Alright, let's turn to Romans
4. Romans 4, and we'll be looking
at verses 17 through 25. Romans 4, 17. Now what we're
seeing here in this chapter is that it continually affirms for
us that our salvation, salvation of God, is by grace, it's by
God's grace, through, revealed through faith, faith which He's
given to His people. Now in today's text, we're going
to see how that Abraham, Abraham is a pattern of faith, he's a
pattern for the believer. And because of that, he's called
a father of many nations. Father of many nations. So that's
our title, the father of many nations. All right? So last week we ended with verse
16. So we'll start there so that
we get an understanding of the context. It says in verse 16,
Romans 4, 16, therefore it is of faith that it might be by
grace." Now the Spirit reveals that Abraham was saved under
the covenant of grace. Abraham was saved under the covenant
of grace. That means that the Lord already
determined how he would save his people. That covenant is
fulfilled entirely by God for his people. It's a covenant of
grace, something that we haven't earned or had any part in except
as the happy recipients of all the blessings in that covenant
of grace. And so Abraham believed God concerning
the promise that God made to him that he should inherit the
world. The promise that God made to
Abraham and his seed that he should inherit the world. And
we saw last week that the world means that this world here, that
everything that Abraham needed God provided for him freely.
And everything that Abraham needed for that world to come, God provided
for him freely. So he would inherit, it's that
promise that he would inherit the world, the world present
and the world to come. And so Abraham believed God,
and God imputed it to him for righteousness. And what we were
noticing earlier in this chapter is that God imputed righteousness
to him even being present. The law never was given in Abraham's
lifetime. Abraham didn't have the law given
to Moses, and Abraham believed God while he was yet uncircumcised,
showing that, apart from many works that Abraham had done,
God justified him. God declared him righteous. Okay? The benefit for us in all
of that is that it's very clear, therefore, that salvation is
by the grace of God apart from any works that we do. Let's finish
verse 16. Therefore, it is of faith that
it might be by grace to the end. The promise might be sure to
all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that
also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of
us all. So that's how every one of us,
everyone that's a child of God, that's exactly how we are saved. We're saved freely by grace.
And what we're seeing in this is that we're all sinners. Every
one of us is a sinner deserving of the wrath of God. And yet
the Lord is merciful to us. He declares that there's none
righteous. No, not one. And therefore, because
we see that, because God reveals to us that we don't keep the
law perfectly, we know that it's by grace. Now in this regard,
Abraham is the father of us all because every one of us who are
saved, every one of us who is a child of God and confesses
salvation by our God, apart from our works, we too are under that
covenant of grace, under that umbrella of a covenant of grace
for us. It's all the work of our God
for us. Let's continue into Romans 4, verse 17. As it is written,
I have made thee a father of many nations before him whom
he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things
which be not as though they were. All right, now up to this point,
what we're seeing is the fruit of grace, the fruit of grace
being worked in Abraham. He believed God, and his belief,
which is faith, that's a spiritual fruit. It's a fruit of the Spirit. As we read in Romans 4.3, for
what saith the scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was counted
unto him for righteousness. So faith isn't our righteousness. It's not that by me having faith,
that now that's the product of my faith is righteousness, that
God says, oh, he believes? Well, I'm gonna call him righteous
because he believes. So faith isn't, our righteousness
is not because of our faith. Our righteousness is because
of Christ. Christ is our righteousness.
That's why we're righteous. That's why God declares us righteous
because of what our Lord and Savior, the Lamb of God, accomplished
for us when he went to the cross, bearing us and bearing our sins
and putting away our sins by the shedding of his blood and
justifying us by his death and resurrection. So we're made righteous
and declared just because of Christ. And this faith that we
have, it's the revelation to us. It's being revealed to us
what God has done. It's his power that reveals what
he's done in us and what he's done for us. So that he's the
one that gives life and gives that faith. Righteousness is
not the product of our faith, but the revelation, the understanding
of what God has done for us, and he's revealing it to us.
All right, Romans 117 talks about this, back in chapter one, verse
17, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. So that's what the fruit of faith
reveals to us, that I'm justified. Apart from any works that I've
done, He saved me. He declared me just because of
the work of my Savior. And God gives faith and then
reveals to that faith the faith of Christ, what Christ accomplished. Okay, I know I'm using that word
a lot, faith, but it's that revelation being revealed, making known
to you what God has done for you. All right, so the next thing
we notice here in verse 17, it says in the beginning of 17,
as it's written, I have made thee a father of many nations. And so Paul here appealing to
the word of God, where God said it's written, I have made thee,
what it's showing is that God already made Abraham. God already
did this. He's telling Abraham, revealing
to Abraham, I've made thee a father of many nations. You're already
justified, Abraham. See, he's revealing what he's
already done for him, and so it shows that God was already
determined. He wasn't waiting to see No, I've done this. You're made
righteous. You're already made what you
are and so Abraham is clearly an elect child of God. Ephesians 1.4 declares that Abraham
is chosen in him before the foundation of the world that he should be
holy That's what Ephesians 1 is telling
us, which is true of Abraham. He's chosen in God, before the
foundation of the world, already determined that he would be holy
and perfect before him in love. So what God's doing here is He's
revealed it to Abraham in the new birth. Abraham was born again. He was given life by the Lord,
just as Christ said, you must be born again. Well, that was
true of Abraham. Abraham had to be born again
because God already determined his salvation, already made him
righteous, so now he gives him life, and that is he regenerates
him, gives him life where there was no life, so that he now has
life, has a spirit, bears that fruit of faith, hearing that
gospel he believes what God has declared he is. It's all the
Spirit's work there in, in, in, uh, in Abraham. So that as it's
written, I've made thee a father of many nations before him whom
he believed even God who quickeneth the dead and call it those things
which be not as though they were. So God quickened Abraham, meaning
Abraham was dead. Abraham had no spiritual life. Just like you and I come forth
and we're born of our parents, we're natural, we're of the flesh,
we're carnal, we have a natural sense and a natural reason and
understanding of things, but we have no sense or knowledge,
true knowledge, of spiritual things. We don't know these things
until God gives us life, spiritually, whereby we are born again and
then we know the true and living God. Then we begin to grow in
Him, grow in understanding of what He's accomplished for us
as it pleases Him to reveal these things to us and for us to receive
them and to grow in these things and walk in what God has done
for us. And so Abraham, he's the father
of us all who believe because this is exactly what God does
for us. There's no difference. All right,
so just like Abraham, it said of us in Ephesians 1, for the
same thing. He hath chosen us in him before
the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love. So that same blessed promise
given to Abraham is given to us who are of his seed, or just
like him, created after the pattern of Abraham. We follow in his
pattern. The same blessings that were
given to Abraham are given to us freely in the covenant of
grace, apart from any works in us. Alright, so faith that God
has given, it embraces these invisible things. Faith embraces
the things of God, things not yet seen. Look at verse 18, Romans
4 18. Abraham, against hope, believed
in hope that he might become the father of many nations according
to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be." And so that's
our fruit as well, right? We hope against hope, meaning
we see what we are, right? I look at, I know, I can see
the thoughts and intents of my heart and the Lord exposes that
in me so that I see what hope do I have? How am I going to
work righteousness in myself? How am I going to do all these
things which I see in the Word of God? How am I going to walk
before Him rightly and in righteousness? Oh, I see in my flesh that it's
hopeless. I can't do it. I can't do what
God says and outlines is perfection and righteousness. And when I
look at it, when in religion and somehow, you know, reading
the same word, but somehow coming away that there was something
on me to do, what I saw was I'm weak and incompetent in these
things. I can't do what's expected of
me and I keep failing and failing and failing and I kept putting
the burden back on and trying to walk in righteousness as I
understood it from the Word of God and I kept on failing. I
wasn't doing it. So it was hopeless with me. But then a minute it's not the hope isn't
in me I'm hopeless but it's in the Lord God so that we understand
with men this salvation is impossible but with God all things are possible
and we once were made alive we begin to see that it really is
of free grace. free grace, God isn't even accepting
any payment. He doesn't want nothing, and
anyone who comes to him with payment doesn't understand grace,
and we've yet to enter into the beloved of the Lord. We're still
trusting in our works, we're still looking to ourselves. All right, now next verse, 19.
And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body,
now dead. when he was about 100 years old,
neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. Now when I read that, I
couldn't help but notice the descriptions that he gave himself
and Sarah. He considered not his own body,
now dead, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. And that's a
reminder to us, and it's a help flesh what we do because these
bodies, this flesh is unchanged. It's not improved. It's not cooperating
with the things of the Spirit, not by choice, not wanting to
do anything that the Spirit will do. So we come forth naturally
dead in trespasses and sins so that we understand. It's important
to know that so that when you do have faith, When you do believe,
when God gives you that faith, you realize that's not a product
of the flesh. That's not something that the
flesh does, not that true faith that rests in Christ. I'm not
saying you don't see sin in yourself, but faith rests in Christ, believing
that though when I look at myself, I don't have hope in this flesh
to do it, but I believe my God who declared that I'm righteous
in Christ. So that my hope isn't in what
I'm doing, but in what Christ has done. He's made me righteous. So that's not a product of the
flesh, but it's a product of the Spirit. And that's true of
all. All spiritual fruit. All fruit that is born in us,
it's born in us by the Spirit. And one way to understand that
is that Christ is our husband. We bear his fruit, not our own
fruit of our own body. Our womb is dead. Our flesh is
dead. So any fruit that we bear is
of our husband who gave us that fruit and we bring forth that
fruit which is of him. And it says now that verse 20,
he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. And if he didn't stagger, if
he didn't stumble at that but believed, that means he wasn't
looking at his flesh. That means he wasn't looking
and trusting anything in himself because when I look at myself,
I do stagger and I do stumble because I don't see it. I don't
have what it takes in this flesh to work perfect righteousness.
But looking out of self and looking to him, that's where we're comforted,
right? That's where we know Well, this
is of the Lord. This is of His work. It says,
but He was strong in faith, giving glory to God. So, the praise
is the Lord's. He was strong in faith, giving
glory to God. And what that's saying is, it
was in His faith. It gives glory to God, so our
faith, believing Him, is not a testimony of our strength,
but it's a testimony of our God's strength, and His power, and
His glory. It all goes back to His praise
and honor. As it says in 1 Corinthians 1,
29 through 31, that no flesh should glory in His presence,
but of God Christ is made unto us wisdom and righteousness. sanctification and redemption. Christ has made all these things
to us by the grace and mercy of God, that according as it's
written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. And really, our faith and trusting
in Him, even in spite of the weaknesses that are made evident
to us in ourselves, to humble us and to make us to know that
our salvation is of Him, You know, that doesn't speak of our
might and glory, but it declares and speaks of His might and His
glory, so that He's the one who gets all the praise. Alright,
so the one that is strong in faith, alright, you that are
strong in faith are declaring, this body is dead. This womb
is dead. I'm not bringing forth any fruit.
That's why we speak of faith and rejoice in faith, because
it's not of this flesh. We're declaring it must be by
God's grace. And so that kind of faith, the
strength of our faith, gives glory to God. You that believe,
it gives glory to God. And we don't look to take that
glory back to ourselves and say, look what I did for the Lord.
All right, verse 21. and being fully persuaded that
what God had promised, he was able also to perform. So our
confidence is fixed in God, not in ourselves. And the Lord reminds
us of that as we have need of being reminded. And we know the
doubts that we have, we know the fears and the worries that
we have in this flesh. but we trust the Lord. And when
we are fearful and afraid, and though our faith be only as large
as a mustard seed, a little tiny, little bit, whereby we know that
Christ is the Savior, and that we have no righteousness, whereby
God should love me, but we believe. And like Peter, we confess, Lord,
to whom shall we go? For we're sure that you have
the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that
thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. So even though
we're weak in faith, yet we know that this is God's work, and
where else are we gonna go? Where else can we go? And so
the Lord's the one who works that in us. So our salvation
never ceases to be the Lord's work. It never becomes, it never
gets to a point in which you transition it over to, or transitions
it to us. You know, when you're, you parents
with young children, when they get to a certain age, there are
certain things where you begin to transition responsibilities
over to them, right? And you say, you know, why don't
you start picking that up and covering that yourself? You know,
you transition them into that adulthood. Well, thankfully with
salvation, it never transitions over to us. We grow in grace
and we grow in that maturity and patience and understanding
of the Lord, but it's still, ever, for always, his work. It says in Hebrews 7.25, wherefore
he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God
by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us,
or for them. All right, now in the next verse,
it says in verse 22, and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. All right, Christ was was Abraham's
and the believers' righteousness. And again, faith knows this by
revelation, which God reveals to us. And faith rests not in
itself, but it truly does rest in Christ. We continue to look
to him and rest in him, knowing that Christ is the one who makes
his people righteous. And so, in that sense, we cease
laboring for our justification. We're not looking to earn God's
favor, we're not looking to remove the burden of sin from
us by our works in the flesh under the law or under religious
things. We know that that's not going
to save us. And we continually rest in Christ. We do labor in the Lord, but
not for any justification or any righteousness or anything
of that sort. Now Romans 4, 23 and 24 says,
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. And so, Abraham,
he's our father in this regard, not because we came from his
lineage and we're physical descendants of Abraham, but he's a father
to us as a pattern, that just as God saved him and revealed
all this to the faith which he gave to Abraham, right? So, what Abraham, What it reveals
to us is that we fulfilled all righteousness in Christ. That's
our righteousness. And we're confessing, Lord, when
I stand before you in that day, don't look at me in my works.
Don't judge me according to what I've done. Don't put that as
a factor in any way. I don't trust any of that work.
Lord, receive me in the work and in the person of your we're confessing Lord that's
perfect righteousness just like you declared that's perfection
that's how how I come to be received that's how I want to be received
Lord don't receive me any other way and that's what faith lays
hold of and that's why God says you're justified by faith because
by that faith which he's given to you you're saying That's my perfection. That's
exactly how I want to be received, not in any other form or fashion,
but in your Son, Jesus Christ, because that's why you provided
Him, and He did it. He did it, and I believe it.
I can't help but believe it. Receive me in His righteousness. That's why God imputed righteousness,
because the very righteousness Christ worked was the very righteousness
that He worked by faith. By faith, that's what we're saying,
by faith. Oh, okay, that's how I want to
come, right there. And I believe it, that's exactly
how I came, and that's how God receives us, alright? And then
we see, so that's what Abraham did, that's, he's our pattern,
and that's how we come. That's how he came, that's how
we come, in the same way. Now, like Abraham, we've all
heard this gospel now. God has declared it to us through
the preaching of the gospel, what he's accomplished, right?
When we speak of Christ who is delivered, verse 25, for our
offenses. And what that tells us, what
that, what's all encompassed there in the gospel is that,
like Abraham, my body is dead. Like Sarah, my womb for bearing
fruit is dead. I've got nothing to recommend
me unto God. I'm a sinner. And that's why
Christ came, because if there was a law given that this body
could have done, God would have been satisfied with it. He would
have said, this is your law, do it, and that'll be your righteousness. But the fact that Christ came
in the flesh declares to us None of us can keep that law perfectly.
Otherwise, the Son of God would have stayed up with the Father
in Heaven. He wouldn't have come and done
what He did. But He took upon Him the weakness of this sinful
flesh, with all its limitations and weaknesses, and He came and
served the Father perfectly. He served His people in that
He fulfilled all righteousness for them in keeping the law perfectly,
doing everything required loving His Father with mind, body, soul,
and heart, and everything He did, every thought, word, and
deed He had was perfect before the Lord, and so He did that
work, and then He bore us in His own body, going up to the
cross, bearing us, bearing our burden of sin, bearing that dead
before the Father on the cross, and the Father pouring out His
wrath upon Him, Christ. Christ bore it on our
behalf and put away that sin so that now we have no more sin,
no more debt, nothing before the Lord that we owe Him. It's
all paid in full by Jesus Christ. And so we died on that cross
with Him. We were buried in that tomb with
Him. So that's what it means by He was delivered for our offenses,
all that. He was delivered up for us to
put away our sin, the sin of His people. And it says, he was
raised again for our justification, which declares to us that God
is satisfied. God really is satisfied. He's
satisfied with you that are in Christ. He's satisfied perfectly. There's nothing more that we
owe to God. And so he gives us his spirit,
whereby now we walk in him, believing him, and we bear those fruits
of righteousness, the first of which is seen in faith. that
all these other fruits, as it pleases Him, will bear in His
Son. And we'll look at that more in
the next hour in our next message there. All right. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord, we thank You,
Father, for Your grace, for the covenant
of grace by which You save Your people. Lord, that we are all
saved as You saved Abraham. In that sense, you say that he's
a father of many nations, Lord. And so we see how you save your
people. Lord, please teach us this gospel
in the heart. Cause us to give us that faith
and reveal this very gospel. this hope to the faith which
you've given to your people. Lord, make us to be settled in
Christ and to rest in him, believing and trusting you for all your
grace and mercy. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen. All right, I'll come back in
15.