“Against all hope.”  What’s that even mean?  All hope—that sounds like a lot, but apparently not quite enough.  Hope reaches out from the present towards a future.  That future needs to reach out to take hold of hope, too.  We know the phrase “against all odds”: in the face of seemingly complete impossibility.  A miracle.  It’s a way of referring to courage and to victory—but whose victory, really?  Against all odds, against all hope.  Beyond our wildest hoping.  But we rarely have wild hopes.  No, our hopes are tame, domestic, realistic.  We know about hope, and we know some hopes are unrealistic, mostly nearly fantasy.  Those can be hard to pack away in the keepsake box, and we feel just a little heavier, wet-eyed, as we close the box, turn out the light, and leave.

Hope comes up against a lot, in this life.  We’ve got to be realistic.  Well, there is truth in that, but it all depends upon what reality we have in mind.  We encounter different stories about reality: interpretation comes from somewhere, after all.  Reality is neither pessimistic nor optimistic.  Reality is.  We think of reality as a what, almost like an object.  It might help to begin to think of reality as a who.  For some, real life is sort of a hopeless affair: hope is for the future; if you see no future worth living for, laboring for, praying for . . .  For others, hope springs eternal.  Don’t get your hopes up!  There’s always hope.  We shuttle back and forth, between these two poles.  Life is like that, light and dark, up and down, possibility and impossibility.

Of those who do not believe, many don’t because it all seems so preposterous, unrealistic.  Faith doesn’t square with the facts!  To have faith—religious faith, Chrisian faith—they will say, is to deny reality.  In my brief time on this earth, I’ve discovered a curious phenomenon: there are true facts, and there are facts that are not true.  I know what a true fact is: a true fact is truth.  So what, then, is a fact that is not true?  We know facts; we hope in people.  We don’t have relationships with facts.  We connect with people.  Facts don’t make promises, and they don’t love.  People do.

God had called Abraham.  Because Abraham was so richly worthy of being called by God?  Abraham followed, trusting.  God had told Abraham what God would do for him.  Why did Abraham trust what he was hearing?  Well, he didn’t necessarily, right away, in every case!  But trust was the course of Abraham’s life; he trusted.  Because it was God making the promise?  Maybe, but closer to home, Abraham trusted because there was a growing relationship.  We don’t believe the promises of those whom we do not trust: politicians, for example.  Every relationship involves risk.  We’ve been burned, our trust thrown in our face.  We felt stupid, ashamed.  We’ve learned, but we haven’t stopped making the effort to grow relationships, have we?  Let us, of all people, never stop investing ourselves in relationships.  Inviting others to come and see, to come belong with us, happens most effectively where there are established relationships and relationships being established—is there room for one more?

Some have stopped investing themselves, in others, in us.  There are some who give up, walk away; we don’t hear much from them, anymore.  They don’t return calls.  They don’t respond to texts.  Once or twice, they may call to ask us to do a job for them; they pay us for the work, but they don’t want to talk; they don’t want to visit.  They look away.  Who left who?

God wants to talk, visit; he wants a relationship.  Abraham was perceptive enough to understand and value it.  This is grace, at work.  I think almost any husband will confess he really doesn’t understand why his wife puts up with him the way she does, but what we’re expressing when we say that is amazement about the relationship—we don’t give people much reason to love us, yet they love us.  How much more, then, God.  What reason do you or I give God to love us?  Just see how lovable I am, God?  If I do more, give more, God will finally love me . . .

Against all hope.  The “facts,” the circumstances—what Abraham knew about himself and life and others—these provided no grounds for any hope.  Abraham did not base his hope upon what he knew about the world, others, or even himself.  Abraham’s hope was grounded in God whom he knew, and trusted.  I don’t see how, God.  But You say it will be, and I trust You.  Abraham’s hope was founded upon a better relationship, a connection stronger than circumstances.  “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be’” (4:18).  All who go in faith.  God had spoken.  Abraham was coming to know God, year after year, day by day, following.  God had done nothing to cause Abraham to turn away, hurt and betrayed: quite the opposite.  Knowing God wasn’t like knowing anyone else or anything else.  Knowing God was unique.  Being known by God was terrifying and thrilling.  Abraham didn’t need to hide from God, could be himself, with God, know himself, with God.  Who was Abraham?  Abraham was a man becoming fully himself in the growing fullness of his relationship with God; he was growing, in God’s light.

In relationship with God, Abraham could face the facts, the true facts, the only facts that are.  “Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead” (4:19).  A dead womb.  That’s put strongly, even hurtfully, and all too truly.  Despite all their wanting and trying, Abraham and Sarah had no child, after years, many years, a lifetime.  The time had passed.  They wanted life, but life cannot come from what is dead; what is not alive cannot make alive.  We must understand this spiritually.  God promises life where there was no life—Abraham and Sarah, as we’re told, are as good as dead.  There was no power for life in them.  Neither of them could work life, achieve life, earn or merit life; neither could create life or a future.  Death was at work in them.  None of this weakened Abraham’s faith.  He knew that all he truly had, in this life, was faith.

Paul will be telling us outright two chapters from now, but let’s never lose sight of the fact that, for Paul as he describes the human situation, the wages of sin is death.  We are in a world locked in sin, subject on every side, at a moment’s notice, to the effects and consequences of sin.  Death comes because of sin, the work of sin in this life, in the world, in the body.  Not something contracted from the environment but inherited, transmitted, congenital.  Yet sin is not a medical condition; except in a figurative sense sin is not a genetic condition but an existential, a spiritual state.  Sin is the storm about to break, the earthquake, the volcano not as dormant as we like to tell ourselves.  We’re all of us stuck in sin; there is only one way out.  Some think that means death, and they aren’t wrong, but they haven’t gone far enough, either, because they no longer hope beyond sin to life.  They cannot conceive any life beyond sin.  They don’t have the faith that would carry them there.  It’s a long journey, beloved, and many become weary along the way.  Can we do nothing to refresh them, or one another?

Abraham could not work to obtain life; he could not create life.  That’s a fact, sort of grim, if left in isolation.  It’s when we leave things in isolation—out of relation—that matters can feel so grim for us.  Faith establishes relation, puts facts into their proper relations, gives each fact its proper weight and influence.  Here’s another fact Abraham knew: so far as life was concerned, God would have to give it.  Only God could.  Only God can.  He said He would.  Abraham remembered, held on to that.  Abraham may have seen impossibility, but he knew God.

Remembering kept Abraham’s faith from weakening.  I suppose all of us would like a stronger faith, but Jesus tells us faith even as much as a mustard seed can do incredible things.  It’s all about remembering . . . and patience, and prayer, persistence, and perseverance.  Faith does what we can hardly believe, and there’s our trouble.  It’s not more faith or stronger faith we need but relying on the faith we already have, faith given to us.  Well, God didn’t give enough!  Why didn’t He give more?!  Only believe.  Trust and obey.  Rise up and follow.  God says His grace is sufficient.  The faith He has given is enough.  We say no.  So, we’re fighting God, arguing with Him.  Of course we are.  Fight and argue, then.  And trust.  And follow.  Only believe, and see the salvation of the Lord.  The fight against sin is the fight for belief, and it may often feel as if neither are going very well, yet we’re all in God’s hands.  He is already, even now, changing our hearts.  Will we rely upon Him, or tell ourselves it’s hopeless?  Shall we surrender to the sin around us and within?  We know where that gets us.

Paul points to Abraham as a model for us because he did not allow circumstances, “facts,” to cause his faith to waver or weaken.  Abraham wasn’t relying upon any works, any deeds of his.  When no effort of his had achieved his hope, Abraham’s one and only reason for hope when all seemed hopeless was also the best reason: God.  God said it.  I know God.  God will do it.  God can do what seems impossible for me.  All things are possible, for God; only believe.  “Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (4:20-21).  Centuries of generations later, Elijah encountered that wavering of unbelief among a half-hearted people.  They had struggled under drought and famine for so long that it felt to them as if relief would never come, never come in time, not in time for you and me.  Drought, famine—here was reality.  What was the point in hoping?  Face the facts; accept reality.  Go, make your own way as best you can: go, die with dignity of unbelief.  Many do.  We wonder as we read Scripture, to hear that on more than one occasion Christ was deeply moved, and wept: the tears of Jesus.  It’s no wonder at all.

Paul reminds us that Abraham “was strengthened in his faith” (4:20).  He doesn’t say Abraham strengthened himself.  We know he was exercising his faith daily; this was by grace.  I suppose we’d all be glad for stronger faith.  Exercise it.  God will strengthen you.  He will choose the means by which He does so.  “I asked for strength, and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.”[1]  We do not become strong when we do not encounter resistance.  The other name for strength training is resistance training—now apply that to sin.  We have a spotter with us; He lifts.

Is it our strength that gets us through difficulties, doubts, the spiritual doldrums, when hope feels hard to come by?  It is the strength of God, at work in us, by faith: that’s grace.  Grace is God’s love, lifting you and all of us through.  Difficulties there will always be.  We turn to many things when life isn’t going very well, as we know.  God is always beckoning us to turn to Him, receive His grace, know His strength, be established in His peace.

God strengthens our faith by His grace as He brings occasions for us to exercise the faith He gives: daily occasions, daily choices, daily prayers.  Beloved, how many opportunities we have—just simple, ordinary opportunities—each day, to bless one another, and the Lord!  Bless the Lord, my soul, and bless God’s holy name; bless the Lord, O my soul, who leads me into life.

As Abraham witnessed God’s work in his life, Abraham did the best thing he could do: he glorified God, giving the praise and thanks to God, acknowledging God’s presence and the present, ongoing work of God.  I don’t think of Abraham as an evangelist, yet I do believe, I am entirely convinced, that Abraham’s living was his testimony: an act of praise and thanks to God—imperfectly, all too often, yes.  God applies grace to take what we, all imperfectly, offer, and by grace God receives it as acceptable to Him.  Let’s give God the glory; He is worthy.

Abraham was “fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (4:21): Not almost persuaded, not merely maybe inclined to be persuaded.  This is why Abraham’s persuasion, his belief, “was credited to him as righteousness” (4:22).  Some of us begin from a place of uncertainty, yet by grace we are willing to find out.  Abraham was fully persuaded.  Why?  How?  Because he knew God, trusted God, had seen, recognized, what God had already done for Abraham.  Abraham was persuaded because there was a vital relationship.  We trust the one whom we love; we can come to love the one we trust.

How to have the faith of Abraham, blessed faith, faith that God counts as righteousness, the righteousness without which no one can ever come before God?  Cultivate a vital relationship with God.  Trust that God is cultivating a vital relationship with you, for His glory, which is justice to His holy name, His sacred character.  How to grow, though?  Beloved, the same way the faithful have grown throughout centuries of generations: prayer, time conscientiously dedicated to reading and hearing God’s Word; cultivating the habit of active participation in this community of faith, and the habits of attentive, active discipleship beyond these doors.  Walk in reverence, obedience, and love; do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God.  We’ve been doing all that!  So, where’s the change?  Where’s the improvement in the situation?!  Growing in faith takes a lifetime.  There are many distractions all along the way, as we know.  Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

We’re in this, together, for a reason: a resource, a God-given resource for support, encouragement, counsel, and mutual prayer.  Abraham’s faith matters for us: it can be ours, too.  Abraham was not some rare, exceptional person.  He was an old, wealthy, childless man, who knew the wealth and the life that mattered most came with knowing God, trusting God, walking with God.  Abraham was weak, often felt alone, outnumbered, and a bit scared—the loss of everything continually haunted him.  He was bold, accustomed to labor; he had developed wisdom.  He was like any of us.  God did not call to Abraham because the man was in any way exceptional; God had been preparing Abraham all along to hear and to answer God’s call, just as God has done with us and is doing with people out there we haven’t even met yet, but may, maybe even today.  God has promised to regard as righteous all “who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (4:24).  Trust in the one who brings life to the dead, who brings the dead to life.

[1] Frank vs. God.  Stewart Schill, dir.  2014.