Alright, brethren, we're going
to get started. Let's turn to Romans 4. Romans 4, and we'll
be looking at verses 9 through 12. Romans 4, 9 through 12. The apostle here is affirming
that justification by God, justification before God, comes by faith without
works. That's what he's showing here.
That's what he's teaching us here in this portion of scripture.
And he does this now by returning back to Abraham, because Abraham
was justified by God while he was yet uncircumcised. And what this does is it proves
or makes him the father of those who come to God by faith. whether they're a Jew or a Gentile,
whether they are circumcised or uncircumcised, we all come
to God the Father by faith, by faith. Now the joy of this message
is that our God justifies sinners apart from our works. In spite of what we are by nature,
You don't have to be a Jew first, you don't need to be circumcised,
you come as a sinner believing God. Having heard the word, having
heard the message, we come by faith. So our justification is
based solely upon Jesus Christ, and that's a great blessing to
great sinners. We rejoice in that message. Our
title is, This Blessedness Comes by Christ. This blessedness comes
by Christ. Alright, now, Paul has been setting
forth Abraham, and then David, and now he returns back to Abraham. These being eminent examples
of faith, of those who believed God, those who had faith and
trusted the word of the Lord. And Paul here raises a question
in Romans 4.9. He asks, come at this blessedness
then upon the circumcision only, this blessedness, well, I'll
get to that. or upon the uncircumcision also? For we say that faith was reckoned,
faith was imputed to Abraham for righteousness. All right,
so what's this blessedness? What is Paul talking about? Look
up there at verse six, right in the middle. The blessedness of the man unto
whom God imputeth righteousness without works. And he's asking,
is this blessing of God for the circumcision only or are the
uncircumcised blessed of God by faith apart from works? And
that's a good question because we say that faith was reckoned
to Abraham for righteousness. So how does circumcision factor
in to all of this? Or as Paul asks in verse 10,
how was it? How was righteousness then reckoned? When did God reckon righteousness
to Abraham? When did he reckon Abraham righteous? At what point? Was it before
he was circumcised or after he was circumcised? First, what
is circumcision? Circumcision is a cutting of
the flesh. It's the cutting of the foreskin
in the male child. What we are to understand is
that this cutting, this circumcision, didn't provide any grace. It
didn't bring a special blessing of grace upon the child that
was circumcised. Alright, that's important. It
didn't make them righteous and we understand that. We who come
to God by faith understand that it's not our works of righteousness
that make us righteous before God. Circumcision was a physical
marking that was picturing that which God had done in the heart.
It was to picture what God himself, by the Spirit, did in the heart
of a sinner. And so the outward cutting only
pictured something that was supposed to be done inwardly by God. Even Moses in Deuteronomy 10
16 said, circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and
be no more stiff necked. And so that comes to those who
are alive in the spirit. That's a spiritual work that
God does in the heart. They hear that word. They hear
that word and cry out to the Lord, Lord, save me. I can't
do that work. I can't change My heart, I can't
bring forth righteous and acceptable works to you, Lord. We ask the
Lord to circumcise our heart. We ask the Lord to teach us.
We ask the Lord to help us hear the gospel word that's being
preached so that we don't look to our works and the strength
and the works of our own hands, but that we continue looking
to our salvation, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. All right,
so the picture of grace which is being worked in us is that
what God is teaching us by his grace and by his spirit is that
we ourselves are sinners. We ourselves being sons and daughters
of Adam come forth unable to please God, dead in trespasses
and sins, dead to the things of God, unknowing how to worship
God and how to serve Him in a manner that is pleasing to Him. And so we're all coming forth
as sons and daughters of Adam, lying in nature's grave, just
lying in a bed of dust, a dusty grave, unable to do those things
which God is pleased with. And so the Word of God comes
to us through the Gospel, and we hear that Word, and it's His
Word that cuts open this grave, that breaks it open, and brings
us forth. That's that resurrection of grace. Before we ever experience that
resurrection of glory, where the just before that ever occurs, first,
the Lord raises us up by grace. First, he brings life where there
was no life. He gives life in the dead sinner,
raising them up by grace to hear, to know that Christ is salvation,
that He is our righteousness, that He is what God accepts,
and that we must come in Him, in His work. Ezekiel 37, 13 says,
And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I have opened your
graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves." And
he's talking about bringing in the people of Israel into their
land and establishing them in the gospel. And so that's what
the Lord does for us and he works this circumcision in making us to know that he's our
salvation, that it's his will and work in us. Now look back
in Romans 2. Romans 2 verses 28 and 29. Paul says, for he is not a Jew
which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is
outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew which is one
inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit,
and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, because
other men don't see this work. God does it, but of God. The
praise is of God, because it's a spiritual work, inward in the
heart of the sinner, whereby we believe God unto righteousness. We believe Him. We understand
that salvation is according to the election of grace. It's according
to the election of grace. Romans 11 5 says that. That is
God choosing whom he will unto salvation. He chooses whom he
will. This is why we say it's of grace
that we don't choose ourselves. We don't do those works that
cause God to save us. Now, we don't know who the elect
are. We don't even know ourselves
to be elect until God reveals it by faith. He reveals faith
in us whereby we hear the word and believe. We become disciples
of Christ. We follow our Savior. We follow him and seek to know
him. And so God reveals faith through
the preaching of the gospel. God reveals faith through the
preaching of the Gospel. And we see that Abraham too heard
the Gospel. God preached the Gospel to Abraham,
and Abraham believed God. That's what it says in Galatians
3.8. There it says, in Galatians 3.8 and the scripture, foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith, God preached before
the gospel unto Abraham, saying, in thee shall all nations be
blessed. In thee shall all nations be
blessed. Abraham believed God. He believed
him. So God preached the gospel to
Abraham, and the fruit of the Spirit was revealed, the Spirit
regenerating that dead sinner who didn't know God before, before
God revealed himself, the Spirit regenerated Abraham, Abraham
heard the Word of God, and Abraham believed God. That's faith, that's
the fruit of faith being revealed in Abraham. That's what Galatians
3, 6 says, Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him It
was reckoned to him. It was imputed to him for righteousness. And so our Lord, in mercy and
compassion, he preaches the gospel to us as well. We today hear
this gospel. We today must hear this gospel,
how God saves sinners by his Son through that bloody cross.
For the foolishness of preaching is to them is to them that perish
foolishness, but to us who are being saved, it's the power of
God. So it's through this foolishness
of preaching that God is pleased to regenerate his people, to
cause them to hear that word, to cause them to hear the word,
Jesus Christ, and to behold him, to believe on him, to trust him
for his righteousness. James says, In 118, of his own
will begat he us. He chose this with the word of
truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. And Peter tells us, and this
is the word, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the word which by the gospel
is preached unto you. That's how we hear of Christ.
That's how we hear of the salvation of God, that it's His righteousness,
that it's salvation by grace. And by faith, which He works
in us, we hear and lay hold of that. And so the gospel for us
is that, or yeah, the blessing for us is that God sends this
gospel into all the world. It wasn't just in the midst of
the Jews only, but now it's gone out onto the aisles of the Gentiles,
all the way out to where the Gentiles are, where they sat
in darkness and had no light. God is pleased to send that word
out. And so we have Abraham as a pattern
of the believer. That is God justifying his people
by faith without works. We have Abraham as a pattern
of all believers, Jew and Gentile. So that now by the power of God,
we understand that Christ is our righteousness. And that in
Christ, you've heard Christ is our righteousness, right? We've
heard that Christ is our righteousness, and you've probably heard that
in Christ, we too have fulfilled all the righteousness of the
law. You've heard that, right? That we've, that's substitution. He's our righteousness, and we
in him have fulfilled all righteousness. How is that so? How is that done? By faith. By faith. And, you know, I was struggling
to put that heavenly truth into words of a man so that you understand
it. And it's like we lay hold Christ
is our righteousness. He did everything necessary to
save His people. He worked righteousness perfectly. We who hear this, made alive
by the Spirit of God, we hear that word and we believe it. We so believe, faith so lays
hold of that truth, that Christ is our righteousness, that it
is our righteousness by faith because we're saying, Lord, don't
receive me in my works. before you and think that you'll
receive me. But Him, what He did, the one
whom you sent, the one whom you've provided, that's righteousness. That's the righteousness I need
and the righteousness that I come and stand before you. That's
the boldness with which we come before the throne of God so that
we believe that He is our righteousness and we stand complete in Him. We stand before God in that very
righteousness, Jesus Christ. That's how we fulfilled all the
law, by faith, not that faith is our righteousness, Jesus Christ
is our righteousness, by whom we believe and trust and rest
in him by faith. This is what Paul was saying
when he said in Philippians 3, I'll read verse 8 first, and
then verse nine, but it says, yea, doubtless, and I count all
things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and you
count them but dumb, that I may win Christ, and listen, and be
found in him. not having mine own righteousness
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, his faith, his faithfulness, the righteousness which is of
God by faith. by faith. We lay hold of that
work, that righteousness of Jesus Christ. We lay hold of that by
faith, which is the gift of Christ. When he rose from the grave,
he gave gifts unto men, not the least of which is the faith whereby
we hear and believe and trust him. Lord, don't receive me in
my works. Receive me in the works of your
Son, Jesus Christ. That's how we come to Him. That's
how we've fulfilled all righteousness, because we're saying, Lord, You
said it, You sent them, You provided it, I believe. I ain't coming
in my own words. And so it's like coming, you
know, I remember when I was in school, and the teacher would
say something, ask a question, They'd say, now who wants to
answer this question for me? Raise your hand. And I would
always, my head would go down and I'd try and hide behind somebody
so that I wouldn't be called out because I didn't know the
answer and I didn't want to be called out and exposed like that.
But when you know the answer, your hand goes up and you're
willing to to stand there and to solve the problem. But it's
a little like that in Christ. We see and know, Lord, I don't
want the Lord looking at me in the brightness and the glory
and the holiness of God and I'm going to stand before his throne?
When all, then every flaw in us is going to be exposed before
God who is holy and righteous and perfect. But in Christ, we
have that boldness and that faith lays hold and we say, Here I
am, Lord. Here I am. Receive me. Because
I'm not trusting in my own works of righteousness. I trust the
One whom you sent for this very purpose. And we believe Him.
And that's how faith lays hold. Because we have done those works
in Him by faith. We believe. That's how It's not
even as if we are righteous. We are righteous. We are the
very righteousness of God. That's how perfect and effectual
Christ is and this blessed gift of faith whereby we believe it
is. We are righteous before God now. We are righteous, all right?
Now coming back to Romans 4.10. It says, how then, he asks, how
then was it reckoned when he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision? So Paul asks this because he's
proving to us now that the blessing of God is imputed righteousness
without any works. Alright, stay with me here. Paul's,
the key that he's given us here is to look and notice when did
God count Abraham righteous? When did God say that Abraham
is righteous? At what point did Abraham believe
God? And as it says in Romans 4.3,
because we know he believes God and God reckoned it to him for
righteousness. So when was that done? And basically,
was he circumcised yet? Did Abraham do a work first? Did he do something in the flesh
first and then God reckoned righteousness to him? Did he do something first
to get there to that point before God reckoned righteousness to
him? Was he circumcised? And Paul
answers it for us in verse 10. Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. Circumcision being that outward
act in the flesh which was to picture what was already done
inside, in the heart. And so it wasn't, God, Abraham
wasn't circumcised first and then he believed God is basically
what Paul is pointing out. That's what he's trying to show
is it was not by anything he did, God in pure grace and mercy
reckoned righteousness to him, gave him faith, gave him life
so that he heard and believed God. And so that circumcision
came afterwards. It was just an outward mark in
the flesh that testified to what God had done in the heart. And
it's like the ordinances that we still practice today, right?
First, we believe. First, we believe God, and then
we're baptized. Same thing with taking the Lord's
Supper. First, we believe God, and then we take of the Lord's
Supper. Then we take of the bread and
the wine, because it's not the other way. We don't do those
things because we think that God's gonna bless us now. We
do those things because God has blessed us, and we trust him.
We believe his son, Jesus Christ. Now, if you don't believe God,
if you don't believe that Christ is our righteousness, then don't
be baptized. And don't take of the Lord's
Supper, because it's not going to communicate any special blessing
to you. That's why people do it. They
don't think they're saved, but they say, well, let me at least
do this. Maybe God will be pleased with
me here and then I'll feel something. All right, well, let me now do
this and then maybe God will be pleased with me and then I'll
feel something afterward. No, we don't. There's no grace
being imparted in doing God has done for us in Christ.
Now, I would say keep coming, though. Keep coming and hear
the Word, praying that the Lord would enable you to hear the
Word and that He would give you faith to believe Christ for righteousness. Keep coming, but don't think
that what we do is what provokes God or changes His mind about
us. The Lord knows His people, and when it pleases Him, He'll
cause us to hear that word and we'll believe. So keep coming
and pray that the Lord help you to hear it. So Paul affirms this,
that it's an inward work of God first, before we do anything
in the flesh, right? Before he was circumcised. Look
at Romans 4, 11. It says, and he received the
sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith
which he had yet being uncircumcised. that he might be the father of
all them that believe, though they be not circumcised, that
righteousness might be imputed unto them also. The word here
in this is that don't you put a work before faith either. Don't you try to put something
before believing Christ. Abraham had nothing. Abraham
wasn't circumcised. That's why he's the father of
the faithful. Because he did nothing in the flesh. And so
don't you or I put anything before this. Faith always precedes,
right? And so Paul continues in verse
12, and the father of circumcision to them who are And the father
of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only,
but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham,
which he had being yet uncircumcised. That's a comfort to believers,
to us who have nothing, to us who have no works. That's a comfort
because God isn't looking to us to do anything first in the
flesh before we hear Him, before we believe Him, before we rest
in Him. We're not doing anything to try
and move God's thoughts towards us or change His mind about us
or get Him to be kind and merciful to us. It's freely of his grace. And it's a comfort. And I say,
you know, don't, you know, Abraham didn't do anything, so we shouldn't
do anything, try to do anything first either. And that's a comfort
because we that have come up in religion you know that religion
is always putting something there for you to do. We know that there
are some that have certain works and certain steps and certain
methods that you're supposed to follow before you can know
whether you're saved. And then we know that there's
some that make the experience. They make the experience as something
that you need before you dare trust Christ. They would, you
know, you that are joyful and happy and thankful in Christ
because you're hearing his word, you're hearing the gospel and
you're rejoicing in it, they say, you know what, why don't
you wipe that smile off your face because I'm trying to mourn
here. How dare you get ahead of me. You've got years of mourning
and trials and troubles to go through and pain and afflictions
before you can believe on Christ. And they make the experience
that believers do go through, we do experience times of afflictions
and chastisements and sorrows, but does that precede faith?
Does it have to precede faith? No. Some people hear the Gospel
and believe, God showing them that He is salvation, and they
understand to some degree, I don't understand to what depth, but
what depth does a person have to go to in their mind of what
kind of a sinner they are? And that's where people get angry,
because they think, well, how could you believe so soon? They
put that before faith, as if it's some kind of work, some
kind of circumcision. Circumcise your heart first.
You better get down on yourself and be miserable before you can
believe on Christ. They make that, they put that
step there, that stumbling block before faith. So Christ is our
substitute. He was made sin. He took the
wrath and the punishment, the pain and the sorrow of God that
was due to his people. So why are we trying to beat
ourselves and get ourselves down to some level before we can actually
think that God is giving us ears to hear, to hear His Word, and
to rejoice in the salvation He's provided in Christ. We're never
going to get low enough in ourselves to make ourselves acceptable
and to work up that ability to have faith. It's a work of God
in us. And so, if the Lord has revealed
that His righteousness is there in Jesus Christ, that He is the
perfection that God has provided for His people, and you hear
that, and you believe that He is the Savior, and that He's
your Savior, rest right there. Believe, believe, trust Him,
and rest there. Because Paul says, therein is
the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. He's the
Father of faith, and He reveals that faith to His people. He's
the one that gives it to them. As it is written, the just shall
live by faith. So prior to this life and the
evidence of it by faith, we don't have any fellowship or relationship
with God. So anything we do to try and
earn or make that fellowship is just works of the flesh and
it isn't profitable, it won't prosper. Only Christ and his
work prospers and is profitable to the sinner. But after that
life comes and the faith that God gives us, then we believe
God. that Christ is our very righteousness
and he's our very acceptance with God. And so then we continue
in that life trusting him, believing him, and he's the one that grows
us and teaches us and feeds us and reveals all the blessings
that we have in Christ. All the spiritual blessings,
we see how he's pouring them out on us and revealing them
to us. As Paul said in Galatians 2.20,
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in
the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me." So it's not our faith that makes
us righteous. but our faith confirms the righteousness
that we are, even now, in Christ, before God. And so we see that
this righteousness is by grace, apart from anything that we did
beforehand. That's what Paul's shown us. He wasn't circumcised
before God reckoned righteousness to him. Circumcision came after. after God had already circumcised
his heart first. And then he believed God, he
trusted God. So we all come like Abraham.
I'll just close with Romans 4.3 which says, for what sayeth the
scripture, Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for
righteousness. So I pray the Lord will bless
that word to you brethren. Don't trust your own works. There's
nothing you can do to get yourself saved. You trust the Lord for
righteousness. That's why he sent his son. All
right, let's pray. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your mercy and grace. Lord, we thank you for righteousness,
that you've provided righteousness in your son, Jesus Christ, and
that this blessing comes by him. whereby we may lay hold of the
righteousness of Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray and
give thanks. Amen.