Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Romans chapter 4. Now in the first three chapters,
Paul declared that every child of Adam is depraved, a guilty
sinner. And He showed that no sinner
is justified by our works. Absolutely no sinner is justified
by our works. But He showed there is a righteousness
to be had by the sinner. That righteousness is by Christ
the Lord, by His obedience, and it's freely given to us through
faith in Christ. Now, you remember Paul concluded
chapter 3 with three things we saw last time, three things that
faith accomplishes. Well, in this chapter, he's going
to illustrate those three things. And we're going to just take
the first one today. Now look there at Romans 3.27. He showed that boasting is excluded
through faith. He said, where is boasting then?
It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Now he's
going to illustrate that using Abraham and David. Watch Romans
4.1. What shall we say then that Abraham,
our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if
Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but
not before God. For what saith the scripture,
Abraham believed God, and it, the righteousness of Christ,
was counted or imputed unto him for righteousness. Now to him
that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted
for righteousness. Or through faith the righteousness
of Christ is imputed to him. Even as David also describeth
the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are
forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord will not impute sin. So Paul uses two men here
that the Jews highly regarded. Abraham, who was the friend of
God, he was the father of the faithful, and he declares plainly
here that Abraham believed God, and yet the righteousness of
Christ was imputed unto him for righteousness. And the others,
David, he's a man after God's own heart, and he places the
happiness of a man, the blessedness of a man, not in his works that
he's done, but in God justifying him freely by his grace. He said there's where true joy
is. That's the true blessedness.
Not only is boasting excluded through faith, but also true
joy lies in being justified, made righteous, freely by the
grace of God. That's where true joy is. being
justified by another, being justified freely by the grace of God and
not by our works. That's true blessedness. So today
I want to look at Abraham's blessedness. The word blessedness means joy. Here's Abraham's joy. First we're
going to see how Abraham was stopped from boasting. And then
we'll see after that why sinners are saved apart from our works. Why did God choose to save sinners
apart from our works? And then thirdly, we'll see why
this is where true joy really is. First of all, what stopped
Abraham from boasting? Was it his works or was it that
he was saved through faith? What stopped him from boasting?
Well, works would not have stopped him from boasting. It says there
in verse 2, if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to
glory. If it was works that justified
him, he would have reason to glory, to boast in himself. Now, I want you to remember what
it is to be justified. To be justified before God is
to have established the law in perfect righteousness and to
be completely without sin. That's to be justified. You've
established the law in perfect righteousness and you're without
sin. That's what it is to be justified. It's for God to declare
you righteous and without sin. Did Abraham obtain this justification
by his obedience to the law given at Mount Sinai? You ask people
in churches today how a man is made righteous. This is a separate
issue, but you ask them how they're made holy. At some point, they're
bringing the law back in. And they're going to say it's
by a man's obedience to the law. Well, Abraham shows us a man
is not made righteous by the law. because the law was not
given for 430 years later. Galatians 3.17 says this, Paul
said, This I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of
God in Christ. God came to Abraham and He made
a covenant with Abraham. He confirmed it in Christ. It
was all settled to Abraham. And Paul says the law which was
430 years after that. The law of Mount Sinai given
430 years after that. It cannot disannul that covenant,
that it should make that promise of God without effect. In other
words, that law did nothing to touch that covenant that God
had made with Abraham. But you see, my point is, Abraham
could not have been justified by the law because the law was
given 430 years later. That throws out the window any
notion that a sinner has or that religious folks have that a man
can be made righteous partly in contribution by his obedience
to the law. Abraham didn't have it and yet
he established the righteousness of it and didn't even have it. Secondly, it was not by any other
kind of works that Abraham was justified before God. It was
nothing. It was not some sort of religious
works or something like that that justified Abraham before
God. Our text declares if Abraham
obtained justification before God by his works, he would have
reason to glory. He would have reason to boast
in himself. And that goes for any kind of
works that he would have done. But the scripture says, look
at our text, it says there in Romans 2, but not before God. Remember, God will not allow
anyone to boast in ourselves for any part of our salvation,
especially not our justification. In Isaiah 42.8, God said, I am
the Lord, that is my name, and my glory I will not give to another. The praise due unto the Lord,
the praise due unto Him. He says, I will not give that
to another. So Abraham is not going to be
allowed to boast. In fact, no sinner that God saves
is going to be allowed to boast in anything that we did. So Abraham's
boasting was not excluded by works. That didn't exclude his
boasting. How then was it excluded? Abraham's
boasting was excluded by God-given faith in Christ. That's how. Look at Romans 4.3. For what saith the Scripture?
Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Abraham believed God. That's
what faith is. That's what faith does. simply
believes God. Go with me to Genesis 15-1. What did Abraham believe? Look
here in Genesis 15-1. It's not how much doctrine you
believe or how good you are at splicing and dicing doctrine.
Faith is believing God. It's believing God is able to
do what God says He will do. What He's promised to you He'll
do, you believe God will do it and you trust Him to do it. That's
faith. Look here, Genesis 15 verse 1, After these things the
word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not,
Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. You want
to talk about rewards in heaven? There's our reward. I am thy shield and thy exceeding
great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what
wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of
my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me
thou hast given no seed, and lo, one born in my house is mine
heir. And behold, the word of the Lord
came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that
shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
And he brought him forth abroad, and he said, Look now toward
heaven. and tell the star, number the stars if thou be able to
number them. And he said unto him, so shall
thy seed be. He's talking about not just physical
children. He's talking about spiritual
children. He's talking about this is how
many spiritual children you're going to have. You're not going
to be able to number. There's going to be so many.
And here's Abraham, he's not even had the first physical child
yet. And God's promising him, you're
going to have a child. And the main child he's talking
about is the Lord Jesus Christ. Because it's in Christ, he's
coming through Abraham, and it's in Christ that all God's elect
are going to be saved, and they're all going to be made to be Abraham's
spiritual children. That's what he's mainly talking
about. And look at the next word. And
he believed in the Lord. And the Lord counted, He imputed
it to him for righteousness. What does that mean? He imputed
it to him for righteousness. He counted it to Him for righteousness. Our text says it was counted
to Him for righteousness. It does not mean His faith was
counted as His righteousness. It does not mean that. It does
not mean His faith was counted as His righteousness. Some think
that's what it means. And they think it because, go
back to Romans 4 and look at verse 5. It says there at the
end, His faith is counted for righteousness. And men read that
and they think that it means faith is counted as our righteousness. But it cannot mean his faith
was counted to him for righteousness. It can't mean that. Look down
at Romans 4.23. Now it was not written for his
sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom
it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our
Lord from the dead. You see, the very same it shall
be imputed to us if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. So
that it, that it's talking about there, can't be Abraham's act
of faith. Because Abraham's act of faith
is not going to be imputed to you and me, if we believe. The
meaning is, the object of Abraham's faith was imputed to him. Christ
and his obedience. Christ's righteousness was imputed
to Abraham for righteousness, for his righteousness. It was
Christ's righteousness imputed to him. And so Abraham was stopped
from boasting through God-given faith in Christ. Christ said,
Abraham saw my day and he rejoiced. Now sinner, this text clearly
says, if you and I cease from our works and we believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, then the righteousness of Christ shall be imputed to
us also. So, cease from trying to boast
in you. Cease from trying to commend
your goodness to God and boast in your works to God. Now, none
of us will say and admit that we brag and boast about our works. But before God, if you come to
God trying to say, well, Lord, I did this and I did that. God considers that to be you
bragging to Him about what you did. It's worse than just boasting
in front of men. It's boasting to God for us to
try to come to God and say, we did something that ought to make
God accept us. Cease from that. Stop it. And
if you're in unbelief, that's what you're doing. If you don't
believe on Christ and cease from all your works, you're boasting
before God that you're worthy to be saved. That's right. But he says here, repent from
your works, repent from you and believe on Christ and the righteousness
of Christ shall be imputed to you. Now, we come to our second point. The reason sinners are not justified
before God by our works. The reason God will not allow
us to be justified by our works, the reason we're justified only
through God-given faith is so that that righteousness comes
by God's grace. It's so that we're justified
by the grace of God. Look at Romans 4.4, Now to him
that worketh, is the reward not imputed of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, through his faith
the righteousness of Christ is counted as his righteousness,
or counted for righteousness. Through faith, Christ's righteousness
is imputed to the man that does not work. And see, that's all
by grace. That's all by grace. If God imputed
righteousness to us due to our works, then righteousness would
cease to be by God's grace. Salvation would cease to be by
God's grace. If any aspect of our salvation
is because of something in us, Salvation ceases to be by grace.
In most churches, if a church will say anything at all about
election, this is what they say about election. God looked down
through time and he saw who would believe and that's why he chose
them. If that's true, salvation ceases to be by God's grace. If that's true, salvation is
because of you and something in you and not by God's grace. Grace is unmerited favor. Some, you might even say, demerited
favor. Because not only did we not merit
grace, by our sin we demerited grace. But it's really irregardless
of us, period. Because it's not based on anything
in us, good or otherwise. Grace is God simply choosing
to save whom He will save. Because that's His prerogative.
He's God. He can do with His own what He
will. If a person earns anything by
his works, then it's not freely imputed to him. It's rendered
to him because it's his due. He earned it. Do you want to
be saved that way? Do you want to be saved that
way? Let me show you what Paul says.
If you want to be saved that way, let me tell you what Paul
said right here. Galatians chapter 3. It says verse 10. as many as
are of the works of the law are under the curse. For it's written,
Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. Do you see that? You're
going to have to do everything in the law. Let me see if you
have yet. Tell me what the 432nd law is
of God. You didn't think there were just
10. There's over 600. Do you even know what the 432nd
law is? I don't. I have no idea what
it is. I'm just making a point. You can't be justified by the
law of God. You don't even know what it is. But you got to do them all. You
can't be conceived in sin. which we all are from our mother's
womb. You can't come forth having ever
thought, done or said anything sinful ever in all your life. That's why anybody that wants
to be saved under the works of the law, they're under the curse.
You're under the curse because you can't keep it. You just cannot
keep it. See, righteousness is imputed
freely by God's grace to the sinner who does not work. He
does not work. What he does is he believes himself
to be ungodly. But he believes God justifies
the ungodly. That's what faith believes. I
believe God justifies the ungodly. Look at verse 5. To him that
worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, through his faith it is imputed
to him for righteousness. Abraham knew himself to be ungodly. You know where he was? He was
in the land of Ur. That was an idolatrous land. His father was an idolater, his
mother was an idolater, and he was an idolater. And he would
have stayed there. He had no heart to leave there.
He would have been there and remained an idolater if God had
not come to him and called him out of that idolatry and revealed
what God was going to do for him and given him faith to believe
God. That's how he was brought out. If you've been brought here to
hear the gospel preach, and you've never heard this before, it just
may be God's bringing you out. It just may be God's calling
you out of your former idolatry, and revealing the truth to you.
Are you listening? It's more than a man talking,
it's God speaking. Are you listening? If you're
His, He's going to make you listen, and you're going to get it. You're
going to get it. Bless God, you're going to get
it. Abraham was made to know he's
ungodly. You know, a sinner will only
cease justifying himself and bragging on himself when he's
made to see he's ungodly. That means you're the un of everything
God is. Y'all remember that old commercial
for 7-Up? It was called the Un-Cola. Y'all
remember that commercial years ago? the un-cola, 7-ups, everything,
Coca-Cola is not. Well, you're the ungodly. Everything
God is not. That's what we are by nature.
That's what we are by nature. We are all as an unclean thing
and all our righteousnesses, that is every good thing you
do, what mama and grandma brags on you about that's so good,
all our unrighteousnesses are as filthy rags. and we all do
fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away.
You ever given a sermon to somebody, and it's a message that declares
salvation is entirely by God's grace, declares that God freely
justifies His people by grace, that we're made righteous by
the obedience of another, by the obedience of Christ, that
we contribute nothing to our salvation. And a person comes
back, And they immediately go to justifying
and defending themselves. Well, what about a man's will?
What about a man's works? Well, what about a man's this
and that and the other? What is that? That's defending
a man against God. That's exactly what it is. You
gave him a message that declared God is the one who saves, God
is life, God is righteousness, God is holiness, God is wisdom,
God is salvation, and the answer is, what about what I've done? What makes a man do that? He
doesn't think he's ungodly. He does not think he's ungodly.
But when God makes you see you're ungodly, Then you stop defending
your will and your works and you begin to commend and boast
and glory in God's will and God's works. That's the difference. Men don't realize what they're
doing. Men do not realize they're betraying their heart by what
they say. But it's no surprise to any believer,
it's no hidden mystery to any believer when men start bragging
about themselves and defending their will and their works. They're
saying, I'm lost, I don't know God. It's only when God makes you
see what you are, to your core, ungodly. Then we'll cease bragging
on ourselves. And when He makes you see He's
holy, and He's righteous, and He's provided the righteousness
for His child in Christ Jesus' obedience, that's when you'll
start boasting and bragging on God. How did He have this faith? He
said He had faith. How did He have the faith? That
ought to leave Him somewhere to boast in, shouldn't it? His
faith? Not true faith. By grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. Faith's a gift. Abraham knew
himself to be ungodly, so he believed on God to justify him.
He believed on God to make him no longer be ungodly. And only
God can do that. Only God can make... When you're
made righteous by God, you're not ungodly anymore. Not before
the bar of God. Ungodliness and righteousness
are opposite things. God finds us in ungodliness.
He finds us ungodly. And that's all we are. We can't
contribute a thing. And when God gets finished with
His child, He's made you righteous and given you all things that
pertain to godliness as a gift from Him. But it's through the
righteousness of Christ, by His obedience being imputed freely
to us. Go with me to Romans 5.15 and
look at this. But not as the offense, so also
is the free gift. For if through the offense of
one, many be dead, and that's how we died, by the offense of
Adam, by one man, much more, now look, the grace of God, and
the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ hath abounded
unto many. Look at verse 17. For if by one
man's offense death reigned by one, much more, they which receive
abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign
in life by one, Jesus Christ. Look at verse 20. Moreover, the
law entered that the offense might abound. The law didn't
enter for you to try to come to God and bother your works
under the law. The law entered so that you would see how offensive
you are to God. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Do you see this? You and I, in
that first part, are just simply dead by another. But in the second
part, everybody that Christ represented, everybody that shall be born
of Christ, everybody that should be created anew by Christ, He
made us righteous by His obedience and it's all given to us freely
by the grace of God. and it reigns. Grace reigns. That means He abounds over our
death and our sin and abounds unto eternal life. And it's all
by our Lord Jesus Christ. And the reason God does it this
way is the same reason He elects His people by grace. If by grace,
then it's no more of works. If by grace, it's no more of
works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace.
It's got to be all of grace so it will not be of works. Now
lastly, what I'm telling you today, this is where true blessedness
lies. This is where true joy is found,
right here. It's in God imputing to us the
righteousness of Christ freely by His grace apart from our works. Look at verse 6. Romans 4, 6. Even as David also describeth
the blessedness of the man, the joy of the man, unto whom God
imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they
whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Now people in
Will Works religion, You know what, Paul? You know what God
calls will works religion? Folks, in religion it says salvation
is in some part by your will, it's in some part by your works.
You know what God calls it in Colossians? He calls that will
worship. It's not worshipping God, it's
worshipping man's will. That's idolatry. And folks who
are in that kind of religion, they're not happy. They do not have the joy that
God yields. Now, they might put on a happy
face and they might try to convince you they're happy, but they're
never sure they've done enough works. Never. And you can't be
happy. You can't have joy if you think
you still have to do more. You can't. You just can't. We're works preachers and discipline
committees. will not let people have joy
in their religion. They make you constantly do more
works. You have to do more. You can't
ever rest. You have to do some more. And
everywhere works religions that I've known, that God called out
of their form of religion, every single one I've ever known told
me they had no joy while they were in that religion whatsoever.
They had no joy in it. They now have joy because they
see the works are finished by Christ and it's all by God's
grace. And now they can enjoy religion.
Now they enjoy coming to the church service. Now they enjoy.
They're not concerned that they're going to be brought up before
some committee or somebody's going to hunt them down because
of something they did or said out of turn or whatever. Because
now they know everybody else there with them is just like
them and knows they're just like them and we're all sinners and
we're not trying to condemn one another for our sin. We're trying
to point one another to Christ who is our righteousness. And
Will Works religion is all about pointing you to you and pointing
you to me and me trying to show you how much better I am than
you by walking over you and walking on you. That's what religion
is about. Making one man look good by making
another man look bad. And you don't have that in God's
church. You don't have it amongst God's people because we are all
worms. Have you ever pulled back the
dirt in a worm bed and seen what worms are doing? They're just
all wrapped up together in a mass that just looks like one big
ball of worms. There's not one that's exhausted
over the other. There's not one that's sitting
on a throne and the other is all subservient to it. They're
just a bunch of mass of worms. And that's what you and me are.
And all our righteousness is in another Christ the Lord. So
we don't have any reason to boast, we don't have any reason to try
to exalt ourselves over anybody, and we're not fooling God if
we do that. We might fool man by that petty
playground elementary bull, but we're not fooling God by it. This is the blessing of imputation.
We're going to look at imputation more closely in another message.
But imputation is not God imputing to us what we're not. That's
not imputation. Imputation is not God imputing
what we're not. Imputation is God imputing the
righteousness unto us which Christ has really and truly made us
by His obedience under the law on our behalf. That's what it
is. I've heard men say, when God imputes righteousness to
you, He's treating you as if you're righteous. Well, when
He imputed Adam's sin to us, He wasn't treating us as if we
were sinned, was He? No, He was saying, you are sinned,
because Adam made you sin. And that's what Christ said.
By one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. And by the
obedience of one, shall many be made righteous. Look here
in our text, it's fact. Verse 7, Blessed are they whose
iniquities are forgiven. whose sins are covered. Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. The reason He
will not impute our sins to us is because Scripture says Christ
came to put away sin and in Christ is no sin. And God won't impute
something to you you don't possess. He just won't do it. That's righteousness. That's righteousness. Therefore
the Lord won't impute sin to those He brings to faith in Christ.
This is the blessedness, brethren. Blessed is the man to whom God
imputeth righteousness without works. That's by grace. Here's
the sum of it. God chose His people freely by
His grace. God sent His Son by His grace. Christ justified His people freely
by His grace. God calls us and gives us faith
in Christ by His grace. And God imputes this free righteousness
to us by His grace. It's all by His grace. And what
that means is, because it's not by our works, since it's all
by God's grace. I can't send it away. You can't
send it away. We can't make it change. We did
nothing to get it. We can't do anything to lose
it. It's all of God's grace. The gifts and calling of God
are without repentance. The mercy of the Lord is from
everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him and His righteousness
unto children's children. By His grace, you realize, He
saved us and called us before this world was made. Listen. Who had saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world was made, but now made manifest in Christ.
Who's come and abolished death and brought life and immortality
to life through the gospel. and when this world's no more.
Before this world was made, He had called us and blessed us
by His grace and it said His righteousness, His mercies from
everlasting to everlasting. When this world is no more, We
will still have the righteousness of Christ, and it won't change.
Listen. Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
look upon the earth beneath, for the heavens shall vanish
away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment,
and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner. But my salvation
shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. That's
the word of the Lord. Hearken unto me, ye that know
righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law. Fear ye
not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings.
For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm
shall eat them like wool. But my righteousness shall be
forever, and my salvation from generation to generation. Sinner,
has God given you repentance from your dead works? Has He
given you repentance from your dead works? Has He given you
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? If so, you have great reason
to rejoice. Because this is God's Word. No
weapon that's formed against thee shall prosper. And every
tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment, trying to condemn
you, you shall condemn. This is the heritage, this is
the inheritance of the servants of the Lord. Their righteousness
is of me, saith the Lord. Isn't that good news? It's an
unchanging, never-ending righteousness because it's all by the unchanging
grace of God. Now, you try to come to God by
your works? That's as fickle and foolish,
that's the most flimsy thing you can try to build your hope
on. You come to God in Christ's righteousness, you got something
that will last forever. Let's stand together. Father, we thank you that Your
salvation is entirely according to your grace apart from our
words. We pray Lord you would by that same grace today that
you'd fill our hearts and fill the hearts of your lost sheep. Make us to behold you, make us
to come to your feet and bow at your throne of grace. Make
heaven and earth today. All look in one direction, and
all look to Christ, and all praise Him for the great things He's
done for us. Lord, we thank You, we praise
You, we honor You, and we pray now in this second hour, You'll
bless us with another view of our Lord Jesus Christ. Teach
us, Lord. We're slow to learn. We're slow
to learn, and we need You to teach us. Be our wisdom, our
revelation. Forgive us our sin. In Christ's
name we ask it. Amen.