Abraham and Grace

I grew up in the church. I first went to church when I was two weeks old, and, no, I don’t remember going at that age. I do remember that as I got older, I found church boring and confusing. I found it boring because I was being told to do things that I knew I couldn’t do and thus I quit trying. I found it confusing because it seemed to me that I was told that I needed to do everything perfectly but then grace was sort of thrown in and I didn’t get it.

I didn’t get how all the commandments in the Mosaic Law lead to grace in Jesus. Then I studied Galatians and found out that they really don’t.

In Galatians Paul shows us that grace in Jesus flows not from the law given to Moses but to the covenant that God made by promise to Abraham.

Romans 8:16-17

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.

When we surrender the authority of our lives over to Jesus’ authority, then we become children of God. As children of God we have the Holy Spirit in us and He gives us the understanding that, as children of God, we are heirs. This means that every follower of Jesus is a child of God and an heir of God.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing and living as a child and heir of God.

But what does it mean exactly that we are heirs of God?

Galatians 3:29

And if you are Christ’s then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Paul connects our standing as heirs of God with Abraham and the promise that God made him.

Genesis 12:1-3

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

God makes some promises to Abram:

Abram will become a great nation

Abram will have a great name

Abram’ s friends will be blessed and his enemies will be cursed

Abram will be blessing to every person on earth

Notice two things about this promise:

God out of His sovereign grace chose Abram from every person on earth to make the promise to and to bless all the people on earth.

God makes the promise to Abram and put no conditions on the promise.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is believing God’s unconditional promise.

The promise given to Abram and the covenant God made with Abram were based on grace. God chose Abram based not on anything Abram did but on God’s desire to chose Him. God makes promises to Abram that were unconditional because God required nothing from Abram to fulfill the promise.

The covenant that we have in Jesus is by grace. The covenant is based in Jesus’s finished work on the cross. It was initiated by God.  It is based on what Jesus did. It is unconditional.

Our covenant of grace through Jesus flows out of the covenant God made with Abram based on His promise.

The Mosaic covenant was based on following the law. The law was not given for salvation because the law cannot save a person. The law was given to show us who God is and to set apart a people, Israel, to be a special people to bring salvation to the world, and to show humanity’s sinfulness.

Our salvation does not and cannot come from the law. Our salvation comes by grace based on what Jesus did just as Abram’s relationship with God came out of grace based on the promise of God.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about trusting the gracious promise of God fulfilled through Jesus.

Grace is greater than the law.

In Grace Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls

                                Joe