Good morning. All right, let's turn to Romans
4. Romans 4, and we'll be looking at verses 6 through 8. Romans
4, 6 through 8. Now, as we've been going through
Romans, Paul is setting forth before us the gospel method of
salvation. The gospel, how God saves according
to His gospel. And that is, what's being revealed
to us is that God freely forgives His people, whom He will, in
the Lord Jesus Christ. It's based upon His righteousness. And in Christ, we are righteous. And it's not as human wisdom
and as we're taught and as we understand things according to
our earthly human wisdom. That is that righteousness or
justification is based on man's works, but we're taught of God
that our righteousness is found and it is by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Paul, we saw last week
that Paul showed Abraham. He brought in Abraham and showed
that Abraham was justified by his faith. that is looking unto
the righteousness that God has provided in Christ. And so Abraham
believed God. God declared to Abraham the gospel
saying that the righteousness of my people is provided for
them and accomplished for them and by them in the Lord Jesus
Christ, looking to him and trusting him, believing him. And Abraham
believed God that that's his righteousness. The Lord Jesus
Christ is his righteousness and that he is righteous in Christ. And so that's why God counted
it for righteousness with Abraham. So today, Paul speaks of David. He brings up David, the psalmist. And he shows that, or that David
is teaching that, just like Abraham, as we see in Abraham, that man
isn't justified by his works, by the things he does or doesn't
do. But that man, the blessed man,
is freely justified. That's God's terms. freely justified
by Christ, by the righteousness of another. It's in Christ that
we are made righteous, all right? So, our title is The Blessing
of Imputed Righteousness. The Blessing of Imputed Righteousness. And we'll be looking at two divisions
here. The source of our blessing, And then our second division
is called the same thing as the title, the blessing of imputed
righteousness. All right, so let's begin. Now,
in Romans 4, we saw how Paul concluded with Abraham in Romans
4, 5. He said, but to him that worketh,
that worketh not, but believeth on him that justified the ungodly,
His faith is counted for righteousness. Look into Christ. He's counted
righteous in Christ. All right, now he includes the
testimony of David in Romans 4, 6. He's saying, even as David
also describeth the blessedness of the man. All right, this is
what God has revealed to David, that the man who was blessed
The man who is blessed of God is that it's unto whom God imputeth
righteousness without works. That man is blessed. That's what
he's saying. That's what he's showing us is that that man is
blessed whom God imputes righteousness without his works, without looking
to what he does or does not do. He's blessed him in Christ. And that's not what religion,
what man-made religion teaches us. Man-made religion is very
good at turning us away from Christ into our own works. Now, it begins with just our
earthly understanding and our earthly teaching about things,
about how a person is blessed. We learn by watching movies or
TV or what we hear on the playground or what our parents tell us you
know by the things that they do and what how they push us
toward good jobs and high education and things like that they teach
us that The blessed person is wealthy. They have money. They're
independently wealthy. They don't need to work hard
and labor every day because they're very successful in what they
do and they teach that to be healthy is blessed or to be beautiful
is blessed and that's what the world teaches us and reveals
to us, right? And then religion comes along
and they may quote Christ and say things like, well, Christ
said, what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world
and lose his own soul? And that's true. What this world teaches us about
success and being blessed is not true. The world turns us
away from Christ. And religion does the same thing,
because when they quote verses like that, they begin to instruct
you in what you now need to do to earn that blessing of God,
to put yourself in the path of God's favor. And so they teach
you things that you can be doing more of and more consistently
so that now you're in the path of God's favor and you're going
to be set up to receive these blessings of God and His favor
and His acceptance. And they'll take you to places
like Matthew 5, where you see in verses 3 through 12, which
is called the Beatitudes. Blessed is the man. Blessed is
the man, right? And one of them is, blessed are
the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom heaven and those
are all true but how was your experience how do they teach
you in religion what do they do well they should they began
to teach you how that you need to be mournful. You need to start
carrying around this heavy burden of sin and guilt and you need
to knock yourself down a lot of notches, right? And you need
to become meek and now you need to be a peacemaker because then
you're going to be called the son of God. And they teach you
all these things that you need to do to put yourself in the
path of God's favor and blessings. What they're speaking about is
fruit that the Spirit of God will produce in His people, so
that the Lord is the one that teaches us, it's not by my works
of righteousness that I've done that God is pleased with me,
because I have no works us from those things that we
naturally trust in and think well this is what God's pleased
with so that he'll produce in us a merciful heart because we'll
see and understand well God's been very merciful and gracious
to me and we'll see that more as we go on in this study. Now They don't declare the righteousness
of God in Christ, or they speak of it in the beginning, right? Again, they speak up, they get
you focused on what you need to be doing more of so that now
you can feel good or right about calling yourself a Christian
and trusting Christ. And so the blessing of God or
the source of our forgiveness is that God freely forgives His
people in Christ. He freely forgives His people
in Christ. And they will hear of God's provided
salvation in His Son. They'll rejoice in that. They'll
be glad because they'll know, they'll be brought to see by
the light of God, by His Spirit, the light of Christ that we ourselves
are sinners and cannot work a righteousness for ourselves. God has provided
that righteousness in His Son and we're to rest in Him. And
it's really as Paul stated to us saying in Ephesians 1 3, blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
so that everything necessary, every fruit that's produced in
us. Every understanding that we grow
to come to see and that we realize about ourselves and what God
has really done in delivering us from darkness, it all flows
from Him. It all flows from God, through
Christ, to His people. That's how the blessings flow.
We don't put ourselves but it flows freely from God
through Christ to his people. so that what we know and when
we pray, when we seek Him, when we are broken and convicted by
our sin, that's because God is blessing us freely by Christ. He's teaching us and guiding
us and keeping us by Christ. So it's not because we did something
to earn that blessing, we didn't earn the fact that God granted
us repentance and turned us from our sin, no, Christ earned that. And because of Christ, God reveals
that to us and he shows us our sin and he turns us from trusting
ourselves and being confident in ourselves. So first comes
the blessing of God in Christ, then comes, for example, then
comes the fruit of hearing the call, hearing the gospel, and
the fruit of believing the gospel, and the fruit of resting in Christ,
and receiving those blessings of God by Christ. So it all flows
from the Father, through the Son, to his people. It's not
because we've done something to earn that, okay? Alright,
now this brings us to our next point, the blessing that David
is speaking of is imputed righteousness. So let's look at Romans 4 verse
6 again. David describeth the blessedness
of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works. Now to impute, to impute means
to reckon a thing to be so, to count something as it is. So when you're taking a count
of a thing, you determine it to be so. You determine it to
be something and therefore you count it as such. And the reason why you count
it as such is because that's what it is. It is what you are
reckoning it to be. And so God imputes righteousness
to us. He counts us righteous. He reckons
us to be righteous because that's what we are in Christ. We are righteous before God in
Christ. We have fulfilled the righteousness
of the law in Christ. He's our substitute. those things
necessary. We fulfilled the righteous requirement
of God. We are perfect in the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what imputed righteousness
is, so that God deals with us now according to what we even the very righteousness of
God. That's how He's dealing with us. That's exactly how He's
dealing with us now, in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, you know, when
we look at ourselves, we see sin, right? We look at ourselves,
we see the weakness of our sin, we see the thoughts that we have
at times, and foolish we are, how we look at
this world, how we pursue the things of this world, the sin
that's in us, the things that we do that we're ashamed of.
We see those things and we think, well how is it that God could
be so merciful for me? And that's usually where the
flesh then begins to and make up for what we've been
doing. We try to build up a bank of righteousness, if you will,
reading our Bible more and praying more and doing religious things. There's nothing wrong with reading
the Word and praying. We ought to be praying and reading
His Word, but that's not where our righteousness comes righteous by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so God is dealing with us
in Christ. He's merciful and gracious and
long-suffering to us in Christ, because of Christ, because he's
already made us righteous with him. When you read Colossians,
you read it in light of of what he's teaching us about the imputation
of righteousness in Christ. So that, for example, Colossians
2.20 says, wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ, and that's
what Paul's showing us, that we are, we are dead with Christ
from the rudiments of the world. He said in Galatians 2.20, And
I am crucified with Christ. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live. Not I, but
Christ liveth in me. So we're already crucified with
Christ. We've already died with Christ.
Christ is in heavenly places. The scriptures, Paul tells us,
we are seated with Christ in heavenly places, even now. And
that's why he tells us, Here in Colossians 2.20, why as though
living in the world are you subject to ordinances? See how he words
that? Why as though living in the world?
When we think about it, we think, I'm in the world and one day
I'll be in heaven. He's saying you're already seated
with Christ in heaven, why as though living in the world are
you subject to the rudiments of the world? In other words,
or the ordinances of the world. And he's saying, God already
deals with us as righteous in Christ. And so, believe Him,
rest in Him, trust Him that He has made you righteous in Christ.
You are the righteousness of God in Him. Now, he goes on and
shows us this blessing of God. He says back in Romans 4, 7.
saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose
sins are covered. See, they are forgiven and they
are covered. And that spiritual blessing flows
from heaven. It comes from God, from heaven. It's not something that we've
earned, right? We don't earn that forgiveness.
We don't earn that blessing. It's the free gift of God. in
Christ. It's what he freely gives us
in Christ. I'm going to read from James
chapter 1 verses 17 and 18 where he says, every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above. We didn't earn it in the flesh
down here on the earth. It's not of the earth. It's from
above. It flows from God. And cometh
down from the Father of lights Just as Christ came down from
the Father of lights, he came down from heaven, from the bosom
of the Father, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning. So that the blessing is, it can't
be taken away. We didn't earn it, so we can't
lose it. God freely gives it in his Son,
Jesus Christ. Alright, and then It says in
verse 18, of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. And since it's his will, it stands. God does whatsoever he pleases
according to his will. All right, now we see his sovereign
will. We see what he declares to us
in the scriptures, revealing this to us through the gospel.
As he said in Romans 9, verses 11 through 13. Romans 9, 11 through
13. He says, for the children being
not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of him that calleth. And then it was said to her,
to Rebecca, the elder shall serve the younger, as it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. And so that's teaching
us, again, affirming to us over and over again. What Paul is
doing in Romans is he keeps reaffirming to us that whether you're a Jew
or Gentile, however you were raised, whatever you were looking
to and trusting in for your righteousness before the Gospel came, before
God revealed the Gospel to you, all those things are dumb. All those things are put away.
All those things are not influencing how God is dealing with you.
The only one influencing God is Christ, who ever intercedeth
for us before the throne of his Father. And that no man by his
works is earning the favor of God, or keeping the favor of
God, or changing the mind of God. God deals with us in grace. And the way he deals with us,
the way we continue looking to him and resting in him, we thank
God for that. We thank God for that. We know
what we are in ourselves and in our thoughts. Now, Paul is
quoting from Psalm 32, so I'll read that and then we're gonna
go over to Psalm 32. Let me just read Romans 4, 7, and 8 again,
where it says, this is quoting David from the Psalm, 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. And when you read that, and when
you read Psalm 32, where David is, none of that blessing or what the man is doing, or
the promise of the man to be doing anything, it's all the
promise of God in Christ. It's all bound and fixed in our
Lord Jesus Christ, so that it continues, it always is and continues
to be the free and sovereign grace of our God in Christ. And the key to it all is what
Paul said there in Romans 4, 6, where he said, unto whom God
imputeth righteousness without works. It's always without our
works. And it's so hard for us to believe
that in the flesh. It's so hard for us to rest believing
that it really is without our works, that we're not the ones
steering the ship, that our works are the rudder that kind of keep
us in the path of God and you know, it's here now and I gotta
adjust here, here and there. The Lord is teaching us. He does
chasten us. He does instruct us is what that
means. He's instructing us as a parent
instructs their children and guides their children. He is
really instructing us and keeping us and He's teaching us so that
it's really not our works but His work. Alright, now, if you're
there at Psalm 32, we'll pick up in verse 3. David here, he's declaring the
blessing of God, of God's imputed righteousness, and he gives an
example of his failed attempt at swaying God to forgive him.
Psalm 32 verse 3, he says, when I kept silence, my bones waxed
old through my roaring all the day. And this is what religious
people do, right? Religious people realize, well,
I'm a Christian now. I'm not supposed to be sinning.
I'm not supposed to be doing bad things and evil things and
wicked things. So I don't want to confess and
admit that these are sin, that my flesh is still sin, that I'm
still weak. I don't want to say that before
God. what's right and I'm supposed
to be perfect in my ways. I'm supposed to show myself as
an excellent person now and a person who trusts God and believes God
and does what's right. And so he's keeping that back.
He's trying to deal with himself and deal with God as though he's
perfect in himself. And so he says, when I kept silent
about my sin, the Lord didn't let him stay there. his bones
waxed old through his roaring all the day long. So you see
how God is the one that will not allow his children to go
back to the flesh. He's going to keep teaching us
and keep showing us what our true righteousness is, that it's
His free grace in the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, verse 4, for
day and night thy hand was heavy upon me, my moisture is turned
into the drought of summer, Selah. So that God is going to ensure
that we know His free grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not
going to allow us to come away thinking that that now I'm perfect
in this flesh, that this flesh is improving. And I don't want
to, you know, and so that we begin to hide this from one another. We begin to pretend and deal
with one another as though I'm some perfect person. I don't
do anything wrong, I don't make mistakes, or if I do a sin, it's
just a mistake. You know, it's just a mistake,
it's not a sin. And that's how religion teaches
you, so that we put on this facade and we pretend that we're good
now and we don't do anything wrong. And so it all gets hidden
and kept back from view, if you will. And then we see where the
Lord brings us to the point where we confess our sin and acknowledge
it to the Lord. He says, verse 5, I acknowledge
my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will
confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest
the iniquity of my sin. so that David was brought to
see. That's not my hope of standing
and righteousness because I'm perfect in this flesh. I know
what I am in the flesh. I'm a sinner with wicked thoughts
and wicked deeds and wicked actions. That doesn't mean I go and and keeps us. But when we fall,
when we sin, we confess our sin. It's not about lying to one another
and lying to God that now we're somehow perfect in ourselves.
We're not. This flesh is still weak and
sinful and prone to the lusts and the passions of the flesh. Our hope is not that I'm perfect
now in what I do. but that I'm perfect in Christ.
And so we confess our sin and we freely call upon the Lord. And that's why David said, that
man's blessed to whom the Lord does not impute sin. That he
doesn't deal with us as sinners, because sinners are destroyed. Sinners that have no hope in
Christ, they shall be destroyed. They shall pay for their sins
in hell. And God isn't dealing with His
people in Christ in that manner, in that way. He deals with us
in Christ. And the Lord taught us that in
John 3.21. In John 3.21, Remember what Christ said, he
said, but he that doeth truth, he that is taught of the Lord,
he that believes Christ, that trusts Christ for their righteousness,
they come to the light, we come to the light, that his deeds
may be made manifest that they are wrought in God. God's the one that works all
our works of righteousness. He worked them in Christ. We
worked righteousness in Christ. We were in Christ when He, we
are in Him when He fulfilled all the righteousness of God.
We're in Him when He died under the law, we were in Christ, we
were crucified with Christ. When he rose, we rose. Everything
that we are and everything we have is in Christ. And so the
blessing of God is that he makes his people righteous in Christ
apart from our works of righteousness. It's apart from our works of
righteousness that we've done. And so the question is, do you
believe God? Do you believe the Son? If you
believe Him, if He's shown you that you're a sinner, that you
can't work a righteousness of your own, but that He's provided
righteousness in His Son, then believe Him. Confess Him. If
He's shown you that in the heart, brought you to see that, yeah,
I can't work a righteousness of my own, He's showing you that
to behold His Son, to behold the righteousness that God has
provided in His Son. And He says, for whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And if you do that, if you call
upon the Lord, and you ask Him for forgiveness, and you ask
Him to cover your sin in Christ's blood, He will, because whosoever
does that, it's His leading. He's the one that teaches us
that. And that's all we have to thank and boast in is what
God has done for us and what He's shown us in His Son, Jesus
Christ. And so it's God that stirs up
the heart, it's God that gives us that hunger and thirst for
righteousness, and they're blessed because He's the one that stirred
them up and He's the one that fills them with that hope of
righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ, that they are righteous
in Him. So in Christ, God has concealed
our sin. We don't have to conceal our
sin before God, We don't practice, we don't go on willingly trying
to practice sin, but we know and rest that God has concealed
our sin, he's covered it, he's put it away in Christ by his
blood, and so it's forever put away in him. And once the child
of God has heard, has heard, they may hear it many week after
week after week, they may hear the gospel preached, they may
hear the call, but they don't hear by the Spirit. But when
God causes a sinner to hear by the Spirit, and that God says
by grace, they're thankful, and they don't follow another voice.
The Lord keeps them looking to Christ, not looking now to Moses'
law, and looking to what they need to be doing. to perfect
themselves and make themselves better or more accepted to God
and put themselves in righteousness. So Christ said in John 10, 27,
and 28, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow
me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. So the blessings
that God has imputed righteousness to his people Freely. Freely. He does this freely.
It's on his terms. It's what he has determined to
do. It's how he saves his people. Freely in Christ. And they that
hear that gospel know that's the blessing of God. That's the
imputed righteousness. That he has put us in Christ,
and in Christ we are righteous. And that's how God deals with
us. as righteous because that's what we are in Christ. So, I pray the Lord will comfort
you in that message to know that you're righteous. You that believe
him and have no confidence in the flesh are righteous in Christ
before God. All right, let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you for the free gift of salvation that you provided
in your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we know that we cannot
work righteousness, that we can't keep ourselves in the path of
righteousness or put ourselves in the path of your favor and
blessing. But Lord, we confess that we
are sinners and have no righteousness of our own. Lord, we ask that
you would ever keep us looking to Christ, that you would stir
up in our hearts that desire to serve you, to love you, and
to serve your people and love them. Lord, help us, because
you know the weakness of this flesh and how we turn to sin
and how we turn to righteousness to correct ourselves. But we
pray that you would ever keep us looking to your Son, Jesus
Christ, to know the blessedness of the man whom you impute righteousness
to without works. We pray that you would teach
us this in the heart. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks.