Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I started last week on this message in Romans
chapter four, if you want to turn in your Bibles, Romans four,
concerning this subject, a primer on grace. And this is part two.
And what I have in mind to do is to go through Romans chapter
four. And I read these first two verses last week. which says
in Romans four and verse one, what shall we say then that Abraham,
our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if
Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory. That
word glory means to boast, means something you have confidence
in. And so if Abraham were justified by his works, he'd have room
to boast in himself, to glory in himself, to have confidence
in himself. But he says in verse two, but not before God. That's
not the way God does it. And so I was backing up here
to Romans chapter three to set this up. Paul is writing to the
church of Rome, made up of believers, both Jew and Gentile. And so
he comes in to Abraham, whom the Jews boasted him. They say, we're Abraham's seed.
But he's showing how God, he had been talking about how God
justifies sinners. And what is it to be justified?
Well, last week I brought up this point, to be justified is
to be forgiven of all my sins on a just ground. And the only
just ground that God forgives sin, upon which God forgives
sin, is the blood of Jesus Christ, the death of Christ. What can
wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
You see, my good works cannot cancel out my sins. My repentance,
my faith, my believing, and my repenting, my tears of remorse,
my reformations of character and conduct cannot wash away
my sins. There's only one thing that can
wash away my sins, that is pay the debt. And that's the blood
of Christ. Now blood means his death. He
died for the sins of his sheep. Christ Jesus died to save sinners. His name shall be called Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. But now to be
justified also means to be declared righteous in God's sight. And over here in Romans chapter
three and verse 20, Paul had brought a conclusion down that
brings us all in guilty and deserving of condemnation before God because
we're sinners and we cannot work our way out of it. We cannot
work enough to make ourselves righteous. And righteousness
is the perfection of the law that can only be found in Christ.
And so he says in verse 20, therefore, by the deeds of the law, there
shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. You cannot be forgiven,
you cannot be declared righteous in God's sight by works of the
law, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. And verse 21 says, but
now the righteousness of God without the law, that is without
our works, is manifested, made known, being witnessed by the
law and the prophets in the Old Testament. See, this gospel,
of salvation by grace. This primer on grace is just
as clear in the Old Testament as it is the New. And he says
in verse 22, even the righteousness of God which is by faith or the
faithfulness of Jesus Christ. If you have a translation that
says that that's faith in Christ, it's wrong. This is talking about
what Christ did to accomplish the righteousness of God forgiveness
of sins and righteousness for his people, which God has imputed,
charged, accounted to his people. And if God has done that for
me and for you, he says it here. He says, it's unto all that's
preached to everyone and upon all them that believe. And so,
for there's no difference. How do I know if I'm justified
in God's sight? How do I know that I'm forgiven
of all my sins based upon the blood of Christ? How do I know?
that I'm righteous in God's sight, not by my works, but in Christ
Jesus. How do I know that? The evidence
of that is that God brings His people to believe in Christ.
Now, it's not our believing that washes away our sins. It's not
our believing that makes us righteous. It's Christ, by the grace of
God. See, that's what this is about.
Ephesians 2.8, I quote it all the time, for by grace are you
saved through faith, not on the basis of faith, not because of
faith, not applied by faith. It's applied in our minds and
our consciences. But it's already been applied
by God through the doctrine of imputation, that's God charging
it, accounting it to us. So for by grace are you saved
through faith, and that not of yourself, that faith is not of
yourself. Somebody said, well, that refers
back to salvation, not faith. Faith is part of salvation. And
the whole of salvation is not of yourself or not of myself.
It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2.10, for we are his
workmanship, God's workmanship. We're not self-made people. We
are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
not because of or based on good works, but unto good works, which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. This
is the foreordination of God. that his people would walk by
faith in Christ. Well, verse 23, he says, for
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now that
tells us the reality of our sinfulness and depravity. And what it means
this, we all, no matter how good we try to be, now let me say
this, let me put it in the right context for us to understand
this. Every one of us should try to be the best person we
can be. In every way, whatever role we're
playing, whether it's a husband or a wife, a father or a mother,
a friend, a worker on our jobs, a boss, an employee, in whatever
capacity that we find ourselves in, we should willingly happily
do the best we can do. But when you read this passage,
for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, it
tells us this, that no matter how good we try to be, we still
fall short of the perfection of righteousness that God requires,
but that can only be found in Christ. His glorious person,
His finished work. So that leaves us with no hope
of salvation. The best of us, the worst of
us, it leaves us with no hope of salvation, but by God's grace,
through the blood and righteousness of Christ. The Bible says man
at his best state is altogether vanity. And so it says in verse
24, being justified, forgiven, declared righteous, freely, without
a cause, unconditionally, by God's grace, by His grace now. And what is that grace based
upon? What puts that grace in action? Through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, verse 25, whom God hath set forth to
be a propitiation, a sin-bearing sacrifice that brings satisfaction
to God's justice, through faith in His blood, not faith in your
faith now. As if I made the difference.
I don't make the, I didn't make, I'm a sinner saved by grace.
I didn't make the difference, God did. And it's through faith
in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that
are past. That's the Old Testament saying. They're saved by the
same grace in which we're saved through the forbearance of God.
And that is God didn't totally destroy them, but He saved them
by promise based upon the fact that Christ was sure to come
in time and die for their sins. Verse 26, to declare, I say at
this time His righteousness, that God might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. So the faith here is
necessary, but not as a cause, not as a ground. It's necessary
as an evidence, an instrument by which God unites us spiritually
to Christ. And you know, one of the things
that the apostle had to combat, John, Peter, Paul, all of them,
was unbelieving Jews who claimed to believe in Christ, who claimed
to be Christian, but wanted to bring believers under the law.
and they wanted to get believing men circumcised in order to be
saved. That's why Paul said in Galatians
6.14, he made this statement, he said, God forbid, Galatians
6.14, God forbid that I should glory, that I should boast, except
in one thing, the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that establishes
my relationship with the world by whom the world is crucified
unto me and I unto the world. I look upon this world as being
cursed. And I do, if you're a believer, you do. This world in sin is
cursed of God. That's why Christ is going to
come again. He who died was buried and arose
again the third day. He's coming back. To do what? To destroy this world. and make
it anew, a new heavens and a new earth. And so Paul says, because
I glory only in Christ, I boast and have confidence only in Christ,
the world looks at me as a cursed man. I say there's one way of
salvation. The world says there's many ways.
I say that men and women cannot make themselves righteous by
their works, the world says otherwise. The world is cursed, and they
look at me as being cursed. And then in verse 15, he says,
when he says, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross
of Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto
the world. And then he says, for in Christ Jesus, circumcision
avails nothing. The only thing that matters,
it doesn't matter whether you're physically circumcised or not.
What matters, are you a new creation in Christ? Have you been born
again by the Spirit to look to Christ alone? And so Paul, when
he combats these unbelieving Jews who tried to bring believers
under the law, which in the book of Galatians, he says was a denial
of Christ. He said, if you be circumcised,
Christ will profit you nothing. What does he mean by that? He
means if you think circumcision contributes to your righteousness
before God, if you think circumcision makes you acceptable with God,
you're denying Christ because it's the righteousness of Christ
alone, the blood of Christ alone, which makes a sinner accepted
with God. And so that's why Christ came.
He says in Galatians 2.21, if righteousness come by the law,
that is your works of the law, Christ died in vain. So you understand
that. So what he does here, he turns
to Abraham as the example. And he says in verse one of chapter
four, what shall we say then that Abraham our father as pertaining
to the flesh hath said? Now, why does he pick out Abraham?
Well, I mentioned last week how Abraham is called the father
of the faithful. And it's not because we're saved
by Abraham, or it's not because we're saved because we follow
Abraham's example. But Abraham is the prime example. He's the prototype, you might
say, of how God saves sinners, and how God justifies the ungodly. And Abraham was a sinner saved
by grace. And so sometimes those who believe,
Jew and Gentile, are called the seed of Abraham in a spiritual
sense because we're saved the same way that Abraham was saved,
by God's grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. But the unbelieving Jews boasted
basically in three things. Number one was their physical
connection with Abraham. They would say, in John chapter
eight, they said, we're Abraham's seed. We're Abraham's children. Christ told him, he said, well,
you're Abraham's children physically, but not spiritually. You don't
do the works of Abraham. Abraham believed on the Lord.
That's a gift of God. That's God's grace. He said,
back down in John eight, he said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day.
And he saw it and he was glad. The second thing the Jews boasted
in was their physical circumcision, the circumcision of the males
who represented the whole family. And the scripture says if you're
circumcised for that reason, thinking that it's going to save
you or make you more saved or make you more righteous before
God, Christ will profit you nothing. And then the third thing they
boasted in was they claimed to keep the law of Moses. And they
didn't keep the law of Moses, nobody does. By deeds of law
shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. Remember we read
that, Romans 3.20. You see, they perverted the law. And Romans 9 tells us that the
reason they did not attain righteousness is because they sought it by
works of the law and not by faith in Christ. I want righteousness. How am I going to get righteousness?
Look to Christ. He's my righteousness. Jeremiah
called him the Lord, our righteousness. Jehovah Sidcanu is the way of
putting that. Well, so Paul says, what shall
we say? Verse one, that Abraham, our
father, as pertaining to the flesh, if found. How was Abraham
saved? He said, verse two, for if Abraham
were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before
God. If you think that your salvation
was conditioned on you, what you're believing, you're believing
and repenting, you're believing and repenting and perseverance,
perseverance. Now the reason I say that, there
are some people who claim to be saved by grace, and they believe
once saved, always saved, but they're fooled because they believe
that their salvation was conditioned on what they did. In other words,
they believe that Christ died for everybody, even those who
perish eternally, and because they didn't do what was right.
They didn't believe, or they didn't act right. And that's
salvation conditioned on sinners. That's not grace. That's a cleverly
disguised system of works. There are others who believe
that you're saved, salvation is conditioned on your faith
and your repentance and your perseverance, like denominations
who say you can be saved one day and then lost because of
some great sin or act of sinning. And that's not grace. That's
a false system of works, a cleverly disguised system of works. Salvation. was and is conditioned on Christ
and on Him alone. And He fulfilled all those conditions,
all the requirements, all the stipulations to ensure the salvation
of every sinner for whom He died on that cross. They're called
His church. He redeemed His church. The word church means called
out ones. That's who Christ died for, those who are called out
of the world and into the family of God by God-given faith, by
the Holy Spirit's work. And so they're called his church.
They're called his brethren. They're called his people. They're
called his sheep. The good shepherd gives his life
for the sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know
them and they know me. No one shall pluck them out of
my Father's hand. They're called all that the Father
giveth him, has given him. John 6, 37, seven. All that the
Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me
I will in no wise cast out. This is the will of him that
sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing,
but raise it up again at the last day. That's the way he does
it. They're called his people, his
church, his sheep. His brother, they're also called
the seed of Abraham in a spiritual sense. Now I'm a Gentile. As far as I know, I don't have
any Jewish blood in me. Wouldn't matter if I did. Because
the scripture, look back at Romans chapter two. What we're talking
about is spiritual Israel, spiritual Jews. Romans two and verse 28. It says, for he is not a Jew,
which is one outwardly. Now that word Jew is a shortened
form of Judah, which means praise. That's what Judah means, praise,
the name Judah. And those who are Jews who praise
God, All right, you're not one which is one outwardly, neither
is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, verse 29,
but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is
that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise
is not of men, but of God. He's talking about the new birth
there. The spiritual circumcision of the heart is the work of the
Holy Spirit in the new birth. You must be born again. Where
he cuts away the filth of the flesh, that is our confidence
in the flesh, and drives us to Christ in God-given faith. Well,
what did Abraham, go back to chapter four. Verse two, if Abraham
were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, to boast, but
not before God. And then he comes in verse three,
he says, for what saith the scripture? Now, what does God's word, the
Bible, say on this subject? Well, it says, Abraham believed
God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. for righteousness. And listen to verse four. Now
I'm gonna come back to that. Now to him that worketh, working
for salvation, is the reward, the reward of salvation, the
reward of eternal life, all the blessings and benefits. Now to
him that worketh is the reward not reckoned, not accounted of
grace, but of debt. In other words, if you're working
for salvation and you think you've got it, you think God was indebted
to you and gave you what you earned. And then he says in verse five,
but to him that worketh not. Now he's talking about working
not for salvation. Believers have works. We saw
that when I quoted Ephesians 2.10, for we are His workmanship
created in Christ Jesus unto good works. But the good works
are not what saves us. They're not what makes us righteous.
And they're not even what earns our reward. God's never indebted
to us. We're always indebted to Him,
a debt of love. By nature, as we fell on Adam,
we owed a debt to his law and justice that we could not pay,
but his elect, their debt was transferred to Christ. It was
imputed to him. He took that account upon himself.
So he says, but to him, verse five, that worketh not, but believeth
on him that justifieth who? The ungodly. That's who God justifies. That's what this primer on grace
is all about. What is grace and who is it towards?
It's towards the ungodly. In other words, the ungodly person
cannot do anything to save himself. And then it says, his faith is
counted for righteousness. Now, a lot of preachers will
go to verses like this. Verse three, Abraham believed
God and it was counted. That means it was imputed. That word imputed means to charge,
lay to the account, reckon. It was counted to Abraham for
righteousness. Well, what was counted to Abraham?
Well, his belief. Now that's what a lot of preachers
will tell you. Abraham believed God. But see, that's based upon
a real terrible understanding of this word faith. This word
faith, one of the most misunderstood words in the Bible. It's also
one of the misunderstood blessings. You see, nobody's gonna be saved
without faith, without believing in Christ. He that believeth
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. But you gotta understand biblical
faith. And Paul spoke of that. Back
in Romans chapter one, verse 16 and 17, he said, for I'm not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for yet the gospel is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. In other words,
if you don't believe, you can't say the gospel is the power of
God unto salvation for you. How do we know the Holy Spirit
has empowered the preaching of the gospel to a particular person's
salvation. Well, it's the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believeth. And it doesn't matter whether
you're a Jew or a Gentile, to the Jew first and the Greek also.
Greek there was just a way of talking about Gentiles because
it was a Greco-Roman world. And then in verse 17 of Romans
1, he says, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed.
Now, what is the righteousness of God? It's the entire merit,
value, worthiness of what Christ in the glory of his person as
God manifest in the flesh and in the power of his finished
work to die for the sins of his people, be buried and raised
again the third day. How do we know His death put
away the sins of His sheep? So that they cannot be condemned.
He came out of that grave. He arose from the dead. He's
ascended unto the Father and now ever lives to make intercession
for His people. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather
He's risen again and is seated at the right hand of the Father
ever living to make intercession for His people. He's our advocate. He's our mediator. And so, all
of this showing that this word faith, as Paul wrote in Romans
117, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith, as it is written, the justified shall live by faith. So you have the word faith there
three times, the same word. But what does it mean, from faith
to faith? Well, from faith means faith
as the doctrine of Christ, the body of truth that's revealed
in the gospel concerning who God is in the glory of God, that
he's a just God, he's a righteous God, he's a holy God. and that
he's so just and righteous that he's too pure to accept and receive
and fellowship with sin and therefore he must put it away. We'll pick up there next week
and I hope you'll join us for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us
at 1-1-0-2-EAGER. Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia
31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
or email us through our website at www.theletterofgrace.com. Thank you again for listening
today and may the Lord be with you.