Romans chapter four. Now we've been working through
the first few chapters of Romans. Romans is a very significant
book. It is one of the great books
of explanation with respect to the gospel of the Lord Jesus. And the Apostle Paul, of course,
was a preacher of that gospel and he testified both to its
personal saving power, It had saved him, and he was a man who
was delighted to tell the story of his salvation and his conversion
as often as he was given an opportunity. Throughout the pages of the New
Testament, I think we have three or four times when the apostle
gives his testimony. But he also, as well as talking
about the personal aspect of that salvation, He was keen to
show men and women, those that he was preaching to, those that
he was writing to, the work of God in salvation, because this
is something that we always need to remember. Although we have
a personal experience of God, although something speaks to
us, speaks to our heart, speaks to our soul, speaks to our mind
and our conscience, and there's a feeling and there's a knowledge
and there's an experience of grace, that experience is based
upon a much grander work, a much more eternal work, a much more
divine work which God himself has accomplished and it would
be quite improper for us just to think about salvation as it
relates to us. Rather, if we are going to see
the fullness and the greatness and the majesty of that salvation,
we have to trace it back to its source, back to its origin. And when we do that, we find
that we will be personally blessed even more because we'll realise
just what our salvation cost and we will have occasion to
thank God for the grace and the goodness and the mercy which
he has given to us. So here in this church, we endeavour
to have a proper balance. Yes, we are interested in one
another. We're interested in fellowshipping
with each other. We're interested in getting to
know each other. We're interested in helping each
other and enjoying each other's company. But we also want to
be able to speak of where our salvation comes from. These things
that we share together in the gospel of Christ, these have
a long and illustrious history. And it's that history that we're
talking about here in the opening chapters of Romans, where Paul
is telling us all that God has done and how that salvation comes
to an individual and is felt and experienced by that individual. And he uses a man called Abraham. Now Abraham was a man who was
introduced to us right at the beginning of the Bible, in the
earliest chapters of the book of Genesis, right at the start
of Scripture. And he is introduced as a man
who lived in a heathen country. He lived in a country that worshipped
idols and had nothing to do with God, had no care or concern about
the true God, was very superstitious. But God called him out of that
country, out of the land of the Chaldeans. And he called him
to follow after him. And God spoke to Abraham. And
what Paul does is he uses the example of Abraham to show how
God's grace works and how men and women can be made fit for
the presence of God. So we're going to read a little
bit about the way in which this man, Abraham, found his experience
of God, and then we'll look at how Paul takes that experience
of Abraham and shows us how the work of salvation was worked
out in God's plan, in God's mind, and in eternity. So we're going
to read from verse 13 of Romans chapter four. And it says there, for the promise
that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham
or to his seed through the law. but through the righteousness
of faith. So here's this man Abraham that
we're talking about. For if they which are of the
law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none
effect, because the law worketh wrath. For where no law is, there
is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that
it might be by grace. To the end, the promise might
be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the
law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who
is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made
thee a father of many nations, before him whom he believed,
even God. who quickeneth the dead and calleth
those things which be not as though they were. Who against
hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many
nations according to that which was spoken. So shall thy seed
be. And being not weak in faith,
he considered not his own body, now dead, when he was about a
hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb.
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but
was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded
that what he had promised he was able also to perform. and
therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was
not written for his sake alone 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, who was delivered
for our offences and was raised again for our justification. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading. So Abraham, do you remember last
week we spoke a little bit about this man Abraham because he was
mentioned in the verses before as well and if you weren't here
last week don't worry because this is a standalone sermon you
don't have to be able to carry it forward but we did meet Abraham
last week and I want to just read a couple of verses that
are important in the context of this man Abraham so that we
know what the people at Rome probably already knew. with respect
to the promises given to Abraham that Paul speaks of in this passage. And I just want to read a couple
of verses from the beginning of Genesis chapter 15. Genesis
chapter 15. You don't actually have to turn
to them. Just listen to what I'm saying here and see if you
can get the picture that we have of Abraham and his experience
of the Lord. says in Genesis chapter 15 verse
1, After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in
a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding
great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what
wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of
my house is this Eleazar of Damascus? And Abraham said, Behold, to
me thou hast given no seed, and lo, one born in my house is mine
heir. And behold, the word of the Lord
came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that
shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad
and said, look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be
able to number them. And he said unto him, so shall
thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord and
he counted it to him for righteousness. So this is the passage that the
apostle Paul is referring to. in the New Testament from the
history of Abraham. So the Lord Jesus Christ we learned
previously met Abraham. This was the Lord that was speaking
because it says the word of the Lord came to Abraham and whenever
scripture tells you that the word of the Lord came to Abraham,
it's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. Just store that away. It's always the Lord that comes
and speaks. It's always the Lord Jesus Christ
who comes and speaks because He is the word, he is the word
of God, the revelation of God to men and women. And this is
what Abraham had been told. The Lord Jesus Christ met him
and he made him an unconditional promise. Now, what is an unconditional
promise? If your mum says to you, I've
got something special to give you as a gift and I'll give it
to you if you behave yourself. Is that an unconditional promise
or is that a conditional promise? It's a conditional promise because
you're only going to get it if you behave yourself. God gave
Abraham an unconditional promise. That meant that Abraham was going
to get what he had promised no matter what he did. No matter
what happened, God had promised him something unconditionally. The word of the Lord came unto
Abram in a vision saying, fear not Abram, I am thy shield and
thy exceeding great reward. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ told
Abraham that this is what he was to him. He was his shield. He was his exceeding great reward. And we thought about the fact
that that word shield means that here was someone who was standing
for Abraham, who was standing, as it were, between God and Abraham,
one who was interposing himself as a shield, as a defender. And
it speaks to us of substitution. It speaks to us of someone standing
for someone else. A mediator. A representative. And the Lord
Jesus Christ told Abraham, Abraham, I'm your representative. I'm
your substitute. And he says, not only am I your
shield, but I'm your exceeding great reward. I love that phrase. I think that is such a wonderful
phrase. You know, he could have said,
I'm your reward, and we would have stood here tonight in Great
Falls, and we would have said, isn't that wonderful? The Lord
Jesus Christ told Abraham that he was his reward. Hallelujah! But it gets better because he
didn't say that he was his reward. He said he was his great reward. And then he topped that off and
he said, I'm your exceeding great reward. I don't know whether Moses, as
he was sitting writing this, let out a little hallelujah when
he wrote that down. But what a beautiful phrase. What a beautiful phrase is exceeding
great reward. It speaks of limitlessness. It speaks of comprehensiveness. It speaks of everything's included
here. It's broad and it's deep. And it's high. It's everywhere. It's everything. It's an exceeding
great reward that the Lord Jesus Christ promised to be to Abraham. Sometimes we talk about superlatives. Good, better, best. And this is the best. This is
the top. This is the greatest that could
ever be. This is an exceeding great reward. And that reward, remember, is
the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, I am thy exceeding great
reward. He's telling us that the Lord
Jesus Christ himself, if we have Christ, we have everything. There's nothing else that can
be had. We've got everything. We've got
an exceeding great reward. So the Lord Jesus Christ is both
our shield, our substitute, our mediator, our representative,
and our exceeding great reward. And that's what Paul's speaking
about when he begins this little passage. And I just want to take
you again to verse 13 of Romans chapter five. Just look down
at your Bible with me for a moment here. Because when the apostle
begins in verse 13 saying, for the promise, for the promise,
he's speaking about this promise. He's speaking about the shield
and the exceeding great reward. Now, Paul changes the words. He changes the words here, because
look what he says. He says, yeah, I know that he
said, I know that the Lord Jesus said, I'll be your exceeding
great reward. But he writes something different.
He writes, heir to the world. This is the promise. that he
should be heir to the world. That's just the same. That is
saying, Abraham, everything is yours. Absolutely everything
is yours. If you've got Christ, you've
got everything. You have the exceeding great
reward, Abraham, you are heir to the world. It's all yours. If we have Christ, we have everything,
and the whole world is ours. Do any of you feel that you're
owners of the whole world? You should. You should, because
if you've got the Lord Jesus Christ, you've got everything. You've got better than the whole
world. You've got Christ. You are an
heir and a joint heir with the Lord Jesus Christ. And all things
are going to be put under his feet. That means all things are
going to be put under your feet. That means that you are heir
to the whole world. Everything, everything is yours. Now people might say, if they
hear me saying this, not you because you're too polite, but
if anyone else hears me saying this at any time, they would
probably say, that man has delusions of grandeur. But it's only a delusion if it
isn't true. And this is true. This is true. This is mine. This is yours. If you love the Lord Jesus Christ,
the whole world is ours. The Lord Jesus Christ promised
Abraham the whole world. And note too, the promise when
it came, It came with an I am. I don't know whether you noticed
this. He said, I am thy shield. Now we know about the I am's
in the Bible, don't we? Because the Lord Jesus Christ
used that phrase quite a lot of times, especially in John. You see that John uses that phrase.
He said, I am the good shepherd. I am the way, the truth and the
life. I am the door. When the Lord used I am, he was
drawing the minds of his listeners back in time to a time when Moses
met God at the burning bush. And the Lord God introduced himself. It was the Lord Jesus Christ
again. Remember what I said, it's always Christ does the speaking. It was the Lord Jesus Christ.
And when he spoke to Moses, he said, I am that I am. This phrase,
I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. This is telling
us that it was the Lord Jesus Christ. The other thing that
we can notice about this verse is that he speaks about fear
not. Fear not. And therefore, that
is a statement of encouragement, not to be anxious, not to be
worried or concerned or upset. Fear not. He says, I have all
power and authority. I am thy shield and thy exceeding
great reward. And don't you worry about it.
Don't you worry about it. Don't you be frightened. Don't
you be concerned because I've got all of this under control.
What a promise for anyone to be given. What a promise to this
man Abraham that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to him. Now I just
want to show you something else from verse 13 because I think
it's interesting that for the promise we are told, this great
promise that was given to Abraham that he should be the heir of
the world, that he should inherit everything, was not to Abraham
or to his seed. So that tells us, some people
will tell us, now what that means is that Abraham was going to
have lots and lots of children and that is the sense in which
he was heir to the world. No, it can't mean that because
what it says here is that the promise was to Abraham and his
seed. So the seed couldn't have been
the fulfilment if the seed itself was going to be heir of the fulfilment. So the promise is to Abraham
and his seed. It's to those who have faith
like Abraham. It's those who trust in God.
It's those who have this righteousness of God that we've been speaking
about bestowed and granted to them. So here we see that the
blessing is to be longed to Abraham and to those of faith. It says it didn't come by the
law. We know that, we mentioned that as well before. The law
was still 430 years away. It wasn't even given then. So
Abraham couldn't be expected to receive this promise because
of his personal obedience to the law. That wouldn't work because
there was no law for him to be personally obedient to. So Paul's
argument here is that this promise didn't come to Abraham through
the law. And that's pretty obvious. It
was nothing to do with his personal obedience. And this brings us
back to that word that I used before. It wasn't conditional. The promise that the Lord Jesus
Christ gave to Abraham was not conditional. It's an unconditional
promise. The Lord God did not say to Abraham,
I will be your shield if you pray more to me. He didn't say, I will be your
shield if you wear a black tie more often. He didn't say to
him, I will be your shield if you don't tell lies anymore. He didn't say to him, I will
be your shield if you keep yourself pure. Those would be conditional
promises. Those would be promises based
on the fact that Abraham was obliged to do something, and
if he did it well enough, then he would get the benefit of the
promise. That would be a conditional promise.
But this was unconditional. The Lord came to Abraham and
said, I am thy shield. I am thy exceeding great reward. Do you know that Abraham wasn't
even asked to believe that? Stick that in your pipe and smoke
it. He wasn't asked to believe it. He wasn't... So unconditional
was this promise that Abraham wasn't even asked to believe
it. It was a simple statement of fact. Abraham, I am your shield. I am your exceeding great reward. Salvation is all of God. Salvation was not of Abraham. The promise was complete, an
exceeding great reward, unconditional. It was unilateral. It wasn't
dependent on Abraham holding up his end of the bargain. It
was a gift. It was bestowed. It was granted. Here Christ says, I am your shield
against sin. I am your shield against condemnation. Here is a blessedness beyond
imagination. And it was freely given. It was
freely given. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord
God said to Abraham, Abraham, I choose you. Abraham, I choose
you. I am your shield and your exceeding
great reward. I am going to give you the whole
world. I'm going to give you everything. Grace is not dependent upon believing. There are no strings attached
to grace. It's not tied to faith. It's
not contingent upon your faith. It's free. It's unconditional. And it's without any contribution. Let me tell you this. If the
Lord God has justified you, if the Lord God makes you righteous
before him, if the Lord God gives you the righteousness of God,
it is absolutely nothing to do with you. Isn't that extraordinary? Nothing to do with you. Nothing
that you could do to earn it or get it or gain it or keep
it. It's God's free grace and he bestows it on whomsoever he
will. He gives it to whomsoever he
wants. If you are justified, it is because
you've been made righteous because that's what justification means.
It's because God justified you at his own good pleasure. and for His own good pleasure. That's why you're justified.
That's why you're made holy. That's why you're made righteous. If you're righteous, it's because
God chose you and made you so for His own glory and for His
own praise. Now, I want to draw something
else because this really ought not to be news to us. It ought
not to be new. It ought not to be a new concept
or idea because in fact that is the entirety of the gospel
and it was early declared. I want to go back to another
man, it was the writer of this story of Abraham, the man who
wrote the first five books of the Bible. His name was Moses,
and Moses, in time, some 400 and odd years later, he would
be the leader of the children of Israel, and the children of
Israel were the people who came from Abraham. So it's all bound
up together, because Abraham at this time didn't have any
children, and he was 100 years old, and his wife was an old
lady, and her Ability to have children had long since passed. She'd never had a baby. She was
an old lady and she couldn't have any children. And the Lord
said, Abraham, I'm going to give you children. I'm going to give
you a heritage. I'm going to give you seed. And years later, the children
of Israel, we could call them the children of Abraham, but
because Israel was Abraham's grandson, but we call them the
children of Israel. That's the name that they have
in scripture. But years later, Moses was the
leader of the children of Israel. And he met God also. And this is what happened. This
is from Exodus chapter 33 and verse 17. And the Lord said unto
Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken, for thou
hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. So here,
the Lord's telling Moses that as well as Abraham receiving
grace and as well as Abraham's name being known by God, Moses'
name was known by God too. That speaks about election. That
speaks about God's choice of these individuals. So he knew
his name and he says in verse 18, and he said, I beseech thee,
show me thy glory. Moses wanted to see the glory
of God. And God said, I will make my
goodness pass before thee. I will proclaim the name of the
Lord before thee and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious
and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. That's the gospel. That's the
good news of the gospel, that God has a people to whom he will
show mercy. And when Moses said to God, show
me your glory, show me something of your majesty, show me who
you are, show me what your name means. The Lord God said, I'll
show you. I'll show you who I am. I'll
show you all my glory. I will show you my goodness. And here's my goodness. I will
be merciful to whom I will be merciful. And I will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious. You don't get the mercy of God
because your daddy's a preacher. You don't get the grace of God
because you live in America. You don't get any of the blessings
of God's goodness because you pray a lot, or because you don't
swear, or because you don't tell lies, or because you've never
done anything really, really bad. That's not how this works. It didn't come to Abraham through
the law. That's the whole point. It was
a gracious gift, completely unconditional. Salvation is unconditionally
granted, freely bestowed, entirely as a gift at the prerogative
and choice of God, because it pleases Him to do it like that.
And that's it, because it pleases Him to do it like that. And for
no other reason. Now somebody might say, but don't
you believe in justification by faith? And I will say, well,
yes, even although that's not a biblical phrase, we do believe
in justification by faith. But we insist on a proper understanding
of that phrase, because what that phrase does not mean is
that a man's faith justifies him. It just doesn't mean that. It is God who justifies and God
justifies completely and God makes righteous completely independently
of the individual according to his will and purpose and good
pleasure. Faith, faith is God's gift also. And it comes as the means whereby
a sinner is shown what the divine goodness has done for him or
for her. That's it. That's what faith
is. If you've got faith, if you've
got faith to believe, that is a gift which has been given to
you by God, by the Lord Jesus Christ, in order that you might
see what the eternal God has done for you. It doesn't make
what the eternal God has done happen. It doesn't trigger it. It doesn't make it effectual. It just shows you what it is
that has been done for you. Faith is God's gift and it is
given to sinners to show us. It brings an understanding. by which we can discover the
goodness of God towards us. So returning to Abraham then
and this man, we see that it was through the righteousness
of faith that he understood what God was saying to him. He had right faith, if you like. The faith understood that this
was a gift of grace towards him. It rightly trusted God at his
word. It believed the promise of protection
the shield afforded. It believed that the inheritance,
the inheritance of the world, the exceeding great reward, was
truly going to be his. He believed that what God had
said was true. And he believed it. He hoped
against hope because he looked around and he saw his wife, an
old lady who'd never had any children and who was barren.
And yet, through it all, he said, well, you know what? If God said
that, I believe it's gonna happen. If God said that, I believe it
is true. In verses 14 and 15, they're
logical arguments that the apostle puts forth to show that Had it
been that the promise was going to be given another way by obedience
or by some sort of condition that had to be fulfilled, then
there wouldn't have been any need for faith. In fact, there
wouldn't even have been need for the promise to have been
given. Why would God make that promise
to Abraham if it wouldn't have any effect as a standalone promise,
if it needed Abraham to add something to it? Now the law always was
given not to help men gain God's goodness, but to expose and reveal
sin in us. Never to improve us, only to
show us how much of God's forgiveness we really need. Never to bless
us, only to condemn us. And this promise of salvation
rather was received and believed by faith. Therefore it is by
faith, and that's what Paul says. Showing and proving that the
gift was a gracious gift from God. coming equally to Jew and
Gentile, that they received the promise after the pattern that
Abraham received it, that is, by believing God. So what can we say? We can say
this, that God has a people in this world. God has a people
in this world. He has a people whom he has chosen
to be their shield and to be their exceeding great reward.
A people like Abraham, to whom the blessings of his grace and
goodness and his mercy, like he said to Moses, I'll make my
goodness pass before you, you will see who I am, the one that
is gracious to whom he will be gracious, who is merciful to
whom he is merciful. His grace, his mercy, his goodness
is given at his choice to certain individuals in this world. And those individuals will be
given faith to believe the promises of God. And that message, or
as that message, is preached to them in the gospel. So we
will have God, the Lord Jesus Christ, lifted up as the sovereign
elective God, the God who is our shield, the God who is our
defender, the God who is our exceeding great reward, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we will see that there is
a promise from God that has been given in the gospel, whereby
the faith of an individual laying hold upon that promise receives
the fullness of the promise as their own. Paul shows that despite the seemingly
insurmountable impossibilities of Abraham ever having children,
he believed God. I don't know about you, but maybe
you sometimes think, How is it possible that I'm ever going
to get out of the problems of my life? How is it possible that
I'm ever going to have a conscience that is clear from all this guilt
that I'm carrying around with me. How is it possible that I'm
ever going to be clean, that I'm ever going to be cleansed,
that I'm ever going to be right with God? How is that possible?
And I'll tell you, there are people out there and they will
give you 101 things to do to make yourself right with God.
And they'll say, if you do this, if you do that, if you live up
to this, if you read your Bible every day, if you pray better,
if you do this, and they will give you lots and lots of things
to do. That's not what it's about. That's
not what Paul is teaching here. It's nothing to do with what
you do. It's to do with what the Lord
Jesus Christ has already done. And the question is simply this.
Do you believe God? Do you believe that it is possible
for God to cleanse you from your sins? Do you believe that it
is possible for God to be your shield and your defender against
the condemnation that comes against us for all the wrong that we
have done? Do you believe that God is going to give you the
whole world? Do you believe that he will be your exceeding great
reward? Reason, reason says no. The flesh says no. Satan says no. Religion says no. But God says yes. Jesus Christ
says yes. Jesus Christ says I am. I am
thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. Verse 21 in our
passage says, and being fully persuaded what he had promised,
he was able also to perform. You see, that was Abraham's position. Abraham was fully persuaded that
this God who spoke to him, this God who promised these things
to him, was able, he was fully persuaded that he was able to
perform that which he had promised. And that's it. This is the message.
This is the message tonight. This is the kernel of the nut.
This is the diamond in the ring. This is the gospel. This is the glorious heart of
the gospel of God's grace. Do you believe that God is able
to save you? Do you believe that in the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the shield stood before the wrath
of God that justly ought to have been yours? Do you believe that
in the person of Christ there is an inheritance, a blessedness,
a goodness, a grace and a mercy that flows freely to sinners
like you? Do you believe that? God has
said that's what he's doing and if he gives you the gift of faith
whereby you can believe that, that is the testimony that you
have a portion in this great work. He that cometh unto me
I will in no wise cast out. And it is as we believe in these
things that we see we are persuaded that God is able to perform those
things which he has promised. Can I persuade you tonight, as
Abraham was persuaded, can I persuade you tonight that God is able,
able, able to save a sinner like you? The gospel is that God has saved
the people by his free grace. Apart from anything that they
do, apart from their history, apart from where they've been,
apart from what they've done, all of the bad things, you know,
we could make a great big catalogue. We could all shout up all the
bad things that we've done and we'll make a great big catalogue.
None of that matters. That's the whole point about
grace, is that the Lord Jesus Christ has taken all our sin,
and he has taken it upon his own shoulder and he has died
for the sins of all of his people. And outside of the law, there
is grace entirely at the will of God. Everything needful for
our atonement, the shielding by Christ, new life, blessings,
comprehensively bestowed, accomplished. Do you believe he's able? then
the faith of God's elect is his gift to those who believe. And it is imputed and it is received
and it shows us that we are righteous before a holy God. So I say a
plague upon the house of anyone who makes salvation conditional
upon the work of an individual. The power and the promise of
God has said that salvation is a free gift. It comes freely
and it brings with it the faith that enables us to believe and
receive the blessings of grace. And Paul speaks to you this evening
and he speaks to me in these things. He says there in verse
23, Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed
to him. This wasn't written for Abraham's
sake, but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed if we believe
on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. Oh, faith
is a wonderful thing. Believing is a wonderful thing.
And if God grants us the gift of faith, then we will see that
these great blessings of grace and of forgiveness and of the
exceeding great reward that is the Lord Jesus Christ are freely
bestowed by God upon us. who was delivered for our offences
and raised again for our justification. God grant us faith that staggers
not, like Abraham's faith that staggered not, but rather simply
to trust in the power of God and the promise of God for that
righteousness which is acceptable to him and that justifies sinners
like us. Amen.