Romans 4:13-25

 
Often, we face some difficulty or opposition and lose all hope for anything to get better.  Abraham faced the deadness of his own body.  Death is surely the end of all hope.  How can we hope when we face all our dreams and desires are dead?
Abraham had faith, and today I want us to think about the Christian faith and our reason for hope.  Our faith has at its author and completer of our faith through his resurrection and ascension to heaven.  Because we have a living Redeemer, death is not the final “can’t” to our expectations and dreams.  Death is not the ultimate barrier to the realization of the promises of God.

Death in Romans 4 is not the death marked by the grave, but the death that says impossibility to the fulfillment.  This is the death-like reality that seems to us greater than the promises of God.  How do we deal with the death of our confidence in God and hope in God’s promises?

This is when we must quit focusing on the circumstances and look to the one that conquered death and the grave.  We have to root out the distrust that is taking a hold of us, we have to confront the fear that something is impossible for God and reaffirm our resurrection faith that God is able to do what he promised. 

Our faith is a resurrection faith.  This is not just for the last day when the graves will be opened but is for each day we face the death-environment in this existence.  The Resurrected-Redeemer has gone through the trials before us, the Resurrected-Redeemer has shown us that death is not the final “can’t”, and that a life lived with confidence in God’s promises is truly “hoping against hope.”
 

Pastor Greg