Romans 4:4–8

⁴ When peo­ple work, their wages are not a gift, but some­thing they have earned. ⁵ But peo­ple are counted as right­eous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who for­gives sin­ners. ⁶ David also spoke of this when he described the hap­pi­ness of those who are declared right­eous with­out work­ing for it:

⁷ “Oh, what joy for those whose dis­obe­di­ence is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight. ⁸ Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.”

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Yes­ter­day, Paul ref­er­enced Abra­ham, one of the most highly respected peo­ple within Jew­ish cul­ture. Today, he uses another of the key peo­ple in Jew­ish his­tory: David. And he uses an exam­ple that is easy for all of us to relate to: earn­ing a living.

Imag­ine you were sit­ting at your din­ing room table work­ing on your per­sonal finances. You feel bur­dened under the weight of your debt. Spread across the table are all kinds of bills. Mort­gage, credit cards, car and motor­cy­cle loans, etc. It’s over­whelm­ing to see how much debt you have. As you start to work out the num­bers it becomes too much, and you feel the tears com­ing. Some of you can relate to this sce­nario. It hits close to home.

Now, imag­ine there’s a knock on the door. You try to com­pose your­self as you stand up and walk towards the door. As you open it, you are greeted with a stranger. “I’m won­der­ing if I could have a minute of your time.” He says, and you imme­di­ately assume he is a sales­man. You start to close the door on him, but he asks again, “Please, I promise I’m not try­ing to sell you any­thing. If you’d only give me a minute, I could change your life. I wont force what I’m offer­ing on you, and if you choose to close the door on me, I’ll leave, but if you give me just one minute, I have some­thing that will give you hope.”

Hope? How does he know you were feel­ing hope­less? You stand there and debate with your­self. Do you close the door or do you let him in. Finally, you decide to give him the time he is ask­ing for. You invite him in. He tells you that he knows about the bur­den you are car­ry­ing. He knows about the pile of paper­work on your table, and the amount of debt you’ve accu­mu­lated. And then he offers to cover your debt. To pay all the bills and give you free­dom from a bur­den you can­not resolve on your own.

Now, go to the day after the bills were paid off. You’re sit­ting at the table again. Only this time, there are no bills scream­ing at you. You feel com­pletely free. The bur­den is gone. The main took care of some­thing that wasn’t his and he did it with­out any strings attached.

How would you feel? Would you be smug? Would you feel like you deserved the treat­ment from the stranger? Or, as you thought of him, would you find your heart over­whelmed with gratitude?

THAT’S what Paul is dri­ving at when he quotes David. “Oh, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.”

My prayer: Lord, I had a debt that I could not pay. It was beyond my abil­ity to fix. I had bro­ken the Law far too much. My record of wrongs was great. And yet, you stood at the door and knocked. When I invited you in, you offered me a gift that I did not deserve. You wiped away my record of wrongs. You gave me a clean slate. Words will never be ade­quate to express the grat­i­tude I have for what you did for me. Lord, you have my heart, my life. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

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