“How’s Your Line of Credit?”
Text: Romans 4:13-25
6-7-2026
In the name of Him who justifies us by His grace, dear friends in Christ. If you’re household is like ours then you probably receive offers from credit card companies on a regular basis. And, I would add, they’re all unsolicited. Their sales pitch may be a low interest rate on your balance or cash rebates on your purchases. And some of the companies offer wild credit limits, as high as $100,000. Gosh, who could say no to that? But you know, it’s strange; I’ve never gotten one of these credit card offers where they promised to deposit a million dollars in my account. Wouldn’t that be great? No matter how many things you bought on your card, you’d always have a million dollars available to spend. And it would be even sweeter if you never had to pay it back. Well, that’s a nice dream, but it’s only a dream. You’ll never find a credit card company that will offer you that kind of a deal. If you do, please tell me. Don’t worry. It’ll be our little secret.
As incredible as that million-dollar credit account may sound, God has a better offer for you. In our text from Romans 4, St. Paul tells us about that gracious offer and how it works. Basically, he says that God has a special credit account set up for you. But it’s not filled with money. No, it’s an account filled with righteousness. That is to say, the righteousness Jesus bought for us by His death on the cross. Paul says that God will credit Christ’s righteousness “to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord.” God has your name written on that “righteousness account” and He wants you to tap into it. The way that we tap into it is by faith.
But beware. Just as there are financial scams out there, St. Paul warns believers to watch out for counterfeit righteousness accounts. So, Paul went on to teach us about the genuine offer from God so that we can avoid the fake ones. And the way that he instructs us about God’s righteousness account is by telling us about a great man of faith: Abraham. Through his example we can better understand God’s incredible offer of gracious and free righteousness for us.
In Genesis 12, we read how God came to Abraham and presented this offer to him. God promised to make him into a great nation. Through Abraham and his offspring, the whole world would be blessed. Of course, God was talking about the ultimate blessing of the Savior who would be born from the descendants of Abraham. This was part of his righteousness account and he benefitted from it like all believers do. God did all the work in establishing it. All Abraham had to do was to have faith and believe. That’s the first thing we need to learn about this righteousness account. God is the one who creates it and He’s the one who fills it up with His holy righteousness. We cannot contribute a single good thing to our account. In fact, in Isaiah 64:6 we’re told that all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags. In other words, they’re worthless. And if that’s all that’s in your righteousness account then it’s empty of anything good that counts in your favor.
You see, that was the problem with the Pharisees in the Gospel Lesson. They walked around thinking they were better than everybody else because of their supposed righteous living. They thought that all of their good works were being credited to their righteousness account with God. And by golly, come Judgment Day, they would demand that God give them credit for what they had deposited in their accounts. Because of that, they didn’t think they needed the righteousness of Jesus as their Savior. They thought they had filled up for themselves nice, fat righteousness accounts. But the truth was that they were spiritually bankrupt. Their accounts had a zero balance of anything good in them. Instead, they were filled with something that counted against them: their debt of sin, which they could never pay. And if they died with that debt, then punishment in hell was all they had to look forward to.
How sad it is that there are people all around us today who also believe they can fill their own spiritual righteousness account. I can’t begin to count the number of times that I’ve heard people tell me (usually at a funeral) how good of a person so-and-so was. He or she did such “nice things.” Not out of love for the Lord, but rather because it seemed like the right thing to do. Surely God will have to give them credit on their accounts, right? Never mind the fact they failed to acknowledge God or worship Him. Just like the Pharisees, these folks are also spiritually bankrupt. Every day that goes by, their debt of sin is accumulating more and more of the “finance charge” which is called eternal damnation. It’s a debt they can never pay on their own. Only the blood of Jesus can.
God makes it very clear that our righteousness is all His doing. Unfortunately, even believers can fall into the trap of trying do things their own way, thinking it will be considered righteous. Just look at what happened with Abraham. He was 75 years old and his wife wasn’t far behind when God promised to make him the father of a great nation. Well, there was a problem. Abraham didn’t have any children yet. Now, how many of you, who are over 70, would like to become a proud Mama or Papa for the first time? I’m confident the women especially wouldn’t want to go through childbearing at this age. Even so, Abraham and Sarah trusted God’s promise… for a while. As you may recall, after nothing happening for 10 years, they tried to fulfill the promise on their own. Sarah had Abraham conceive a baby with her slave girl. The child born was named Ishmael. But God makes it clear to them that the blessings He promised would not come through this boy. No. God would cause a child to be conceived and born from the union of Abraham and Sarah. Which is what happened. And here’s the catch. It took another 15 years! By then, Sarah was 90 and Abraham was 100. Both of them were long past childbearing age.
Did you ever stop and wonder why God waited so long to fulfill this promise? The reason is He wanted Abraham to see that it was all God’s work, all God’s doing. If they were in their 30's and got pregnant, well, they very likely would have given themselves credit for having the baby. But when the situation became impossible, then God could step in and there would be no guessing as to who got the credit. Abraham saw that his situation was hopeless in human terms. And yet, Abraham ultimately trusted that God had the power to do what seemed impossible. St. Paul tells us that this trusting faith was “counted {or credited} to him as righteousness.”
And God does the same thing with us today. How often don’t we find ourselves in hopeless and impossible situations? In human terms there seems to be no possible solution. It may be a cheating spouse or a broken marriage that seems impossible. It may be a friend or relative who is an alcoholic or drug addict. It may be a broken relationship with someone you thought was your best friend. It may be cancer or some other life-threatening illness. The list is endless of human situations which seem impossible. Yet God wants us to have faith in Him like Abraham did. He invites us to totally trust in His power to accomplish what seems impossible.
The greatest and most impossible thing that God wants us to believe is that He has indeed declared us filthy sinners righteous in His sight. In human terms, this is totally impossible. The Bible tells us that we were all dead in our sins. We were helpless and even enemies of God. We were born spiritually bankrupt and there was nothing we could do to pay off our debt of sin. We could never get right with God. Our situation seemed impossible. But the Bible tells us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Not because of any good works that we deposited in our righteousness account. But because of Jesus and only Jesus.
The death and resurrection of Jesus has completely filled our righteousness account. And all we have to do is tap into that righteousness of Christ by the faith God has created in us at our Baptisms. Remember that million-dollar credit account I mentioned at the beginning? Well, like I said, God’s righteousness account is even better. Freely, out of His grace and mercy, He has established your account and put your name on it. You are now a spiritual millionaire! And the best part is that your righteousness account will never go empty and there is no credit limit on it. It pays for the debt of all your sins of the past and all the sins that you might ever commit. All you have to “do” is believe it by faith. Believe that Jesus has paid the debt for your sins and His righteousness is credited to you. May we never waver in our faith. But rather, may our souls be strengthened and give glory to God for His saving love towards us. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!