Turn with me to Romans chapter
four. Romans four. And while you're
turning there, let me just say that, in my opinion, this world
is full of division. And it's full of contentious
issues. And as long as man is man, and
as long as there's power to be had, I don't see that changing.
And that's why I find Paul's testimony, Paul's declaration
of the gospel to be such a glorious example of the grace of God. Paul is a Jew. He was raised
a Jew. I mean, he has quite a resume
in Philippians chapter 3 of what he's done in Judaism, and yet
this man faithfully preached the gospel and declared it clearly. to be the salvation of God in
the face of Jesus Christ for both the Jew and the Gentile. He showed that God has one Savior,
one salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ and He is the Redeemer. He is the salvation of all God's
people whether they are Jew or Gentile. And you consider just
how how momentous, how great of an earthquake this caused,
you have an immigration of people coming into the truth. And we
see it first when Christ was in the flesh, walking on the
earth, and the Pharisees stumbled. They were bitter and angry because
here come these publicans and sinners into the church through
faith. believing the Word of God, believing
that Jesus is the Christ. And they stumbled over that.
They saw people coming in who had not borne the heat of the
day, so to speak, meaning they weren't adhering to the law.
How come they're being made partakers? to enjoy the fruits of righteousness,
and to enjoy all the blessings of God for his people. They didn't
bear the heat of the day like the Pharisees had been bearing
it. And then not only that, but we
see that once the publicans and sinners came in, and Christ died,
went to the cross, laid down his life, and rose again and
ascended to the Father, he sent this gospel out. And now there's
even a bigger immigration of people coming in, people who
had no idea of the law of God, weren't raised or affected by
it in any way, except that there was a separation between them
and the Jews. But they're coming in, and they're
they're not bearing the law at all they're coming in hearing
the glad tidings of God who delivers his people from idolatry and
dead letter religion and dead works that cannot save and the
Lord just brought them right in in free grace free sovereign
grace of God declared in the Lord Jesus Christ and we see
how Paul had one message for the people. Now, in Ephesians
chapter 2, at the second half of Ephesians chapter 2, he's
describing this grace of God. He's describing the salvation
that Christ has accomplished for all his people, but he does
so from the perspective of the Gentiles. In Ephesus, there is
a large Gentile church there. And I'll just read a few verses
to show you this. Ephesians 2, verse 13 through
16. But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off
are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace,
who hath made both, both Jew and Gentile, one, and hath broken
down the middle wall of partition between us. having abolished
in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained
in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain, or of two,
one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both
unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. And so he's writing, he's communicating
these glorious truths, these blessings to the Gentiles. But now you come over to Romans
chapter 4, and it's clear that Paul is addressing a large group
of Jewish believers there in Rome. Now he had just concluded
Romans 3. If you look back up there in
verse 29, Is he the God of the Jews only, he asks? Is he not
also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, seeing
it is one God which shall justify the circumcision by faith and
uncircumcision through faith. He's talking about that middle
wall of partition. that circumcision versus the
uncircumcised. He's saying that's put away. That's no longer a distinguishing
factor, this fleshly difference between men. Do we then make
void the law through faith? God forbid, yea, we establish
the law. And so having said that now,
Paul turns to Abraham and to David, men who are pillars in
the minds of the Jews, pillars here in scripture, whom the Lord
raised up and used to reveal to us the truth of God and to
reveal to us the blessings and the salvation work which our
Lord does for all his people, Jew or Gentile. He turns now
to Abraham and David and shows that God has always saved his
people by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That is faith in the
promised seed which should come to redeem his people, to save
his people from their sins. So that the Jews before Christ's
coming, they looked with faith to the coming of Christ. They
believed God. And Jew and Gentile today look
back at the coming of Christ, at what he's accomplished believing
God. Alright, so we're all looking
to Christ. Now, having said that, Paul's
reasoning, this chapter here is not a chapter that we as Gentiles
would reject, because this is still very relevant to us today,
because we have the scriptures now. And Moses is read every
Sabbath day, so to speak, in the synagogues. People have this,
and they look at the law. And there's a false gospel so
that the legalism has come into the church, trying to bind men
and yoke men under the law, to say that this is your righteousness.
They may not say this is your justification, but they say this
is your sanctification. This is your holiness. This is
your righteousness. And as soon as we start introducing
something other than Christ, what happens in man? The natural man says, oh, that's
what I'm supposed to be looking at. And Christ gets pushed aside,
and we start looking at what we need to do. And that becomes
our barometer, our thermometer that measures our temperature
and tells us whether or not we're getting warmer or colder, whether
we're doing good. or bad, we start looking at the
flesh. We stop looking at Christ. We
stop trusting Christ. We start trusting and leaning
on this flesh. And so what Paul teaches here
and brings out concerning Abraham and David and what the Lord showed
them is very relevant to us today, just as necessary for us today
as it was for these Jews sitting in Rome when this letter was
read among them. And so we see here, what I want
to show you is three main points. Faith, grace, and the new birth. Faith, grace, and the new birth.
So Paul, beginning with faith here, Paul holds up Abraham to
these brethren. Jews and Gentiles that were there.
And he holds them up to show that contrary, opposed to him
being justified by works. We find that Abraham was justified
by God through faith. God justified Abraham. And he
reveals it, manifests it to him through faith. We see faith. So Romans 4 verse 1, What shall
we say then that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the
flesh, hath found? And that's why I say he's writing
to a lot of Jews here, because he's speaking of Abraham according
to the flesh. He's saying, we who descended
from Abraham, what do we find? What do the scriptures teach
us? He says, verse two, if Abraham
were justified by works, he hath whereof, or he hath something
to glory of, but not before God. And so simply put, what he's
saying there is Abraham had nothing to glory of before God. In fact, when you read of Abraham,
we don't even see him boasting in anything that he's done. He
doesn't boast in his works. You'd think that he was boasting
his works the way that the Jews rejoice and celebrate and speak
of Abraham today, because they rejoice in the flesh. They rejoice
in their being descended from Abraham. They rejoice in what
Abraham did. They rejoice, therefore, in their
confidence in the flesh, in their relation to Abraham in that flesh. But Abraham didn't. boast in
his flesh, Abraham rejoiced in God. Abraham believed God. It wasn't his works, it was his
faith that God gave him. He trusted God. Verse 3, For
what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it
was counted unto him for righteousness. Now look down in Romans 4 in
verse 20-22. He staggered not at the promise
of God through unbelief. He wasn't tripping over this.
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but
was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded
that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. and
therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Okay, so what
is the promise of God to Abraham? Because this promise made to
Abraham concerns us all here today who trust God, who believe
God, who trust his word and hear his word and hope in the salvation
that he's declaring to us through his word. What is the promise
of God to Abraham? Well the promise in summary,
this comes from Genesis 15 verse 6, probably one of the most well
expounded Old Testament scriptures in the New Testament. It's Genesis
15, 6, the promise of God to Abraham. Well, this promise is
that God would save Abraham and all believers, like Abraham,
through the promised seed, which is Christ. And that goes back
to that promise made in the garden in Genesis 3, 15, that Christ,
that the seed of woman, would come and crush the head of the
serpent. For this cause, the Son of God
was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Destroy that work, the fall that
occurred there in the garden. Christ put that to death. He
destroyed that work and gives life and salvation to his people. He accomplished that. And so
this promise of God to Abraham has its eye, its focus on Christ. It's looking to Christ. So now,
when we're talking about the Jews, remember, they had been
raised up. They were taught that their righteousness
was in keeping the law. Under Moses, they were hearing
that this is your righteousness. And that's why the law says,
he that doeth them shall live in them. That is, if you're going
to be justified by the law and be found righteous, you've got
to fulfill every jot and every tittle perfectly, without fail,
without fault, without any sin. It must be perfect. And we know no man can keep the
law perfectly. We're all sinners. The scriptures
testify to that. The scripture hath concluded,
all under sin. And we see it. If we're honest,
when we go into scriptures and read these accounts, we see,
yep, yep, every one of them, even Abraham. And there's a number
of Abraham sins recorded for us in scripture. And even Abraham
was a sinner. and needed the righteousness
of God. He needed to be justified by
God according to this very promise in the Lord Jesus Christ. So
believers, we trust that Christ Jesus Himself, that He accomplished
our justification through His blood redemption on the cross
and His resurrection from the dead. Christ Jesus is the justification
of his people. He is the righteousness of his
people. And this is what Abraham believed
that Christ would accomplish for him, according to this promise,
that through his seed, through Abraham's loins, that Christ
would come. And he believed God. He believed
that my Savior is coming, that one who will reconcile all things.
and make all things right according to the promise of God, he's coming. And God says he's coming through
my loins. And God can do as he pleases, and that's what the
Lord did. He brought Christ in the fullness of time. Christ
was made of a woman, made under the law, in the appointed hour to save
his people, to justify his people by himself. Now this verse, it
comes from, this promise was made in Genesis 15, 6. And that's
what Paul is referencing here. Genesis 15, 6. Now first God
said in verse 4, He that shall come forth out of thine own bowels
shall be thine heir. And God told him that through
that seed, this promised seed of woman, his children, and when
I say his children, I'm not talking about the flesh. I'm talking
about the children of promise. Paul said in Galatians 4, 28,
he said, now we brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of
promise. And I'm talking about the children
of faith. Galatians 3, 26, he said that they that are the children
of faith, they are the children of Abraham. You that believe
Christ, you who have no confidence in the flesh, you can't look
to anything in his flesh and say, yeah, I've got some merit
before God. No, we don't have any confidence
in this flesh. Our confidence rests fully in
the Lord Jesus Christ. You who believe Christ, you are
the sons and daughters of Abraham. You're the children of Abraham.
He's the father of the faithful. that just shall live by faith.
That's how we come. And his children, through Christ,
would be as the number of the stars. And verse 6 says, Genesis
15, 6, and he believed in the Lord, and the Lord counted it
to him for righteousness. Now that is the foundation upon
which the whole church rests on Christ. He's the rock. We
confess this, but our confession rests in Christ. He's the rock. He's the foundation of the whole
church, and the church is built on Christ. All the church, all
believers, those who have no confidence in their flesh or
their righteousness, but have every confidence in Christ, Like
Abraham, we believe the promise of God that we are justified
by Him, by the Lord Jesus Christ, and we understand that. We receive
that. We believe it by faith. by faith. Acts 13, 38, and 39. Paul and Barnabas are there preaching
to these Jews and Gentiles. Well, here he's speaking specifically
to the Jews, but the Gentiles are listening in. And he said,
be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through
this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. We're
not justified by our faith. We're justified by Christ. Through
this man, the Lord Jesus Christ, that's your justification. That's
our remission. That's our forgiveness for our
sins. It's Christ crucified. He's accomplished our redemption.
He's raised again from the dead. And by him, all that believe
are justified from all things. By him. By him. The emphasis is on Christ. It's
by him that we're justified from all things from which ye could
not be justified by the law of Moses. And so there's that transition. The Jews had been told, this
is your righteousness. Keep the law. Well, the problem
is we don't keep the law. We can't. We've fallen in Adam. We're sinners, every one of us,
plagued with the sin, ruined, spiritually dead, undone, ruined
sinners. Well, Christ, Christ is our righteousness. So we're turned, that's repentance,
being turned from trusting the works of the flesh and what we're
doing in dead religion, or any religion, and being turned to
Christ. That's true repentance, brethren.
That's what the Spirit gives you. He turns your heart. He circumcises the heart and
removes that veil of flesh so that you see it's not my works,
it's Him, it's Christ, He's the Savior. He's the one who is my
righteousness before God. So let me say it this way. Our
justification is through Christ's accomplished redemption. That's
where we were justified, when Christ accomplished our redemption. Faith is one of the many gifts
of our Lord that he gives to his redeemed people. When he
arose from the dead, he gave gifts unto men. These are resurrection
blessings whereby you believe in Christ, whereby you're made
to know what your God and Savior has done, what He's accomplished
for you, to the joy and rejoicing and gladness of your heart. You're
hearing, it's done, it is finished, and it's not resting on me, it
all rested on Him, and He settled the debt. He's paid the price
in full. It's done, and I'm free, and
I'm His. He's my inheritance, and I'm
His inheritance. I think we got the better deal
there, and He's ours, and we're with Him forever. And He does
this in the day of His grace for us. He brings that faith.
So then we read in Romans 4, verses 4 and 5, now to him that
worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace but of debt. So if faith
is a work, then it's a debt. And faith isn't a work. Faith
is a gift. It's a fruit of the Spirit. But
to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. In other words,
by his faith he sees and understands what God has done, what Christ
has accomplished and finished for us. We believe it. Our faith isn't even a work,
as some men would say. We're justified by Christ's redemption. Our justification was accomplished
by Christ on the cross. Some even speak of, well, we
were justified from before the foundation of the world, when
God chose us and put us in Christ's hand, gave us to Christ, And
he's called the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
So that's why all of God's children are made righteous by the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's all him. We were all saved
that one way, in one body, the Lord Jesus Christ. But before
the law, we're justified when Christ accomplished our redemption
on the cross, not when we believe. Faith is the experience of our
redemption. That's when we're made to know
that we've been redeemed, but we were redeemed by Christ at
the cross. He did it. The gift of faith
is whereby we experience the blessings of these redemptions
and enter into that which God has done and is saying to us.
But it's done in Christ, in Him. Now all who, like Abraham, believe
God, These are chosen of God by grace. So now I want to move
to this next point about grace. Here he's going to move to David
and show us this so that we understand that this faith whereby we believe
is a manifestation that we are the sons of God, that we have
been redeemed. It's a revelation. God's making
known, that's my child, that one who believes me and follows
me, that's my child. I redeem them. Christ redeemed. That's what we see. So verses
6 through 8 in Romans 4. 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, but instead imputes
righteousness to undeserving, needy sinners, fallen in Adam,
fallen by their own law-breaking, followed by our filthy works,
Blessed is that man whom God says, your sins are forgiven.
I've put them away. And so David's describing sinners
chosen by God through grace, that God has chosen to be gracious
to apart from their works, apart from what we have or have not
done. And this is a description of
all of God's people, chosen by the Father, given to the Son
for Him to redeem, which He did at the cross. Now, justification,
being justified, that's a legal term. That's a legal term, and
it means that before the law of God, we are right. There's nothing wrong. We're
right before the law of God. The law finds no fault in us. And that means that someone fulfilled
the law's demands because we know, according to scripture,
we're sinners. You and I both. We're sinners. So someone settled
our debts. Someone settled the law. Someone
made us just before the law, right before the law. And so
that means someone's fulfilled the law's demands. Our iniquities
are forgiven and our sins are covered. Someone paid that price. Someone satisfied the law for
us. Now some might think that faith,
I just want to bring this out, some might think that faith is
God's gracious compromise. And they look at faith in the
sense that, well, God realizes you can't keep the law perfectly
for your righteousness. So God has made a compromise
and said, well, if you just believe that I can receive you, that
I can forgive you of your sin, I'll receive you by your faith. And it puts all that emphasis
on man's faith. And that makes faith a work.
But that's not what the scriptures are teaching us. What the scriptures
are teaching us is that we were guilty before the law. By nature,
we're guilty before the law. We've offended the law. We've
broken the law. And we have a debt. We owe a
debt to the hand of justice, which is our death, an eternal
death. Because we cannot satisfy the
law, except by death. We come under the curse. But
Christ, being the eternal Son of God, and coming in the flesh,
He came and settled the debt. He paid the debt that His people
owed by His eternal, redeeming blood. And the debt's paid. It's satisfied now. so that before
the law, we're right. We're righteous. We're holy and
just. Our justification rests on Christ,
on his redeeming work. When he settled the debt by his
work, not when we believed. Faith is not a work. It's a gift
of God. He gives us the spirit whereby
we are Rooted in Christ, we are the planting of the Lord as trees
of righteousness now. Rooted in Christ, these fruits
of righteousness are set and brought forth in us in our season. When that spring comes, when
we are raised from the dead, and we blossom forth as trees
of righteousness rooted in Christ, that fruit comes forth so that
we love Christ, and rejoice in Christ, and hope in Christ, and
have faith in Christ. We trust Him, we believe Him,
and follow Him, and confess Him before men. That's the Lord's
doing. Romans 3.24 says, being justified
freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. Romans 3.26, to declare, I say
at this time, His righteousness, that God might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. See, so it's God that
is just to justify us because Christ made us righteous before
the law. He settled the law. It's all
resting in Him. And Christ died for that chosen
people given to Him by the Father. He said in John 6, 38, I came
down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him
that sent me. I'm here for a purpose. save my people. And this is the
Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath
given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the
last day." And so he's talking about that people whom he's justified. Now Paul asks in Romans 4.9,
come at this blessedness then upon the circumcision only or
upon the uncircumcision also. For we say that faith was reckoned
to Abraham for righteousness. And what he's saying there is
it's all of grace. Faith is how we enter. That's faith is how we're made
to know what Christ has done and accomplished for us. We're
redeemed by him, whether Jew or Gentile. And that faith is
his gift in us. Ephesians 2.10, for we are his
workmanship. created in Christ Jesus unto
good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk
in them. And so it's of him. Now, I'm
going to stop there. We'll have to pick it up another
time, because we've gone over 30 minutes here. But again, that
circumcision and uncircumcision just shows that Abraham, he believed
when he was yet uncircumcised. And that's powerful. Because
that means that no one can say that he did a work and was circumcised
and that's why he believed. Nope. He believed when he was
yet uncircumcised. And that circumcision speaks
to what we do in the flesh has no bearing, but what the Holy
Spirit does in our hearts and circumcising these hearts, that's
why we believe. That's where the fruits come
from. we'll come to that more another time but i pray the lord
bless that word to your hearts brother amen