I mentioned this past Sunday
in the introduction to my sermon about two specific views of good
works and the law, the first being legalism and the second
being antinomianism. The first, legalism, is adding
to the work of Jesus Christ. That means that we, or that those
who would hold to that view would say that we are more righteous
when we do good deeds or other things, and in some sense that
it would add to or secure our salvation by the way we live,
speak, act, think, etc. And I read knee-jerk reaction
to legalism is what's known as antinomianism, which means no
law or against the law. That means that we're all free
to sin how we want to sin and live how we want to live with
no no thought or consequence to what the scripture actually
teaches of what we should or should not do. That also is legalism,
because what it does is sets its own law. And so antinomianism
is just a self-established form of legalism, which is a self-established
form of self-righteousness. And so I say that because as
I get through this text tonight, it's going to feel extremely
antinomian. It's going to feel as though
Paul is saying, live how you want to live. And here's the
problem, is that in our culture, what we've seen over the last,
let's just say 100 years or more, but not quite 200 years, what
we've seen in our culture is a grand display of what we would
call Christian living. We've seen, in the 1950s, them
put the term, in God we trust, on our money. We've seen, let's
see, indivisible, with liberty, justice, and all, in God, into
our national anthem. We've seen prayers in schools. We've seen a Christian flag created
and established. We've seen all these different
right-wing and evangelical ministries come to be birthed, even in the
last 60 to 70 years, and so on and so on and so on, to the point
that we have, in some sense, lost the reality of what God's
grace is. Because for most generations,
not the current ones, but past, most of us would say our grandparents
and great-grandparents, and even beyond, might even have been
a little bit legalistic. And they didn't know it, and
they weren't legalistic in their heart of saying, we know. But
in some sense, the way they lived was a little legalistic because
they felt that because they did this, or because they acted this
way, or because they spoke in this manner, or because they
wore the right wardrobe, or whatever, that they felt a little bit more
pious than the rest of the world. Because we all know the stories
of the neighbor who never really lived for Jesus. We could smell
the liquor on her breath. but yet she might have been more
pious than we, especially if she believed in faith alone.
We've come to a place in our country and in our culture, especially
in what is known as, which is no longer defined correctly,
and many people have taken stabs over the last 50 years to define
it, but what is known as evangelicalism. We believe that that means we're
standing on the truth and we're standing on the shoulders of
Jesus and the giants of old, but it's not true. There is no
such thing as the giants of old in our country when it comes
to a pure gospel. I mean, in my lifetime, I've
only known one or two people who were rightly expositors on
the national level in the context of teaching the Scripture correctly
and with authority, and yet they are probably unknown to most
of us. The more famous a man is, the
more likely he's a buffoon. And the more likely he's a buffoon,
he's certainly a heretic. So all these famous pastors and
all these radio show hosts that we've had in my childhood and
all these first churches that I listened to as a kid and as
a teenager, if you go back and you look at that, they never
really preached the gospel. What they preached was behavior
modification. They preached that if we are
a God-fearing nation, and if we are a God-fearing people,
and if indeed we are the people of God and the bride of Christ,
then by George and good golly, we better walk in a certain way.
We better spit-shot those shoes, boy. Get that hair off the collar
and pull your pants up. Put a belt on, because righteous
people wear belts. I was taught that as a young
man. Not making this stuff up, I'm just regurgitating the things
I heard. Levi can attest to the same thing. We heard this stuff
growing up in this community, hearing these pastors who we
felt like fell out of heaven. God just sort of felt them out
and then after the service, he sucked them back up in there
and they were very, very eloquent in their preaching and their
standing and their speaking. God, you know, if it takes you
four seconds to say the name of God, God, it's very righteous. And I'm not making fun of it,
but when you're talking to them after service, they don't speak
that way. It's only when they're at the pulpit, God. It's like,
what's wrong with this guy? You got a sore throat? I mean,
what's really happening here? We grow up under that. We grow
up in this idea. Now what happens, just like what
happened with the westward expansion of our country, when all of the
Puritans escaped the persecution of the Anglican Church and the
persecution of the crown and they came over here and they
set up shop and they said, in order for us to maintain a civility
of what we believe is Christian life, we want to create our governments
around the Scripture. It's not a bad idea. I'm not
saying it's a bad idea. The whole purpose, and if you
know anybody named Roger Williams, if you don't know Roger Williams,
I really and strongly recommend you as a Christian in America
to go read the writings of Roger Williams. His voice is the voice
of our Constitution. His voice is the heartbeat of
our original documents, of our founding documents. And the one
thing that he bled for in the context of his persecution, he
wasn't martyred. is religious pluralism and the
freedom to be an atheist. Because that's what America was
founded for. You want to worship? Worship. You don't want to worship?
Don't worship. But the cause of all of the Puritan-esque
oppression, I will say, That they wanted everybody, even the
unbeliever or the non-elect, to live in the manner that was
right before God. They pushed people westward.
And what happens westward? Let's just use it from a political
standpoint or a cultural standpoint. We consider ourselves on this
side, what? Conservative. And if you go all the way to
the left coast, we consider that what? Liberal. Well, it's not
necessarily so cut and dry anymore because everybody lives together.
We live in a very remote or telecommuting world, so we can have liberals
and conservatives on any issue in any given room, even if you're
by yourself. So here we see, just like the
westward expansion, push those who did not want the morality
and the so-called ethics. By the way, ethics is what is
right, and morality is what we say is right. There's a difference.
Morality is what we build in our own mind as what is acceptable
in society, what is acceptable in the context of church life.
And friends, I'm here to tell you what I'm showing and what
I'm saying is we have built a nation of morality and behavior modification,
and we've called it the gospel of Jesus Christ. And every church
and every steeple in most places that you see, if you go in there,
because they don't want to be so... I mean, there's some Bible-thumpers
out there. You know what a Bible-thumper is? A Bible-thumper is one who
just gets down and hollers. Somebody called me a Bible-thumper
one time, and I said, well, I don't know if it's a compliment or
an insult. Depends on how you want to say it. And it can be
both. And I remember my first few years in ministry, and I
remember being given a book by someone that will remain nameless
right now, and it turned me on to a new way of thinking about
what the church was supposed to do. And I'm like, wow, this is really
insightful. No wonder I hate church. Because I can't live
up to the standard of all this in-your-face preaching. You better
love your neighbor. You don't know my neighbor. You better love the Lord with
all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and brain. I'm trying, but I'm
failing. I had a mentalist ask me one
time outside of his show. He says, don't you want to come
and watch me do some hypnosis and all that? He goes, come on,
bring your friend here and brother to come. It's going to be a great
time. And I said, well, I'll try. He said, show me what that
looks like. I said, what? He said, show me a try. And I'm
like, I'll show you how I try to get away. It's just weird. But what is a try? A try is a
fail in the beginning. Trying is the reality of knowing
we cannot accomplish it. Though we strive for something,
we can't accomplish it. And I'm not saying, see why I'm prefacing
this? It's going to sound antinomian. No one is saying that we can
just disobey God without consequence. But if we, as the elect, disobey
God, as the church, as the saints, disobey God, there's no condemnation
and there may be consequence. There may be guilt, there may
be shame, there may be a loss of joy, there may be issues within
our relationships that cause us to, oh wow, this is really
hard and it's painful. There's no condemnation because
our suffering, our guilt, our shame is in Christ. It's His,
He took it and He paid for it and God is satisfied. That is
the gospel, by the way. That's why it's called good news
and not, you know, some news. We are products right here of
a extreme modified society in the name of the gospel. And we
are sometimes bound up by wondering, are we truly in Christ? Because
we look in the mirror of our soul and we say, there is no
solidity there. There's some failure there. And
I mentioned that book that I talked about earlier about changing
my views of ecclesiology and what the church should be. And
it opened up a whole new realm for me of thinking, wow, you
know what? The church should probably be made up of a bunch
of lost people. That's what they said. That's what the book said. The
church should be made up of a bunch of lost people, and we try to
get them to the core of salvation. So it changed my whole view.
It's not about the teaching of scripture, because to me, teaching
of scripture is don't do, do this, don't do this, do this,
don't do this, do that, you heathen, you're out. And then all of a
sudden here, I start seeing, wow, you know what, we can go
after lost folks. We call it felt needs. We've got people
who are hungry, let's find some food. We've got people who are
lonely, let's give them a friend. We've got people who are fatherless,
let's adopt them. Next thing you know, there's
no gospel at all, there's no word of God there, but we get
really creative. You give me a topic, I'll teach
you a good life lesson on it. Extemporaneously. I'll give you
six points. Just like that. It's just so easy. You learn.
It's simple. Monkeys could do it if they could
communicate in a language. It's not a talent. It's not a
skill. It's just what comes naturally
out of the heart. If you want to have a good life, if you want
to feel good about yourself, how many of you are sick and
tired of being sick and tired? I mean, everybody raises their
hand, you know. Well, take this down. There are four points of
how the Bible teaches us we cannot feel sick and tired anymore,
you know. Get some rest. You know Jesus went to bed early
and He got up early. And pray! I mean, you see what
I'm saying? It's just silly. And you go along and you do all
that kind of stuff, and I stand up here and pretend like it all
works for me, but it really doesn't. And then you go off and you pretend
like it all works for you, and everybody pretends like it's
all working, but nothing's really working for any of us, and we
are not joyful, and we are not truthful. And one thing leads
to another, and we don't have hope. And the answer to a lot
of this strictness that we've seen in our culture is antinomianism. And it's not so much as you can
live how you want to live, but let's just train people to walk
in a better way. Let's train people to look Christianly,
to live Christianly rather, and look Christian. Let's train people
to have morals that we as a society have set for ourselves that the
Bible does not necessarily teach us. And so that's where we are
today because Paul is writing to these Jewish Christians in
Rome who also have in their presence Gentile Christians in Rome. And
he has destroyed the work of the law. He has destroyed obedience.
He has destroyed walking in a manner that makes us feel like we're
more spiritual than God has declared us to be. I've had many conversations
in the last year with Trey and some others in the church about
progressive sanctification. That makes no sense to me when
I think about the purity of the gospel. But I know what our forefathers
have been trying to say, and I think we need to redefine the
terms or change the terms altogether so that they make more sense
in the context of the narrative of Scripture and the didactic
of Scripture as well. And Paul, last week as we looked,
he uses the patriarch of Israel, Abraham, and he says that Abraham,
who is the one that all the Jews look to as their pillar, he says
what? Abraham is not justified because
of anything he did. Abraham is not justified because
of anything he says. Abraham is not justified because
of anything he did for God, but he's justified because he believed
in God. He believed in the promise of
God. So Abraham, in all of his walking, did nothing to appease
God except believe that God was appeased. He did nothing to satisfy
God except believe that God was satisfied. He did nothing except
believe that God had procured him eternal life and salvation
and he trusted in the Lord in his heart of hearts because he'd
been born again by the Holy Spirit and he believed even when his
life never looked like he believed. You see that? What do you mean?
People like to say, well, Abraham's faith was that he followed God.
He did not follow God. He went where God told him to
go, that's an act of faith. But then he lied about who his
wife was, that's an act of unbelief. Then after what? Thirteen and
a half years of not seeing this promised son, he's still believing
that God will procure eternal life, but he takes it and matters
into his own hands and lays with Hagar at his wife's request so
that they can have a son that is the one of the promise and
his name was Ishmael. And fourteen years after God
justified Abraham by faith alone, Abraham and his son Ishmael were
circumcised on the same day. And that's where Paul is now,
Romans 4. And I'm in John 4. Why am I in John? All right,
let's go over to Romans. Romans 4. In verse 9, it says these words.
He asks a question. He's been asking a lot of questions.
He says, Is the blessing then only for the circumcised? We
looked at the first few verses of this, and verses 7 and 8 deals
straight out of... It's a little bit different in
tone and pronoun, but it's straight out of Psalm 32. And then he
says, is this blessing, what is the blessing? The approval
of God, by faith alone, God has taken away the sins of Abraham. Because of nothing he's done,
but just because of God's mercy. That's last week's sermon, it's
online already if you need to listen to it. Verse 9, is this
blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised?
For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteous. We remember
that that's a financial term, that it was credited to him as
righteousness to his account, and his sin was credited to Christ
as guilt. How then was it counted to him,
verse 10, was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was
not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the
son of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he
had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was
to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised,
so that the righteousness would be counted to them as well. And
to make him the father of the circumcised who were not merely
circumcised, but who also, listen to how Paul phrases this, walk
in the footsteps of faith that our father Abraham had before
he was circumcised. Now let me just take that picture
for a second about the footsteps of faith that Abraham had before
he was circumcised. What did they look like? Fleshly. Gentile. He wasn't a Jew. God didn't give
him all these things to follow. Never did. That didn't start until after
he was circumcised. Abraham was not a Jew at all until he was
circumcised. As a matter of fact, the Jewish
nation didn't exist at all until Jacob was born. So here we see that Paul's saying,
you people who hold Abraham up as the pillar, you are not remembering
what he did. And you're not remembering who
he was. And you're not remembering that
it was by God's mercy alone that he was justified. And some people
say, well, he finally was circumcised. That shows something 14 years
later. Come on, guys. Hey, kids, go clean your room
12 years later. Have they obeyed? No, they got tired of the mess.
This is not obedience. This is not following. God never
commanded him to be circumcised. He did it as a seal and a sign,
as we'll look at tonight. What kind of circumcision matters?
That's what Paul's really asking there. What kind of circumcision
really matters? And why the bloody ritual of circumcision? Because
that's the two covenants that we see in Judaism, isn't it?
Circumcision. And then what's the other one?
The Passover. Bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody,
bloody, bloody, bloody. This is really odd to us. Why? Because they're signs. They're pictures of the righteousness
of God. They're pictures of the holiness
of God. They're pictures of the promises of God. See, the promise
of God, as I've already said, given to Abraham was 14 years
before the birth of Ishmael. And on the same day, Abraham
and Ishmael were circumcised together. And Abraham was righteous
long before he looked like a Jew. in any form, physically or spiritually,
He was righteous long before He was ever called a Jew, before
He was ever called an Israelite. So what kind of circumcision
matters? Of course we know what the Pauline
letters teach us. We know what the Gospels teach us. We know
what the New Testament teaches us about circumcision, that it
is the outward picture of what God has done inwardly in the
heart It is a picture of the promise of God to circumcise
our hearts from wickedness. And this kind of righteousness
as obtained through circumcision was no righteousness at all.
But what type of righteousness was obtained by Abraham? Apart
from circumcision, what was it? True righteousness. As Paul would
later say that I do not live in this body. It is not me who
lives, rather, because I've died and Christ lives within me. And
he goes on to say that I live and walk in this life, in this
body that Christ lives in, by faith in Christ who lives in
me and who loved me and who gave himself for me. So Paul reiterates
that his life that he lives is because of the gospel of grace.
It's because of Jesus. It's because of what God had
done for him and through Christ on his behalf without any observational
obedience, without any following. Paul rejected the gospel of Christ
when it was preached to his ears. Paul rejected the truth of Jesus
Christ when he saw the evidence. Paul rejected the Messiah of
God. Paul rejected it in such a way
that he had zeal without knowledge. He was blind but he thought he
could see. He walked in a manner worthy of obedience to perfection
according to his own resume. And even then, God saved him. And he overcame the freedom of
his own flesh. And he overcame the blindness
of his own depravity. And he overcame the death of
his soul. And God woke Paul up and saved him. And Jesus says
to Paul, not, why have you been messing around with my ministry?
Why have you been persecuting my people? Why have you been
hurting my friends? No, Jesus says, why do you persecute
me? See, when we don't love each
other, we hate Christ. When we don't reconcile, we hate
Christ. When we decide we're going to
do things our way, we hate Christ. And when people hurt the church
of Jesus Christ, they hurt Christ. It is not something to take lightly.
Abraham was not faithful, he was not obedient, he meddled
with the business of God, he did not trust God to come through
in his promises, but yet God said he was righteous, just like
David. And Psalm 32 promises Abraham's
righteousness and David's righteousness, as we saw last week. So, what
kind of righteousness is obtained through circumcision? Nothing!
Nothing. The blessing is for either those
who are circumcised in the flesh or those who are uncircumcised
in the flesh. It doesn't matter. Some people
like to say, well, you know, the Jews were the only people
who did circumcision. No, the Egyptians circumcised
too. And so did the Syrians. They circumcised. It was a matter
of practice. It's not about the practice.
And as we'll see that the Jews put the phylacteries in front
of their face and they put them in front of their hearts so that
the Word of God is forever in their face and in their eyes
and before their eyes and before their hearts. And they felt like
that this practice was righteous. It wasn't righteous, it was idolatry
and blindness. I don't know what it would be
compared to today. Sometimes people are more stuck in the
fact that they wear a certain Christian t-shirt or have a ripe
ichthys on their car. That was a big thing in the 80s.
Everybody knows I'm a Christian because I have an ichthys. How
about everybody should know we're a Christian because we proclaim
the gospel? Everybody's going to know I'm a Christian because
I don't cuss. I know a lot of people who don't
cuss who are going to hell. I know a lot of people who do
cuss who are not going to hell. Depends on where you work. I'm not making light of cursing.
James talks about not cursing, but it has nothing to do with
our righteousness. When Paul wrote this, I can imagine
sitting there and looking at these Jewish people and these
Roman non-Jewish people all sitting there and hearing this letter
being read, and they said, Abraham was righteous before he was circumcised,
and their mouths going, And they're looking at each other,
Elbow, did you hear that? Paul didn't write this. This is blasphemy.
This is ridiculous. Even the Gentiles would go, mm-mm,
mm-mm. This rocked their world. It turned everything they knew
about righteousness upside down. It destroyed the wall of piety
and humanism and righteousness in the flesh, and it showed what
the law really did, nothing but condemnation. Man, you are pushing
the envelope now, Pastor James. You just said that the law was
nothing but condemnation, because I'm quoting Paul. He'll say it
in a minute. We'll see it. Abraham was not
a practicing Jew, and yet he was righteous. The problem is
that these Christians, and sometimes in our day, Christians measure
their righteousness by their self-made rules, their self-imposed
ideals, their cultural expectations. And even though they may look
righteous, they're not. This is what Paul is arguing
here. Where is our hope? See, when we spend more time
worrying about how we look than whose we are, we fail to trust
in the Gospel. Because if we belong to Christ
and we focus on that which is eternal, then Christ, who has
prepared good works for us, will work in us. We also know that
sometimes God allows us to have just enough rope to hang ourselves.
Though we will not ever fall out of His hand, we will feel
the wind of that bungee jump. In verse 10, it tells us there
in verse 10, How was it then counted to him? We looked at
that last week. He asked another question. Was it before or after
he'd been circumcised? It was not after, but before. We see this sign,
this credit that we're about to show is this sign. I mean
this sign of circumcision. Well, we see the credit coming
to Abraham before the sign was given. The credit to Abraham was because
of the faithfulness of God. See, not the faithfulness of
Abraham. Before Abraham had ever followed
in the steps of God's direction, he was righteous. And even as
a Gentile for 14 years, he was righteous. Verse 11, he received
the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he
had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was
to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised
that the righteousness would be counted to them as well. And
we'll just stop there. Verse 11, the sign. The sign
and a seal. See, two things both in the same
but different. What is a sign? A sign is something
that shows something, doesn't it? We go to the back, it says
exit, it's an emergency exit, restroom, you better know what
the sign is on the restroom these days, I don't know, some places
it doesn't matter. We see the sign that says slow down, sign
that says caution, sign that says stop, sign that says hot
now, you know, for those of you who eat those things, those Krispy
Kreme doughnuts, blow some tires out trying to get the hot now.
Signs tell us something. The sign of circumcision is the
cutting away of Abraham's flesh, but it shows us that God was
cutting away the sin of his heart, the guilt of his heart, the wickedness
of his heart. His being circumcised had no
bearing on it at all, on his righteousness that is, or his
justification. God was not more pleased with Abraham because
he was circumcised because God was all pleased with Abraham.
The word blessed. God was all pleased with Abraham
before the circumcision ever took place. God was not more
pleased with Abraham in his flesh. God cannot be more pleased with
you in your flesh. Some people like to go, what
in the world? You're not making sense, because now you do sound
like an antinomian. No, I'm just repeating what Paul
says, and I promise you that in chapter 6 and 7, Paul will
talk about what is to be done with obedience. But first, he
must show us where it sits. And it sits squarely in the trash
can of no emphasis, no efficacy, and no empowerment. So the sign
is to point to the cutting away of Abraham's guilt. But also
this seal. What does a seal do? A seal,
by definition, can show ownership. If someone has a seal and they,
like if you have a piece of property and the, I don't know who does
this, the probate court or the county recorder or the lawyers
or whoever, and they stamp their seals on things and all these
signatories are true and in agreement and all these documents are in
order, then when those seals are there, the property exchanges
hands. There's a seal on a king's edict. It proves the ownership of this
decree belongs to the king. If there's a seal over a vault,
it shows it hasn't been tampered and the integrity of what was
put in there and the witnesses of that seal is still there.
Even like a crime scene, a seal maintains the focus of the integrity
of the investigation. And circumcision is a seal. Of
what? Of the promises of God. God promised
Abraham 14 years prior that he would be the father of many nations
and that the whole world would be blessed. And we know that's
Jesus Christ. We know that all the other promises to Abraham
were temporal for the world and everything that is passing away.
But the eternal promise is Jesus Christ. And Paul will tell the
churches of Galatia that those who are in Christ are indeed
Abraham's offspring. And so we know that the seal
is a guarantee of the trustworthiness of God's promise. See, it meant
that this father of Israel could depend upon what God had said
to him. And that in the way of faith
and the obedience that comes from faith, that means entrusting
in the Lord's promises and walking the footsteps of faith, the righteousness
of Christ was reckoned or imputed or credited to him. So Abraham
was righteous because God credited Christ's righteousness to Abraham
before Christ was ever incarnate. That's why when Jesus says that
before Abraham was, I am, they picked up stones to kill him. He even said, Abraham rejoiced
in my day. Let that hit you. Abraham lived a long life of
failings and faithlessness. But if we look at Hebrews, he's
one of the first ones there that said he believed by faith. And
he rejoiced in the day of Christ. Beloved, we have a day coming
when we rejoice in the presence of Christ. If our hope is not
in that Christ, we have no hope of rejoicing. Let us be very
careful to understand the seal of God. This is a comfort that
God has not changed. That God gave a seal to Abraham
so that you and I are the seed of Abraham. We are not the seed,
but the offspring of Abraham. We are the children of Abraham
because we are the children of God and the promise of God to
save a people for Himself. We cannot downplay this. People
who downplay these truths, they downplay the Gospel. Just like
Nicodemus downplayed the Gospel in his piety. Paul downplayed
the Gospel in his obedience. And they lived their lives by
their own moral code and their own standard. And in doing so,
they blasphemed God. Because they felt worthy and
honorable. They felt like what they were
doing is exactly what God expected all people to do. And they mocked
the very heart of who God is. But when God gave, and when God
gives us, when God gives people in that place life in Jesus Christ,
what happens? What happens when we trust in
the Gospel? and people around us trust in themselves. They
hate us. They hate us. When people trust
in their lives and we trust in the grace of God that the Holy
Spirit might procure and prepare and preserve a people for Himself,
for the sake of His glory, people who cannot see hate those who
can. And that is why the Jews of Jesus
day hanged him on a cross and took his life from him, because
God had decreed it way before the world began. God, may I not
be a Judas. And fool even myself for three
years as I walk with Christ. Just a selling to die. When we stop walking in the way
of men, the world hates us. The religious hate us. Those who trust in themselves
hate us. The modified behavior of our
culture hates us as we proclaim the truth of grace.
Many will walk in the way of men with dead hearts that do
not love. Just like a rainbow is a symbol
in the sky, a refracted light that God placed there and said,
this is a sign and a seal. This is a sign that I will never
again destroy the lives of all men through flood. I will never
drown every man. But the rainbow can save no one.
The rainbow can give hope to no one. The rainbow cannot stop
the rain. As a matter of fact, you can't
see it until there is rain. So that just when we think we're
about to drown, and all of the mercies of God dries up the floods,
and we look and we see, oh, I thought I was going to drown, but God
is faithful. Oddly enough, every time Abraham
bathed, he could say, God is faithful. Ridiculous, isn't it? The promise of God. People love
to call foul. when many reject those things
that aren't necessary. In Acts chapter 15, some men
came down from Judea teaching the brothers, unless you are
circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be
saved. The promise of God to Abraham
secured with the sign of the seal is hope for us, beloved.
In verses 11 and 12, the outcome of God's seal on Abraham was
that He might make him the father of the circumcised who walk in
the footsteps of faith. That is, those who walk in the
way that Abraham walked before he was a Jew. Now I'm not saying
that Abraham walked in lucidiousness. I'm not saying that Abraham walked
as like this party animal. But I'm telling you that every
act of goodness that Abraham could muster had no effect on
God's love for him, and had no effect on God's grace toward
him, and had no effect on his eternal security. Because anyone
that could stand and say, well I walk with Christ, is a liar. Except they say I walk in Christ
by faith. See, we must understand that
we walk by faith. We walk by faith. No matter how
hard we strive, no matter what we do, no matter what we may
clean up, we are still dirty in our flesh. For the perfection
of God is the standard, not a cleansing or a little bit of things, taking
care of a little bit of sin. But it all must be. We must stand
before God and say, I am just like you. Move out of my way
and share the platform. That's the quality of the command.
And how dare would we say that? But when we say it to each other,
when we circumvent and usurp the grace of God for the acts
of the flesh, we are saying to God, I deserve to stand next
to you. And the only one who's ever done
that was cast out into judgment. And his name is Lucifer. And
then he got Adam and Eve to do it. Paul lived that way. What does
he tell Timothy? But I received mercy. I receive
mercy for this reason? Why did God save me? Paul would say, why did God get
mercy? I receive mercy for this reason
that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect
patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for
eternal life. As the foremost what? Sinner. See, the emphasis of the one
who lives by faith is never judging himself by the standards of men.
The emphasis of the one who lives by faith is never looking for
assurance in the manner of his life, but by faith alone in the
manner of the life of Christ. The one who lives by faith never
looks to human wisdom or tradition, never looks at the culture, never
does anything but always seeks the only true God through the
Word by the Spirit. The one who lives by faith is
never looking, never looking. to anything but Jesus Christ.
We never hold to a standard that's not clearly stated in Scripture.
We never hold to any standard that's
as spiritual that Jesus has not taught us. For only those who
live by faith are spiritual. The one who lives by faith never
embraces a holistic idealism about what a believer should
look like, But we hold the truth of what Scripture shows us that
a believer is. And we trust and believe in the
Spirit of God as the agent of change, the agent of conviction,
the agent of consecration, and the like. The one who is alive
in Christ puts little stock in the actions of the flesh. We
do not set a table for it. We make no provision for it.
And we live in faith. We do not live in fear. We do
not live in fear that we're dishonoring God with every breath. We do
not live in fear that we're not honorable, that we're not pleasant. We don't live in fear that what
we're doing is unholy. Or ungodly, we live by faith
and we live in the presence of the face of God, Coram Deo, not
as our judge, but as our Father, who guides us and disciplines
us and builds us and grows us and carries us along because
He has great love for us, given and proven to us through the
giving of Jesus Christ, the Son, who took away our sins and satisfied
God's wrath against us. Abraham doubted God and God gave
him the title of blessed. Abraham learned and lived by
faith and the one who promised him life, Paul, did the same.
Let us know the extent of the gospel of grace and realize that
the perfection of God's sovereignty is ours to possess by faith. When we doubt that faith alone
is enough, we are walking in unbelief. And Romans 4, as we keep on reading,
look at verses 13 through 17. I don't really have time to teach
all of this tonight. For the promise to Abraham and
his offspring that it would be the heir of the world did not
come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For
if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs,
faith is nullified and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath,
but where there is no law, there is no transgression." I'll finish
that. I wanted to go through 17, but
I'll just finish that. The promise of God is not and
never has been out of obedience. The covenant of works was failed
from the beginning to prove that God only in His graciousness
and His mercy would save His people. People would argue that,
but those people who argue that have not really thought much
about the reality that God sovereignly decreed before the world began
that Adam and Eve would fall, that He might be what? The just
and the justifier of all who have faith in Christ. No, God
did not make them sin, but He decreed it just the same. And
that's another sermon. Those who live under the law
as their divine object are guilty of breaking the law. every step
of the way, even in obedience to it. And they are judged dead
eternally. That's what wrath means. God's going to pour out
justice on the guilty. God's going to pour out judgment
on the wicked. So if we adhere and our object
of hope is the law and obedience and our lifestyle change and
the transformation and the morphing into something that looks pious,
we are guilty of violating the law of God and we will only see
judgment. Wrath is the position of those
who secure the assurance of the gospel by their obedience. Justice
is God's answer to those who deem themselves spiritual through
obedience. He will eternally judge them as self-righteous.
For they say that they obey, but yet they do not. Galatians
3, Paul says, now the promises were made to Abraham and to his
offspring. It does not say, and to offsprings, referring to many,
but referring to one, and to your offspring, who is Christ. Later on in that chapter 3 of
Galatians, he says, and if you are Christ, I've already said
this tonight, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to
the promise. So Paul rightly discloses that
many hold to this standard as better than the lives of others.
Abraham was looked at as one who held a better place in life
than most people. Moses by the Jews. The Jews looked
at by the Gentile Christians. And then so forth. Sometimes
we look at each other and we try to live by our standards.
And beloved, that is a bad place to peer. It is a bad place to
peer when we become spiritual police, even in our own lives. It is a bad place to be poking
around. because it is making ourselves
the governors of God's holiness and the judge thereof, when God
is the judge. It's no wonder Jesus uses the
imagery of a log in my eye so that I might get to the speck
in yours. For the speck is just something that hurts you, that
causes you to blink and maybe be in a little bit of pain. But
the log blinds me completely. And if it's big enough, as I
turn around in this life and I walk around looking at your
specks, I'll bust you all in the head as I spin around with
my logs. God help us. when we think our
logs are righteousness. God help us when we think our
righteousness is not logs. Perfection is the standard. If
one person curses with his mouth and another does not, the one
who abstains from cursing is just as guilty of violating the law of God as
the one who curses. The one who abstains from cursing
feels more spiritual or honoring to God. They are blind. And the
Bible just says here in Romans 4, Paul says they face judgment
of God because in their blindness they secure themselves wrath
because they say they can see when they have a log in their
eye. The one who doesn't curse does
not love his brother. And they're guilty. And in the
sense that we don't love our brother, the Bible says we cannot
and do not have the love of God in us. No matter what we say,
our love is found in our sacrifice, in our lifestyle change, in our
brokenness to lay our lives down for each other. Deuteronomy 28,
58 says, if you're not careful to do all the words of this law
that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and
awesome name, the Lord your God, then the Lord will bring on you
and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe
and lasting, and sickness grievous and lasting. Now imagine hearing
that for the first time. What did those people do the
very next moment? They straightened their lives
up and they were still condemned. Because that teaching right there
makes us guilty. And when we trust in the mercy
of God, it shows that God has given us eyes to see that there
is nothing that we do. Even in the best of days of striving,
we hold fast to the mercy of God. The law condemns every man who
is a sinner, and that is all men who are all sinners. We've
already learned that in Romans 3. And the law condemns every man
who projects spirituality and righteousness with his life and
lifestyle as evidence of his justification. The law is saying
they are condemned. But what does Paul close with
tonight as we close? He says, but where there is no law, there
is no transgression. How antinomian is Paul? He's
not at all. And you'll see in chapter 6,
he's going to wipe that idea off our minds. What he's saying
is you need to understand what God has done. You need to understand
whose you are and how you belong to Him and that no element of
what you believe pleases Him will accept faith. The grace of God effectually
saves us from all of our inability to be perfect. The argument of
striving is out of place here. That's not what Paul was talking
about. It mocks the Lord and embraces a false Christ and a
false gospel if we try to say, well what about striving? Paul's
teaching about salvation. Do you really want to have an
argument with God about how good we strive? Or do you want to
learn about God's mercy? They're not together. That's all of Christ. We can put to death what we were
able to put to death by the mercy of Christ, but it still fights.
The flesh still moans. The flesh still wars against
us. We are thus secure in the hope
of knowing that the logs in our eyes are God's to remove and
the specks in our brothers likewise. We encourage the brethren in
their walking as a means of hope in the one who is faithful, not
in us as the faithful ones, not in our lifestyle, not in our
boundaries or those things which might protect us from dishonoring
the Lord that we so carelessly purvey as the quote right way. We will close with this great
reminder out of Jesus teaching to the Pharisees in Matthew's
Gospel chapter 23, where he gives this long list of woes, seven
of them to be exact. but I won't bother us with all
of them. But the first 12 verses there, as we finish, says, then
Jesus says to the crowds and his disciples, the scribes and
the Pharisees sit on Moses seat. So do and observe whatever they
tell you, but not the works they do for. They preach, but they do
not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay
them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing
to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be
seen by others, for they make their phylacteries broad and
their fringes long. And they love the place of honor
at feasts, and the best seats in the synagogues, and greetings
in the marketplaces, and being called rabbi by others. But you
are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you
are all brothers. And call no man your father on
earth, for you have one Father who is in heaven. Neither be
called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Christ, the
greatest among you shall be your slave. Whoever exalts himself
will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
Beloved, Abraham did not exalt himself. His progeny did that. Moses did not exalt himself.
His progeny did that. Let us not exalt ourselves. lest we be humbled by God. Let
us trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ this moment,
and in a few minutes, and tonight, and tomorrow, so that our hope
would be truth, and our hope would be pure. And when the flesh
rises up and we feel less worthy, let us be reminded of the finished
work of Christ, who circumcises us with the Holy Spirit and seals
us with the same. that we might celebrate with
the fullness of joy even when our joy is inexpressible, as
Peter would say, because it's filled with hope. And as we look
to the salvation of our souls, let's pray. God, we are so glad. We are so glad that Your Word
is true. Father, it is It is very easy
for us. You know what we think. You know
what we're going through right now. You know what's going through
our minds. It's very easy for us to feel guilty this moment. It's very easy for some of us
to feel self-righteous at times. It's very easy for us to give
up hope and worry. But Father, teach us. Empower
us to lay all of our cares upon You. Teach us to know that You
have put us here in this place, this night, for this purpose.
That we might know You more. That we might see You. That we
might exult. That we might exult in the person
of Jesus Christ. That we might find our bearings
in the gospel of grace and thus live by faith. Father, thank
You for this strong, strong, recapitulation of where we are
without your mercy. Thank you, God, for this amazing
gospel that continues to get preached over and over again
in this text and even in John's gospel on Sundays. Thank you
that this truth is pounded into us. Because it is so easy for
us to move on into the things that make us feel as though we
are in control of our destiny, that make us feel spiritual.
God, crucify that part of our flesh this night. And make our love for You pure,
that we know what Paul means when he says, to the praise of
Your glorious grace. For we stand all guilty before You, but God,
in Your mercy, You loved us. and gave Your Son for us. And
You call us Your righteousness. What an amazing truth. We praise You for it. In Jesus'
name we pray.