I am currently reading a biography of Steve Jobs, the founder of the Apple computer company, and it is a very interesting life story. Jobs was not a Christian, as some of you may know, but there are really powerful lessons, both good and bad, from his life that we can profit from. One thing he said that was very thought-provoking: that in the first half of your life, you make your habits — then in the second part of your life, your habits make YOU!
That’s an interesting thought. The habits that we make in our lives are indeed very important — and they CAN end up either making or breaking us.
We mentioned last week that Psalm 23 was one of the best-loved passages in the Bible, as it talks about how the Lord shepherds us. But verse 5 of the Psalm has an interesting turn of phrase that can challenge us as we wrap up this Christmas season and begin a new year this week. David says there that the Lord “leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” That is a very familiar phrase to many of us, but it also has a deep meaning to it.
The word “paths” here, according to the venerable Brown/Driver/Briggs Hebrew lexicon, means “wagon tracks”, the place where the wagons have gone before, leaving their hard, beaten-down path — we might well call them “ruts”! Many of us have been on an old dirt country road, where there were just “ruts” worn in the dirt from the cars driving on it over and over.
We often speak of “being in a rut” as a bad thing — and it can be, for sure. But the Bible shows us here that there are also some good “ruts” we can be in. When David says: “He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake,” he’s talking about “good ruts.” He says the Lord leads him like a shepherd in “the ruts of righteousness.” So there are some “good ruts” we can be in: “Ruts of Righteousness.” Let’s think about some of the good “ruts of righteousness” for a few minutes:
Continue reading
shawnethomas 
“Reckoned As Righteous” (Genesis 15:6 sermon)
In the winter of 1738 Charles Wesley was serving as a missionary in America, but he wrote in his journal, he was seeking to convert the Indians, but who would convert HIM? He was earnestly seeking to be right with God, and get an assurance of salvation, but it was eluding him. He just did not feel at peace with God. In late February, Wesley got sick, and Peter Bohler, a Moravian missionary, visited him. He said, ‘Do you hope to be saved?”‘ Wesley said he did. Bohler asked him: “For what reason do you hope to be saved?” Charles Wesley answered, “Because I have used my best endeavours to serve God.” But Bohler simply “shook his head and said no more. I thought him very uncharitable,” Wesley continued, “saying in my heart ‘What! Are not my endeavours a sufficient ground of hope? Would you rob me of my endeavours? I have nothing else to trust to.”’ (John R. Tyson. Assist Me to Proclaim, Kindle 653-662)
Charles Wesley at that time was like many people are today — thinking that he might be saved by his “endeavours” — his good works; the things he could do for God. Maybe you are like him today. Maybe you’ve started off this year trying to be the best person you can be, so that you will find favor with God. If that’s what you’ve been thinking, then our verse for today is good news for you indeed!
One of the great blessings of reading through the Bible together this year is that in the course of the year we will come across all of the greatest verses in the Bible at one point or another — and it will give me the opportunity to preach on many of these great verses this year. Our verse for today has to be considered one of those: Genesis 15:6, “Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
Genesis 15:6 is one of the Old Testament verses that is most often quoted by the authors of the New Testament (Romans 4:3, 4:20-22, Galatians 3:6, James 2:23). And rightly so, because this verse teaches us some of the most important truths about salvation. If you want to be “saved”: if you want to know that your sins to be forgiven, that you are right with God, and have a home in heaven, you need to understand what this verse is teaching us about being “Reckoned As Righteous.”
Continue reading →