul says, then Abraham wouldn’t have needed to leave his home, his family, and his farmland. But if he was justified because of his good work, then he wasn’t really saved until he left his homeland. Folks ask that question most often because we really want to know is “If I just believe, but never do the things Jesus says, will I be saved? Can my neighbor be saved? Can I have faith without works?”’
9. Do you know the Lutheran answer? The Augsburg Confession, Article XX paragraph 27, says, “We teach that it is necessary to do good works.” Surprised? Well, that is the Lutheran answer. You know why? Because it’s the Bible’s answer. Not only does James say it, “Faith without works is dead” (see James 2:17), but Jesus says, “A good tree produces good fruit,” and “he who is in me bears much fruit” (see Mt 7:17; Jn 15:5). Even Paul says it, in, of all places, Ephesians 2:10, which follows immediately after 8 and 9: “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”
10. We must do good works if we have faith. But not to earn God’s favor—Abel’s witness a couple of weeks ago showed us that—but because faith naturally must produce works, just like a living and healthy tree must bear fruit. Faith alone saves, but, as Luther famously said, “Faith is never alone.” Abraham left his homeland because of his faith. If he hadn’t, it wouldn’t be an issue of faith without works. It’d be a matter of no faith versus faith, of dead faith versus faith. When James says a man is justified by what he does and not by faith alone, to read James, you understand that he means a man is justified by the kind of faith that produces works and not by some faith that’s really dead. You’ve either got faith or you don’t. But Scripture also tells us that even a tiny mustard seed of living faith still saves.
11. That’s why I said that there was a tension between Paul and James, not a contradiction. Faith without works is dead. Dead faith can’t save. It simply won’t justify. Dead faith can’t produce godly works. Living faith, however, does save—even faith as small as a mustard seed. Such faith alone does justify. And it does works. “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Or, as Hebrews 11 put it, “By faith Abraham” did this and that. Again, “Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is never alone.” We can understand that Paul looked at Abraham from God’s perspective, judging faith in the heart. James looked at Abraham from the perspective man can see, judging faith bearing fruit. Both are really concerned about the only thing that saves: faith. Dead faith can’t save, but faith alone in the living Jesus for you saves.
12. What was Abraham’s living faith, the faith that moved him to such bold works? The same faith that will save you. Jesus says in John 8 that Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ. And what Abraham could only see through prophecy we now see fully of that day. Jesus, the God who called Abraham to leave his homeland, would die on that cross 2000 years later to save Abraham and all of his children of faith. Jesus would lay down his life in perfect obedience to his heavenly Father to give to us the perfect work of faith, his blood, so that by no work of ours but solely by faith in the power of his blood to cleanse us, we would become children of God. For which we daily cry, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mk 9:24). And he does. By his Word and Sacraments, he strengthens even our mustard-seed faith throughout our lives so that we cling to the blood of Jesus alone as our justification and righteousness.
13. As we cling to that saving faith, the faith of Abraham, we, like him, by faith will live as a people looking forward to a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God—the place that Jesus has gone before to prepare for us in the new heavens and the new earth, the home of righteousness, a seat at the marriage supper of the Lamb with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all who believe in Jesus. Until he comes again, we pray, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.” Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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