There’s a tension that most of us have dealt with, and it shows up in the form of some questions. Questions like: How do I know where I stand with God? If there is a God, how are we doing? Can God hear my prayers, and does He care?
To help answer those questions, I want to show you a conversation that God had with a man in the Old Testament named Abraham. But here’s a modern day story to kind of create the context. One afternoon, a man was working at home and suddenly hears the sound of lots of breaking glass. He runs to the kitchen and finds his 17-year-old daughter standing, barefoot, in this sea of glass.
She looked up and said, “Dad, I’m so sorry!!” She had reached for a glass when the shelf broke, sending numerous glasses to the counter top and floor. The dad looked at the mess and said, “I can’t believe that you did that. You can just stand there and figure out how to get out of this mess yourself!”
Some of you think that’s what God is like. You think that He stares at you in the mess of your own making and says, “You made the mess, you clean it up because you have to clean up what you mess up. You sinned, you fix it.”
Yet, for those of you think God is like that, you don’t believe for a single moment that this guy left his daughter standing in her little sea of glass — and he didn’t. The truth is, he did what any good father would do. He rescued his daughter.
In a similar way, mankind — because of sin and selfishness — made a huge mess of the world. And if God really cared and was truly compassionate, He had to decide: “Do I wade into this mess and try to find a starting point for cleaning up the mess that someone else has created, or, do I just hang a big, ‘Out of Order’ sign over the earth?”
The great news is this: God decided to wade in by choosing a single man named Abraham. God chooses Abraham and tells him three things: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:4, NIV) All three of those things happened.
God told Abraham that all the people groups on earth were somehow going to be influenced, or be better off because of him. Then God said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.” (Genesis 15:5, NIV)
Then there is a statement that is so powerful: “Abraham believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6, NIV)
In this simple statement, we find the nature of the relationship between God and man. In this statement, God defines the terms. Abraham believed, and that’s what was required. This statement makes faith incredibly simple. There’s nothing more that’s necessary. God told Abraham that he would be a great nation, even though he had no children yet, and Abraham believed. Or to put it another way, Abraham put his faith in God.
It’s that simple. Abraham didn’t have to jump through hoops or do a bunch of spiritual calisthenics. He put his faith in God. Period. In a single moment and a single expression of faith, God said to Abraham, “I am giving you the gift of a right standing with me. Abraham, I accept you because you believed and trusted in me.” In other words, trusting in God results in a right standing with God.
It’s almost impossible to comprehend that God would make this standard so simple, but He did. When we find ourselves in our own mess, our own sea of glass, God steps in and says, “The way you enter into a relationship with me is by believing me and trusting me.” No, it’s not always easy, but when we do we find that God, His love and His promises are real.