“Reborn; Re-Justified through Forgiveness”

            Genesis 12:1–3 ¹Now 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. ²And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³I 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 asks us to leave our place of comfort, and we struggle with it.  Our struggle is the unknown, what will happen if I leave this place of comfort?  What if I get to this new place and find it hostel?  What if I find opposition from the indigenous community that has been there all of their lives?  How will I be able to cope with being an outsider who comes not to fit in, but to cause change?  Abram was called by God to leave his place of comfort and to take a leap of faith, trust God and see change.

            Abram was called to take a journey meant to change his life, the life of those who traveled with him, and to change the lives of those they will meet on their way and when they get to their final destination.  Their journey was not meant to be a walk in the park; a walk in the park would not cause the emphatic change that was planned by God.  The change that was planned by God was not about Abram, it was about those God wants to call His own. 

            God took Abram and those who traveled with Abram out of the old nation so that they could be reborn into a new nation.  The new nation was to bring God’s kingdom back to earth.  God’s purpose was not for Abram’s name to be great but to spread blessings to all nations through him.  It is not that every nation would come from the blood line of Abram.  God says “every family of earth,” which encompasses all the people of the earth.  This makes it God’s blood line, and the flow of God’s blood line comes from Christ.  That means from the time of Adam and Eve to Abram and even now God’s plan was to bless the offspring of His creation who fell into sin and gave birth to the flesh of what we now call mankind.

            Romans 4:7–8, 16 ⁷“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,

and whose sins are covered; ⁸blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

¹⁶That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

            Born of the flesh, used in scripture as another means to say we are born with a sinful nature, we are born of sin.  When God chose Abram, God did not look for one who was perfect; rather God looked for one who was humble, honest, and with faith.  It might not have been as random as we might believe that God selected Abram.  God knew the heart of Abram and this may be the reasoning God used to choose him over others.  God chose Noah because He knew the faith that lived in the heart of Noah, and believe it or not God chose Paul because He knew that his heart was for God too.  Abram was not perfect; he lied about his wife because he feared the Pharaoh of Egypt and caused the Pharaoh grief through his sin.  Abram now Abraham also fell in his faith and tried to take matters in his own hands to force an offspring with Hagar because Sara felt she would fail to give birth to the son God had promised them.  How many times do we take matters into our own hands thinking that God will not come through for us?  It has happened more times than we would want to admit.

            God did come through for Abraham, and Isaac was born.  Maybe Abraham learned something from the experience of Isaac’s birth, because through faith Abraham was willing to follow God even when God told him to sacrifice his son.  Through faith we receive the grace that was also given to Abraham.  Abraham received grace and Isaac’s birth still came at the time God wanted it to happen.  Through grace God did not count Abraham’s sin and continued giving the promise through the covenant He had made with Abram.  An old nation was left behind and through the grace of God a new nation was reborn.  Adam and Eve fell to sin and we are born to sin, now with Christ we are reborn to God, kind of a re-forgiveness, or re-justification through forgiveness.

            John 3:4–6 ⁴Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ⁶That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

            Jesus is speaking of baptism, but not for the sake of baptism, rather for the sake that anyone who is forgiven will enter the kingdom of heaven, and anyone who is not forgiven will not enter the kingdom of heaven.  What is flesh is sin; the sin is to fall to our desires that are not of the spirit but of our cravings.  If we live only in the flesh we do not seek forgiveness and repentance does not happen.   We all are in need of the rebirth that comes from the Spirit, our baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the act of Christ on the cross, which is forgiveness.  And what is great is that our God sees rebirth in these ways; baptism, the Lord’s Supper and Jesus Christ who died for our sins to bring us forgiveness.

            Our place of comfort is many times to try and take matters into our own hands including our salvation not realizing that we cannot succeed.  Abraham thought he could succeed with the birth of Ishmael, but God made His plan succeed through Isaac.  We cannot be reborn on our own, but only through the works of Christ, the word of God, and the Holy Spirit.   We can leave our place of old comfort and now enter into a new everlasting comfort from Christ, and not being like the old comfort our new comfort will never change.

            John 3:4–8, 17 ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

            This is the good news, this is great news, Christ did not come to denounce us but rather He came to save us.  God so loved the world that He leads us to be reborn through forgiveness freely given because Christ paid in full the price and gives it us as a free gift.