seeking once again the help of the Lord. I'd like you to turn with me to the chapter that we read together Romans chapter 4 and the text you'll find in verses 24 to 25. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also whom it shall be imputed.

For if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification. Today is the day that we specifically remember the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ a most vital truth in the Christian faith, a doctrine which Christianity stands or falls. For if Christ be not risen, then our faith is in vain. We worship a risen saviour, we come to God through our high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, who ever lives to intercede for us, and so the empty tomb shows us that the words that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke about himself, they are true, for he told his apostles that he would be handed over and crucified and laid in the grave and he would be there for three days and three nights, and then he would rise again. And so if the Lord Jesus Christ never rose again, then the words that the Lord Jesus Christ said would have been lies, it would have been false prophecies, and he would have been just a deceiver as others that have gone before.

He would be a false prophet, he would be a liar, But because we see the empty tomb, because we hear the words, he is not here, he is risen, we know that the words that Christ spoke, not just those words about his resurrection, but also all of the words that he spoke about himself and about the Father and his relationship with the Father and the work that he came to do, they are true. They are true words.

If you remember the women as they came to the cave where the Lord Jesus Christ was, they found the stone had been rolled away already in Luke 24. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcher. And they entered in and found not the body of the Lord Jesus, And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed, thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments. And as they were afraid and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.

Remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee. saying, the son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and rise and the third day rise again and they remembered his words and so all of that Jesus Christ said about himself was fulfilled and the stamp of the approval of God upon the life of the Lord Jesus Christ is seen in his resurrection that this is his beloved son and as he said hear him And so as we listen to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are to be like Abraham.

In the book of the Romans, the Apostle Paul is laying down an argument about being justified by faith, about how a person may be made righteous in the sight of a holy God. And so he uses Abraham as an example. He says, was Abraham made righteous before or after his circumcision? And the argument is that he was made righteous before. What made him righteous, what counted him righteous, when God declared him to be righteous, was his belief in God, in belief in the word of God. And then we see that his faith caused him to walk in obedience to God and acted out what God wanted him to do in the covenant of circumcision and then in the offering up of his son, Isaac, upon the altar, upon the mountain. And so the argument that Paul lays down is that we are not saved by works. We cannot be saved by works. Works are the product of the faith that we have in God.

Job asks a very serious question in Job chapter 9. It's a question that, if we take Job as one of the most earliest books that have been written in the scripture, and it was on the mind of Job to ask this question, it's a question that is still being asked today, and it's a question that you and I should ask ourselves. In Job chapter nine, verse one, it says, and Job answered and said, I know it is so of a truth.

But how should a man be just with God? If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand. He is wise in heart and mighty in strength, who has hardened himself against him and has prospered, which removes the mountains, and they know not, which overturneth them in his anger, which shake the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble. which commanded the sun and it rises not and he seals up the stars and he goes on to to declare how how great and how powerful and how holy God is and so when he as he looks at God and as he examines God and what he knows about God he comes to this conclusion well if God is so great If God is so powerful, if God is so holy, if God is sovereign over all things, how can I, being a weak man of the earth, a sinful man of the earth, how can I be made right with this God? How can a man be just with God? That is the big question. If God is so holy, how can he make sinful people righteous in his sight? If God's law is so holy and so perfect and cannot be broken, how can he accept sinful people into his presence without being an unjust God?

If you were to go to court and you were to stand and you were guilty, you committed a crime, And all the evidence was laid out before the judge. And it was totally obvious that you were guilty. There was CCTV footage of you, you know, stealing something. And they could see your face. They could track you back to your house. There was every bit of evidence against you. And the law of the land said, you know, you're guilty. You must go to prison.

And the judge just said, well, you seem like a nice boy, you seem like a nice girl, I'm just going to let you off. Would that be just? Would that be justice? Would justice have been served upon you? No, it would not. That judge would not be doing his job properly. The law would still remain broken and he would be an unjust judge. And if that continued happening, every criminal that came before this judge, he said, oh, no, I'll let you off. I'll let you off. I'll let you off. He would lose his job.

And so the judge of all the earth, he must do right. God must punish sin because he has said that the soul that sins, it should die. There is a punishment. The law that gets broken must be satisfied. And so God just doesn't let people off. He doesn't just say, oh, they seem to be not as bad as the other people. They seem to be doing quite well. They seem to be trying a little bit harder than everybody else. I'm just going to let them off. He cannot do that, for he would be unjust if he did it. His law must be satisfied. Job says, If we come before God, our mouths are going to be stopped. He's so great. He's so powerful.

What would we be able to say to him? If you died and go to the courtroom of God, what are you going to argue? What case are you going to present to him? What reasons are you going to give to him why you are not sinful? He says, well, if you look at my law, my law is holy. And my law says, if you break one of these laws, then you're guilty of breaking all of them. The punishment for one is the same as if you've broken all of them. What argument are you going to give him?

Are you going to say, well, I'm not as bad as everybody else? You know, my standard of goodness is not the same standard as your goodness, God. My standard is that I've never murdered anybody, so I am good. My standard is that I've never stolen anything, so in my eyes I'm good. Your law seems a little bit too harsh.

Every mouth will be stopped, there will be no arguments. As we look through the scriptures and we see when God reveals himself, people collapse on the floor. they are overcome completely with the holiness of God and they collapse to the floor as dead people. Every mouth will be stopped, there will be no arguments that come out of your mouth as to the reason for your sinful behaviour upon this earth. You might say, I'm not guilty, I've never done anything bad.

Sometimes we hear, don't we, in the news of leaked reports. Somebody on the inside of the government or someone on the inside of an administration, they leak documents onto the internet. And they're there for everybody to see. Nobody can pull them down. No one can get rid of them. They are there. and we confess that we're not guilty. But if we were to have the black box of our life leaked onto the internet, would we be so confident then that we are not guilty?

If every thought that you had thought was placed onto the internet, and your mum or dad or your friends could go onto that site and they could read everything that you've ever thought, would they say, what a lovely boy, what a lovely girl, what a lovely man, what a lovely woman they are? If they were able to go into the box of imagination, And they were to look at the imaginations that we have had, the thoughts that we have taken and then elaborated on. They were to go into that box and they were to see every imagination of our hearts. The Bible tells us, doesn't it, the imagination of our hearts are evil continually. And if we were able to go onto the website and click open James's imagination, and you were to look through everything, Would you say he's a good preacher? Would you say he's a good Christian? Would you say he's a holy man? What about you? What about your imaginations? Where have they led you? What trail have your imaginations led you on even this week?

Maybe even before the service? Would we be able to say that we're without sin? Would we be able to say that we're not guilty before a holy God? If everybody was able to read everything that we've ever thought, imagined and done, would you want to come in here on a Sunday? you'll be able to look people in the face knowing that they know everything that you've ever thought about them. As we meet people we immediately begin to to think, oh his tie's a bit crooked today, he's going a bit grey, who's looking a bit older, I haven't seen him for a while, or she looks, you know, like so-and-so, and we begin to think thoughts in our head about other people. And if those thoughts were able to be read, would we be able to face that person without feeling ashamed? Well, how then are we going to face God?

How are we going to face God who knows everything that you have ever thought from the moment you are able to think? Every imagination of your heart he knows, is recorded. Every sin that you have committed and every thing that you should have done that you haven't done, The Lord knows it.

And so we all stand guilty and should be ashamed of our sin before a holy God. If we would be ashamed of facing people, how much more should we be ashamed and fearful of facing a holy God? the secrets that we have, the things that we've hidden from other people. There is no secret hidden from God. Even in the darkness is light to him. And so our guilt is there. The depravity of human nature is seen within. may be able to hide it from other people and we're very good at hiding sin from other people but we can never hide our sin from God.

One of my favourite animals when we were in Kenya was a chameleon. I found them fascinating, their feet, how they were designed by God to wrap around the branches, and their eyes, how they could look in those two different ways at one time, and their tongues, how they would shoot out and get the flies. But their ability to change their color, to blend into the background, to disappear. And we're like them. We're very good at being sinful chameleons.

We disguise our sin. We try to blend it so it disappears. But you know, it can never disappear from God. We can never sweep sin under the carpet from God. We can never hide the skeleton in the closet from God. for he knows absolutely everything about us. We cannot delete our search history from God. It's there, recorded, and he knows it all. And it will be brought up in the courtroom at the day of judgment. when the hearts of every man, woman, boy and girl will be opened and made clear. We will not be able to hide from Him.

As the Bible tells us that those that are on the world at that time, they will cry for the mountains and the rocks to cover them, to hide us from the face of Him with whom that they will have to face. Why will they be so fearful? because of the sin that they have committed. And so the question that Job asks, how can we, who are so sinful, who are corrupted by sin, who have sin inwardly and outwardly, that seek to hide our sin, that are chameleons, that try to blend our sin into our lives, to make it disappear, to sweep our sin under the carpet, how can we, who are so sinful be just or made righteous or made holy in the sight of a holy God without God being unjust, without God stopping himself from being the God of all the earth, the judge of all the earth that would do right. Romans 5. tells us there from verse six.

When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare die. But God commended his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being made now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And so these sinful people, us sinful people who sin against God continually and try to hide our sin are able to be made righteous, not by making a decision in our life to try and be good, because that can never eradicate the sin that we have already committed. Abraham was not made righteous just because he obeyed God and was circumcised. That did not make him righteous. That was the evidence of his belief in God.

And so Jesus did not come to give us a leg up, as it were, to get to heaven. He didn't say, you people, you're quite good already. and I'm just going to give you a leg up to help you get the rest of the way. You've got 90%, you're doing pretty well, and I'm going to give you the 10% to get you to heaven. He didn't come for that. He didn't say your works are doing well.

He told you, he tells us that you are so sinful. that there is no way whatsoever that you are going to get to heaven. Your righteousness is at zero completely. Your righteousness is as a filled holy God. There is no way that you are getting to heaven by yourself.

And that's why we see the extent of the love of God in Christ Jesus. That Jesus Christ had to come and do everything to save sinners. who is not just a lego. It was a carrying, a raising us up from the dead. It was a lifting us up out of the Maori clay and placing us upon a rock. It was a doing away with our own righteousness and imputing to us his own righteousness and dealing with our sin upon the cross at Calvary.

And so Abraham, as he hears God speak to him, He believes God. Abraham believed God. In verses two, it says, if Abraham were justified by works, he has something to glory, but not before God. You see, in other religions where they are seeking to obtain favor of God by doing things, there is pride. There were those in Kenya, and the rich people, they would build mosques. And if you built a mosque, you're guaranteed a place in heaven. And so it was the rich people that were getting to heaven, and the poor people were striving to find a way by which to please God. But not with Christianity. Jesus Christ has done it all. We have nothing to boast save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Abraham was not justified by works. He was justified by his belief, his faith in God. Therefore, he had nothing to boast, nothing to boast about. For what says the scripture, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. verse 21 and says, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, that what God had promised, he was able to perform and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. It was credited to his account. He believed what God had said.

God tells him, you know, you've got no children. You're 90 years old. Your wife's womb is barren. Naturally speaking, there's no hope. But Abraham believed God, that what God has said, he was able to perform what he said. And so as the scripture says, he who was dead, He is he whose body was dead.

He trusted in God that he would become the father of many nations, that he would become, that his children would be as the stars of the sky and as the sand of the sea. As you look at that situation, you look at this old man and this old lady, there's no hope, naturally speaking. But where did their hope lie? Their hope was in the promise of God. And they believed it.

God said to him, though you're old, you're going to have a son. And your son's name should be called Isaac. And with him, my covenant will continue. As we read the script, as we see how that all took place, God was faithful to his promise. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness and he became the father of the faith.

As Paul argues, he says, was he the father of the Jews only? No. Why? Because he believed God prior to the covenant of circumcision. Therefore he can be the father of the circumcision and he can be the father of the uncircumcision. He can be the father of the faith.

Those who believe And so he says now, it was not written for his sake only that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. So how does God justify the sinner? How does God make sinful people righteous before him the same way as he did with Abraham? Not by Abraham's obedience, but by his belief. Abraham was made righteous by believing in God, and he is set forth as an example. This is how God saves people. Not by works of righteousness that we have done, but by faith in his beloved son.

It is imputed. It is credited to their account that God made Abraham righteous. and God can make you and I righteous, not because we are good, but by us looking to the Lord Jesus Christ and the righteousness of Christ being credited to our account. He purges our sin, purging, if you ever buy if you've ever gone past a petrol station, and they're having work done.

Sometimes the men there, they have to go down into those petrol tanks underneath, and they have to purge out those fumes and gases that are in those tanks. And they do so, or they can do so, by filling it with water. Fill it with water, it pushes all the gases out. And then once they drain the water, it's safe for them to enter in.

And so Christ purges out our sin. He fills us with himself, fills us with his spirit, pushes out our sin and our uncleanness, and he takes it for himself. Takes our debt, he takes the guilt, and he is punished upon the cross at Calvary for our sinfulness. And so everything Everything rests on this perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ who was delivered up for our offences.

Can you put yourself into that hour? Can you say this morning, who was delivered up for my offences, I acknowledge my sin. I acknowledge my unrighteousness. I acknowledge that what the Bible says about me is totally true. Can you say, like Abraham, he believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, that Jesus Christ was delivered up for my offences, for my sin, for my disobedience, for my unrighteousness, for my immoral thoughts, for my immoral imaginations, for my anger, for my bitterness, for my rebellion. Can you say this morning, that for me, all this was done for me. Not only was he delivered up, because that would make him just like any other prophet, but that he was raised again.

The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ proves that God the Father accepted the sacrifice of his beloved son. that God the Father was well pleased with the perfect life and death of his son, that the law had been satisfied, that God could free guilty sinners and still remain just, because the law was satisfied in Jesus Christ.

The law says death. And Jesus Christ experienced death, not just that physical death, but the abandonment of the Father upon the cross, that second death, that hell in which he experienced there upon the cross. The wages of sin is death. Jesus paid it all.

Therefore, the law can be satisfied. When a sinner comes to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, God still remains just because Jesus paid the price for their sin. The debt that they owe to God is cleared in Christ Jesus. And so Jesus Christ is everything to the Christian.

Not by works of righteousness that we have done, but by the Lord Jesus who was delivered up for our offences and was raised again for our justification. The justification is the removal of sin. the wiping away of the ordinances that were written against us, nailing it to the cross. Every sin that you have committed, every thought, every act, everything that you should have done that you didn't do, every sin that you did that you shouldn't have done, everything is dealt with in the Lord Jesus Christ. past, present, and future. The slate of your life, from the moment you were born to the moment that you are to die, has been dealt with in the Lord Jesus. Justified, made righteous, made guiltless before the law of God.

And this is the wonder. Whose idea was this? It was God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit before the foundation of the world. They made amongst themselves a covenant of grace to redeem the fallen human race by the father sending the son to be that substitute for sinners. He was delivered up for our offences and was raised again for our justification. How can it be ours? Surely this is the most wonderful gift that ever the world has received. I would have thought you might ask the question, how can it be yours?

The scripture says Abraham believed God. Abraham had the word of God just like you and I. We have the full counsel of the word of God, the complete canon of scripture. Abraham was saved by believing. Romans 10 tells us there. What saith it? The word is nigh unto thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith that we preach, that if we confess with the mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. But with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

For the scripture says that whosoever believes on him shall not be ashamed. That is it. Just like Abraham. Abraham is set up as this is how God saves, by believing. not by works of righteousness, but by believing. And the believing, the faith in God produces the works of obedience to God that we desire to live holy and godly and upright lives and to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in obedience to him.

The one who was delivered for us, the one who justified us is the one that we desire to follow and to walk in his ways. And so the evidence of our love to Christ is a desire to follow Christ, a desire to walk in his ways, a desire to flee from sinfulness, a desire to put to death that sinful tendency within our lives. And so the evidence of the truth of the word of God is seen in this day that Christ rose again from the grave according to the scriptures and when we be granted that true faith to believe what the Bible says about us, that we are sinners, that we can never obtain a righteousness that will please God, that we are sinners and that we need a saviour and then to believe upon that saviour and to follow and walk in obedience to that saviour.

As the angel says, Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. Remember how he spake unto you when he was yet with you. in Galilee, the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and rise again the third day, who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification. May the Lord grant you that faith to put my, who was delivered for my offences and was raised again for my justification.

Amen. This afternoon's service will be at 3pm. Our next hymn is hymn number 74 from Hymns of Worship. I know that my Redeemer lives, what joy the blessed assurance gives. He lives, he lives, who once was dead, he lives my everlasting head. Hymn number 74 from Hymns of Worship, tune 868. I know that my good deeds will join the best that's sure.

He danced through the city, once was dead. He danced by a footlong stankhead. He danced to the deathless people's death, He danced to my perfect death, He danced upon the tropical grass, He gives all blessings to impart. He destroys fear from the grave. He gives eternity to serve. In death's own glory and the sky, In death's exalted cry.

He lives to rest me with his love, else can he wait for me at all. He lives to raise me from the grave, and may at the Christ comes to earth, who still will give eternal rest. He lives and worthy is our Saviour, Jesus, my God, who reigns again. Jesus, my nation, take me back, and He will make me safe again. Healers, O glory, tell His name. Jesus, our treasure, be the same. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, with the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit, do rest and abide with us each now and for evermore. Amen.