He was in great misery and torment. He was wrestling, wrestling with truths that he had learned that he could not reconcile with each other. He had learned that in order to be forgiven of sin, one must confess their sin. And then he read these words in Romans chapter one that said, in the gospel, the righteousness or the justice of God was revealed. And for him, the justice of God meant punishing sin. If God is a righteous God, a just God, that he will punish sin. How is that good news? And so he began to confess sin. And he began to write down his sins. And the more sins he would recognize in his own life, the more he'd realize he could not possibly even realize all of his sin. He could not write it down. He could not confess it because sin was in his very being. So he went to his spiritual counselors. And his spiritual counselors told him, well, you should go read the great Christian mystics. And so he went to go read the great Christian mystics and they said, all you need to do for salvation is love God. And it was anathema to him. How could he love a God that said it was good news that his sin that was in him that he could not get a grasp on would be judged by him? How could he possibly love that God? And his soul was in torment. He was depressed spiritually. And so his confessor said, I think it's time to move you. Move you with some responsibility. So Martin Luther was then moved from his place of study into a university professorship at a new university, the University of Wittenberg. And there he began to immerse himself in pastoral duties, but also in study. There he began to immerse himself in preparation for lectures. And he began in 1533 by lecturing through the Psalms. And what he found in the Psalms, the way Luther read the Psalms, was that when the Psalm is spoken, the first person, that was Jesus speaking to his church. And so he saw a Jesus who suffered. He saw a Jesus who identified with suffering, and Luther was surely suffering. But he could not reconcile with, because Luther was also a Trinitarian. So he believed that there was one God, three persons, one God, and there was not a disconnect between them. So it couldn't be God as the vicious, mean, righteous judge, and Jesus as the one who loved and who understood suffering. And so he began to meditate again because he moved from Psalms to Romans two years later. And when he got to Romans chapter one, verse 16, in it, that is the gospel mentioned in verse 16, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith or by faith to faith. And as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. And so his meditation led him to say, how are these two things true? And through long and difficult study and struggle, the Holy Spirit converged upon him to say, the righteousness of God is not only his judgment of sin, but this is the revelation of the righteousness of God. And it's in the gospel because the righteousness of God is revealed in Jesus Christ. And it is Jesus Christ who will be punished for the sins of all who will believe so that the believers, the righteous, who receive not their own righteousness, and that's where Luther was dying under the weight of his misunderstanding. He knew he was not righteous. He knew he could never come to righteousness. And he realized that the gospel presented in Romans 1, 16 and 17 was saying that God's perfect righteousness would be revealed in Christ so that it would be God's righteousness given to him and not his own. And this exploded in his heart. And he wrote these words, I felt that I had been born anew and that the gates of heaven had been opened. The whole of scripture gained a new meaning. And from that point on the phrase, the justice of God, the righteousness of God, no longer filled me with hatred, but rather became unspeakably sweet by virtue of great love. That is the difference between a misunderstanding of justification by faith and an understanding of justification by faith. If we are a people who think that all righteousness comes through our own works, if we are open to the scriptures in our own hearts, we realize our works can never save us. We know that because we constantly and perpetually fail. But when we understand what God did in Christ, and that justification by faith, justification by faith means that this is an alien righteousness that comes to us. It's a righteousness from somewhere else, and we do not receive it by works. We cannot receive it by works. We receive it by faith, which itself is a gift from the Almighty God. It changes everything for us. Now, we study the Reformation every year around this time. This is one of the cardinal doctrines that was redeemed in the Reformation. It was not the only doctrine, but it seemed to be the central doctrine that was at discussion. Everything seemed to flow from this. in a church at the time that Tetzel was selling his indulgences so that the church could raise money. And those indulgences promised salvation. It promised salvation for people who were already passed on. And Luther said, this is not the gospel. And so to regain that focus, the reformers, not just with them, beginning a couple of hundred years earlier with people like Wycliffe, the Morning Star of the Reformation, who was going against the church and the way the church was set up in government and where the authority was mislaid. That stream of history provided the vehicle, the man-centered vehicle that God used to redeem the church and bring it back, bring it back to a full understanding of the gospel. It was all God's doing. Martin Luther could say that justification by faith was the article on which the church stands or falls. Luther could say justification by faith is the hinge upon which all religion moves or swings. central to everything that was going on. Now, this is the fifth year that we've had a Reformation celebration, and we have gone through the five solas. This is the last one to go through. It happens to be what I preached nine years ago, the first Reformation Sunday I was here. I preached a sermon on justification by faith. But over the last four years, we've gone through the solas. I don't remember the orders, but we have studied this enough that you know these. that these are these Latin terms that say that salvation is all the alones, is sola this, and sola that, and soli this. And we say that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And so we anchor salvation in those areas, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, according to the scriptures as our final authority alone. And so the sola fide, through faith alone, is the last one that we need to look at through our first five years of this Reformation study. And that's what we will do today. We will look at the idea of justification, but more so at the idea of justification by faith. Not by works, but by faith. And you say, well, okay, I believe that already. I know that already. I know that justification is by faith. Is there some reason we need to recover this now? Yes, because it's just as much an issue for the church today as it was at the time of Martin Luther, and then into John Calvin, and then into the Puritans. It's just as much an issue of the church today. The Catholic church still believes that justification is not by faith. Listen to the Council of Trent, just one sentence from session six, chapter seven. The instrumental cause of justification is the sacrament of baptism. The instrumental cause of justification is the sacrament of baptism which is the sacrament of faith without which no man was ever justified. If that is still a core doctrine in the Catholic Church, it is still a battleground for us in the church at large today. But it is a battleground right in reformed thinking churches. Because there's discussion today about racial reconciliation and how that should be accomplished, and there is a certain thinking in this whole discussion, a discussion that needs to be had within the church, that seems to align those people who have a different view of racial reconciliation as being outside the gospel. So that the measure of whether one's saved or not is whether they agree with this certain thinking of racial reconciliation and whiteness and white privilege. This is a discussion going right on in reformed circles today. And so what we see in that is that it's not justification by faith, it's justification of whether you agree with us on racial reconciliation. And so the justification, the doctrine of justification by faith is still under attack. And so it is important for us to understand that we are justified by faith and faith is a gift from God. And Paul goes to great lengths in Romans and other places to affirm this for us. So what I want to do today is I want to look with a very specific focus through the passage that Jay has already read for us, Romans 4. We won't turn over every stone in Romans 4, but we are looking at this proof of justification by faith. Now a great place to preach on justification by faith is Romans 3, but That's already been preached on a couple of weeks ago. So the foundation is set there, isn't it? We'll start in Romans 3 and look at the promise of justification, who orchestrates that justification, and what that means. And then we move into Romans chapter 4, where Paul is using examples and texts from the Old Testament to prove that justification is by faith and not by works. And it is for both Jew and Gentile. And that's what we will look at today. So turn, if you will, to Romans 3. Our text has already been read in Romans 4. And one other thing that I forgot to say that it's important for us, it's important for you personally. You see, if you get justification wrong, you get sanctification wrong. If you get justification wrong, you get hope wrong. If you get justification wrong, you get obedience wrong. If you get justification wrong, you get joy wrong. Most of what follows in the Christian life is hindered or skewed or flat out pursued in ungodly ways if we get justification by faith wrong. If we have any hint in our own thinking that our works, our obedience, our profession, our walking the aisle, our outward appearance, any of that has any bearing on our justification, on our being legally reckoned as righteous. So getting it wrong leads to much problems in our Christian life. So we want to get it right. So we are those people that as we learned on Friday night from the Puritans, that they are the ones who understood God, but they also understood the passion with which we should pursue that relationship with God. The passion with which we should pursue it and what that would mean and look like in our life and our pursuit of holiness. All of that is tied to having a right view of justification by faith. Romans chapter three. Three. I'm gonna get to four, but we gotta set four up. Yep, go by that, go by that. We're gonna get there, but I gotta set it up in chapter three. The first three chapters of Romans has spent Paul doing what? What's he doing in the first three chapters up to chapter three, verse 20? He's showing everybody's guilty, right? Look at chapter three, verse 19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. Now we'll deal with that a little bit more, but remember what Paul talks about in Romans 7. Paul talks about sin using the law as a base of operations to attack. So Paul says, just turn to Romans 7, keep there and we'll just cover this now so it makes sense to us when we get there. Turn to Romans 7, just look at a couple of verses, keep your finger in chapter 3, Romans 7, 7. What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means. Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, you shall not covet. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came along, and I died. Now that's Paul's confession in chapter 7 of what happened as he began to understand that it's what Martin Luther went through in his dark days and that before the tower experience. He went through this struggle saying, I know I'm sinful and the more sin I find in me, the more sin there is. And I couldn't wipe it away if I had to. So Paul spends all this time back in chapter three, Paul spends the first three chapters up to verse 20, making sure that both Jew and Gentile, which means everybody, right? That's everyone, are guilty before God in their flesh. But now, verse 21, one of the greatest but gods in all scripture, right? But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. So this is Romans 1, 16 and 17, which is the proposition statement for the whole book. So now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. So it's not turning over the Old Testament. Both the law and the prophets, all of the Old Testament, teach the same thing. Now we've seen that even in our study of the Old Testament, both in Leviticus and other places. You remember the purpose of the burnt offering, chapter one of Leviticus? What did it do for the believer? It let them approach God. Right? The burnt offering, God accepted them when they gave that offering. Now we know that the blood of bulls and goats do not forgive sin. But if they believed God, then God would accept their offering, because it's as he commanded to do, and they would be able to approach him. So that's an example of the foreshadowing of justification right in Leviticus chapter one. We see the same thing in passage, well, we'll look at a psalm in a little bit, several of the psalms, we see the same thing in passages like Isaiah 53. It was the will of the Lord to crush the Savior. So that, among other things, many would be counted righteous. Right there in Isaiah 53. And that's what Paul is telling us here. Look at verse 22. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. The righteousness of God, remember it's been revealed in the gospel according to chapter 1. It's through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. So we see the parameters set up. The righteousness of God is revealed in Jesus Christ. And the people who receive that are the people who believe. It's through faith that that comes. For there is no distinction. Verse 23. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's chapter 1, 2, and 3 up to verse 20. and are justified by his grace as a gift. So what do we learn about justification so far? It's free, right? It's according to God's grace and it's free. So just by definition, we're not expecting to hear, and so therefore you must earn it this way. We're already expecting it to hear that it's free. Through, how do we receive it? Through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. whom God put forward as a propitiation. So this is God working, he put forward Jesus Christ, just like Isaiah 53 said would happen, as a propitiation. Now, we've talked about propitiation so many times over the last nine years, I almost feel like I'm browbeating with you this, but you need to understand what propitiation actually means. Propitiation is a sacrifice through which God's wrath is stayed, but it doesn't just stop there, does it? Then, because of that sacrifice, his wrath has stayed, but he also has turned to us in favor. So not only is his wrath taken care of in this sacrifice of Christ, because it is a propitiatory sacrifice, but now God looks upon those who will believe with favor. That is so key to justification, to understanding what justification actually is. Because justification is not making you righteous. Justification is declaring you righteous even though you're still a sinner. That's the beauty of it. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the righteous. No, Christ died for what? Sinners, the ungodly. So to understand the propitiatory sacrifice is the foundation of understanding justification. Justification is the legal declaration that those who have received the righteousness of God through Christ and through faith received that, they are legally pronounced innocent. In other words, righteous, just. So this is one of the places where some people get this mixed up, and I got this mixed up. Long time ago in my ministry, one of the first sermons I preached before I was a minister of music and youth, and I think it might have been the first sermon I preached, I said, oh, I hate to admit this, I said from the pulpit that justification was like being infused with God's righteousness. That is heresy. Because we are not infused with his righteousness. If we were infused with his righteousness, what would that mean? It would mean that we become righteous. But the declaration of God is he declares us righteous even though we are still sinners. He declares us righteous so when he looks at us, remember, his gaze has been turned toward us in favor. So now when he looks at us, what does he see? Us, sinners? No, Christ, righteousness. and He declares us legally, permanently, forever, able to be in His presence. So the infusion is a different theology. Sadly, only one person came up to talk to me about that afterward. And I'm thankful they did, because it showed me my error, and I've never said that again until today. So we are declared righteous in justification. Back to Romans 3. whom God put forward, verse 25, as a propitiation by his blood. So this is, we know all about that from Leviticus, we know about that from Revelation. It's the shed blood of Christ that provides the forgiveness of sins because if we are gonna be declared righteous, part of justification is having our sin forgiven. Not just sin we've already committed, but sin that we will commit. And we'll understand that even more as we go along. To be received by faith. There it is again. Justification by faith. Righteousness by faith. This was to show God's righteousness. Remember, it's a demonstration of his righteousness. It's to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be the justifier and the one who justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. This is the key to understanding the gospel where God remains just. Because if God winks at sin, we are in trouble, aren't we? Because if he winks at anyone's sin, then all of us have nothing to hold on to. But since he doesn't, he's provided our justification through the blood of Christ by his will, by his design, so that his punishment of sin doesn't just go away, but it's placed upon his son. So that his son's sacrifice becomes the propitiatory sacrifice that turns his wrath away from those for whom he died. That's the good news of the gospel. That God remains just as he justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Again, justification by faith. Verse 27, then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? He is not the God of Gentiles. Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. So, Paul is making the case that we are justified by faith through the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus Christ, whom God put forward by His own will to accomplish just that. The whole idea of sola fide comes right from this verse because in Luther's German translation in verse 28, he wrote in German, for we hold that one is justified by faith alone apart from the law. Now the Greek doesn't say alone, but it's what it means. We are justified by faith and nothing else and apart from the law. So Paul says it, but he's still going to prove it. Chapter four. In chapter four, Paul teaches three facts that establish the principle of sola fide, justification by faith alone. Now, when I went through Romans four, when I preached through Romans, this was four sermons in chapter four. It's a half a sermon today because our point is to see Paul's flow of proving from the Old Testament scriptures, which is sola what? Sola scriptura. that we are justified by faith. And through this passage, we're gonna see all five solas represented right in chapter four. So the first fact that Paul brings, justification has always been by faith. It was for Abraham and it was for David. Look at verse one. What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? There's our solo scriptura principle, right? Paul's a good Berean. Paul's where we should be. Oh, you say justification is by faith. What does the scripture say, Paul? Can you prove that from scripture? Paul says, yes, I can. Look at Abraham. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. There's Genesis 15 6. What did he believe? He believed the promises that God made to him. Called him out of his land. I'm going to make you a great nation. He made promises to him and remember the Abrahamic promise has a physical side and a spiritual side. Jeff Johnson our friend over in Conway wrote a book that he describes that as the dichotomous nature of the Abrahamic covenant. So there are physical promises to the nation of Israel and to a physical land and there were people within Israel that did not have circumcised hearts but were still connected to the Israelites, right? There were people who were part of the physical promise, but not part of the spiritual promise. We have to understand that to understand chapter four. There were other people who were also part, they were part of the Israelites, but they were also part of the spiritual promise that is fulfilled in Christ and points forward to the new heavens and new earth. So the land is not a piece of dirt. The land is the new heaven and the new earth in which we will dwell. That's why all the New Testament talks about this in five different places is inherit the earth. The entire earth, the new earth that we studied about in Revelation. So verse 4. Verse three, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. So this word counted, it has to do with a reckoning. We might say imputed, right? So in scripture we have these three imputations. Adam sins and his sin is imputed to the human race. Paul will talk about that later in Romans as well. That when Adam sinned, we all sinned. But also, in the gospel, our sin is imputed to Christ. That's why his sacrifice can be a propitiatory sacrifice. It is imputed, our sin is imputed to Christ. So Christ, the innocent one, who committed no sin, is punished because our sin is imputed to him. But that doesn't just leave us there, does it? Because if that's it, then all our past sin is imputed, that before I finish this sentence, you and I have sinned again, we're guilty again, right? So there's a third imputation, a third crediting, a third reckoning, a third granting to an account, and that is Christ's righteousness to us. so that not only our past sins, but our present life and our future life are all under that sacrifice. So that we know that once we are justified, that's why our salvation is secure. Nothing more is needed. Nothing more we have to do to maintain it. We have responsibility. We have sanctification. We have sin that we need to fight. We have obedience that we need to pursue. We have holiness we need to pursue. But all that flows out of the fact that we have been justified as a free gift from God and that he has declared us righteous on the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So the timing, 15.6 is what Genesis 15.6 is what's quoted in chapter three, or verse three, look at verse four. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. So you understand this principle. When you go to work, whether you're working for a salary, or you're going to take an hourly wage, or you're working for somebody for the day, or babysitting, or doing lawn work for them, you make an agreement. They say, I need you to do this work, and I'll pay you this money. You say, I will do that work. And when you get done doing that work, what are you expecting? The money that was paid. That's the agreement. You did the work. You earned it. You have the right to boast about that. You can say, I just earned this $0.49 by trimming weeds all day. Because that's what you'll have left after taxes. No. You can say that. You can say, I earned that. I worked for that. So that illustration works for us well. If we move that into the area of salvation, we are in deep trouble. because we get according to our work. And our work produces not perfection, but it produces sin. It's a mixed bag. And if somebody is guilty of one sin in the law, they're guilty of all, violating all the laws. So Paul is saying, listen, Abraham, he was justified by faith, as we know in Genesis chapter 15. And he says he has nothing, Abraham has nothing to boast before God because he didn't receive anything in his righteousness that he worked for. His boast is in God. That's why Paul says that so many times in the New Testament. Our boast is in the cross. If I'm gonna boast in anything, it's gonna be the cross of Jesus Christ. That is our boast. Well, we'll come back to Abraham, but we also see David. Look at verse six. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness, imputes righteousness apart from works. In other words, imputes righteousness by faith, not by works. And then we have Psalm 32, the first two verses quoted verbatim from the Septuagint. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. You see the imputation that we have to understand? Those who are by faith in Jesus, their sins are not counted against them because they've already been counted against Christ who has suffered perfectly in our place. David sings that psalm long before Christ. So it's not only Abraham as an example, but it is David as an example who sings the song of grace in Psalm 32. So what we're seeing is Paul begin his argument by going back to the scriptures to say it's always been this way. It's by grace that we are saved. Well, not only justification has always been by faith alone, but justification by faith is a gift for all who believe. We've already seen this. Now Paul's going to prove it. And he's going to say it was for Abraham. It is for Abraham's circumcised spiritual children, the Jews. It is for Abraham's uncircumcised spiritual children, the Gentiles. It could not be learned through law keeping. It must be received by the righteousness of faith. That's what we see from 9 all the way through the first part of 17. What he's already said in chapter 3, he now proves. Let's look at what he says. Verse 9. Is this blessing, that's the blessing that David trumpeted in Psalm 32, God does not count his sin against him, Is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? That's a big question in Rome, right? Rome has Jews and Gentiles in the church. So there are some Jews that are there wondering whether they have to still obey the law. There are other Jews that are there saying everybody has to still obey the law. There are Gentiles there who are kind of gloating in themselves that they don't have to obey the law. And Paul's going to deal with all of them through his book. And he starts here by saying what God's plan is. He can't say what he needs to say to Jews and Gentiles later on if he doesn't tell them what God has already accomplished in Christ for both Jews and Gentiles. And he goes back to Abraham in verse nine. We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 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 so that the righteousness would be counted to them as well. And to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. So you see what he's saying, right? Faith was counted to him as righteousness when he obeyed, when he believed, chapter 15. He's circumcised in chapter 17, and that's the place where it's the seal of, in other words, that is the evidence that he already had faith granted to him before the obedience of circumcision was required. So he still uses Abraham and said that purpose was so that today I can tell you circumcision is not needed for justification. Righteousness does not come through circumcision. Why? Because righteousness does not come through the law. It doesn't come through works. The law will kill you. Works will kill you. Righteousness comes as a gift from God. So he returns to Abraham and said, it was this way for Abraham. And he starts using this language of our father, Abraham, because that is going to be important through the rest of the argument as he develops it. So he is saying that it's for both the circumcised and the uncircumcised, but he also returns to the idea of law keeping and righteousness by faith in verse 14. Well, let's set 13 first. And in verse 12, you saw the circumcised heart and the circumcised flesh, right? Paul says in chapter two, not all Israel is true Israel, right? That there is a circumcised Israel in the flesh and in that group, there's a circumcised Israel in the heart. Those are the people who walk according to faith. Those are the people who have believed God. Those are the people who have received God's salvation because their faith is credited to them as righteousness. It's always been this way. Look at verse 13. We see the next five or six or seven verses all outlined here. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be the heir of the world, and we see that in several places within the New Testament, Hebrews chapter 11, 2 Peter chapter 3, Revelation 21 and 22. Jesus says in Matthew 5, 5, blessed are the meat for they shall inherit the earth. For the promises to Abraham and his offspring that he would be the heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. So, he begins to develop this in two different sections. It could not be earned through law keeping, he says at the beginning of 13. It must be received by faith, he says at the end of verse 13. So let's see what he says about the law in verse 14. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. Or faith is made of no effect and the promise is nullified. Why? For the law brings wrath. But where there is no law, there is no transgression. Now that's not saying before the law there was no sin. Paul's going to deal with that in other places in Romans as well. It's talking about like Paul talked about in Romans 7 where we started, that there's no transgression of the law before it's given. We know there was sin from the beginning. Where did that start? In the garden, right? We know there was sin from the very beginning. We know that the first murder happens in chapter four. God's not pleased with that. So there is sin. Both Job and Abraham, all around that same time, they're offering sacrifices. How do they know to do that? We don't know, but they knew to do that. Maybe God told them. They were offering sacrifices because they knew about sin. But the law had not been given so that the law could not be transgressed yet. So that's what he's saying in verses 14 and 15. It nullifies the promise to Abraham if that promise is fulfilled by law. Because Abraham received his righteousness before he was given the command to be circumcised. Now, let's understand real quickly what this law means. How does the law push us towards sin. Paul says the law is good, holy, righteous, if one uses it wisely. Well, using it unwisely would be to attain our salvation, because no one can do that. So, in the same way that Paul talked about covetousness, there are study after study after study that show that people are inspired to do things once they're forbidden. And your kids prove that to you, don't they? You shall not do this. Well, that's something maybe I should do. There's been studies done in several places. I pulled out another one that I had not seen before where a researcher, he's an expert on the theory of persuasion, he conducted an experiment in the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. The park had a problem, so they put up this sign. Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft, by losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year, mostly a small piece at a time. That was the sign. Guess what happened after they put up that sign? More people started stealing more of the petrified wood. Some of them were thinking, well, I mean, I better get some before it's gone. Maybe others thought, I never thought about taking that, but that would be something good on my mantle. And so his study showed that once the sign went up forbidding it, the law was done, the transgressions increased. So that's what's being dealt with here. Since the law is used by sin as a base of operations to do its work, it cannot lead to our justification. God knew that, and in his grace, he provided a way that does lead to our sanctification. Justification, yes, thank you. It leads to our sanctification too, but I meant to say justification. So look at verse... 16. This is why it depends on faith. Not the law, but faith. In order that the promise may rest on grace. You see, God's the one that made that promise before anything was done. And he didn't tie it to anything that needed to be done. He tied it to nothing but his character. He made the promise, Abraham believed it, credited to him as righteousness. and be guaranteed to all his offspring, not only to the inherent of the law, the Jew, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, Gentiles who are not Jews, who is the father of us all." Oh, so Abraham's not just the father of the Jews, so all the Jews in the room may be saying, what? And all the Gentiles in the room are going, what? They can't figure this out. But Paul's saying, this has always been the intent. This is what Genesis 15 always meant. As it is written, verse 17, I have made you the father of many nations in the presence of the God in whom he believed, that is Abraham, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. So he's turning his argument and saying not only Jews but also Gentile because Abraham was the father of all who believe. And we'll look at another passage that gives us more clarity on that in a minute. But stay with Paul's argument. Justification by faith is a gift for all who believe. It was for Abraham. It's for the spiritual children of Abraham. Not all the children of Abraham. Not just the physically circumcised, but the spiritually circumcised. Circumcised hearts. And the same with the circumcised hearts of the people who are not Jews. It's for all of them, and it cannot be accomplished through keeping the law. It must be received by grace, otherwise the promise is null and void. So Paul is building his case. And the final fact that we see is that justification is granted to those who believe God by faith, so their faith is credited as righteousness. It takes believing by faith. If you want righteousness credited to your account, this is what it takes. And he's going to begin by saying, it was with Abraham, and it is for us. This is where it comes and touches us. Look at the second half of verse 17. In the presence of God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist, in hope, he, Abraham, believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations. As he had been told, so shall your offspring be. Back to Genesis 15, five. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God. Solidae gloria. You see the purpose, all of this, even for Abraham was to give glory to God. It was all a gift. He gets the glory, not us. We can't boast before him. We've done nothing that deserve our righteousness. When we boast, we can boast, but we boast about Christ. We boast in the cross. We boast in the work that has already been finished on our behalf. Fully convinced, verse 21, that God was able to do as he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. Now that's clear, right? He's hammering this point. Abraham, his righteousness, was credited to him because of his faith. And that faith was a gift of God. God is the one who raised him up to do that. And he just gives the example. God's talking nonsense in human eyes to Abraham, isn't he? He's talking nonsense. He's old. His wife is barren. They're both old. He's talking nonsense. But when God spoke, faithfully, he believed. He didn't just listen. He believed. Did that faith waver? Did Abraham always do what was right? No, because it wasn't about his works. It was about the gift of God, the free gift of God that credited his righteousness to himself. Well, look at verse 23. It was to Abraham, but it is to his spiritual children. But the words, it was counted to him, there's that imputation again, were not written for his sake alone. but for ours also. That's for you and me as well. It will be counted to us, credited to us, imputed to us, who? Who is the us? Us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Do you see the gospel there? That is what belief is. Faith has an object, right? If faith does not have an object, it's not faith at all. It's the evidence of things not seen. Right? So, faith has an object. And in the Christian realm, if you want God's righteousness revealed in Christ to be credited to your account, you must believe that Jesus died, that Jesus rose, and that He lives. You must believe that. That gives glory to God because, remember, what did we learn? God put forward Christ, it's the redemption in Him. He was the propitiatory sacrifice. If we don't believe that, then we cannot have righteousness credited to our account. Now, let me tell you, all the debates today that go on in so many different areas, sometimes you would think, even in Reformed circles, that if you don't believe in the Reformed view of salvation, you can't be saved. Aren't you glad Paul didn't say that? Aren't you glad God didn't intend that? We've had people right here in our congregation before, not here today, but right here in our congregation before, who have argued that if you do not believe the ideas expressed in TULIP, which we do as a church, we hold to, we think that's biblical, and if you don't believe that, then you cannot be saved. That's a lie from the pit. What you have to do to be saved is, by faith, receive the gift that God has given to you through the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And here's what that means. It has an object, your faith does, but it's also not just intellectual assent, is it? It's not just, how many of you, before you were saved, believed that Jesus died and rose again? Many people believe that. How many people believe that Jesus was God before they're saved? Many people believe that. It's not an intellectual assent. It is a God-given gift of faith, right? Salvation comes from God. It is not by work so that no man can boast. We are saved by grace through faith, and that, both grace and faith, is a gift from God so that no one can boast. Just what Paul deals with here in Romans. That is the essence of the gospel. Believe on Jesus Christ. Believe what is amazing to you, that God became incarnate, fully God and fully man, and it was God the Father's plan to send him, and it was God the Son's willing obedience to go, and it was the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit who said, this is the way we will redeem the humanity that you created, that we created. We will redeem them in this way. And they did that, the miraculous event of Jesus becoming a man born of a virgin to live the perfect life so that he could fulfill the law perfectly, that he could be the one who fulfilled the law and then make the promise that if you believe that he has done that, you will be in union with him and receive the same blessings, receive the same seat in the heavenly places. Now that is a monstrously idiotic idea in human terms, isn't it? It has to be grasped and received by the faith that God gives us. And when we do, it's credited to us as righteousness. Think of it this way. Faith is the vehicle that we receive. So if somebody sends you a million dollars in the mail, and it's in your mailbox, and you look at it, but you don't reach out and grab it, have you received it? Somebody else gonna get it pretty quick? What do you have to do? You have to take your hand, the hand that God gave you, the faith that God gave you, reach into your email, reach into your mailbox. Oh, goodness, my product of my time. Reach into your mailbox and take what is a gift. Now, you have to be able to do that and God gifted you to do that. He gifted you with an intellect. He gifted you with a hand to do that. Well, if you transfer that into the spiritual realm, he's gifted you to receive his gift as well and told you what you must do. You must believe in Jesus Christ. So justification is by faith. It is always been by faith. And through it, our sins are forgiven. Now, what does it mean for us? Do you remember the commercial a few years ago, I think Lowe's put it out, may have been Home Depot, but I think it was Lowe's, about the guy, the do-it-yourselfer, you know, trying to get you to come into the store to get another project done, and he's hanging a ceiling fan, and he's hanging that ceiling fan, and he gets done, and he smiles at it. He walks over to the wall and turns it on, and a second or two later, it blows up and falls on the floor. And then the camera shifts to the outside in this very pastoral setting of a front yard and the front of the house. And all of a sudden what you see is that ceiling fan come crashing through the bay window out in and breaking up the yard. Because by works, he could not do what he intended to do. That is the picture of us if we intend to live our life, crucify sin, glorify God by our flesh, by works. That's what we do. That's the ending of it. It's just like that guy. We stand back and we say, well, look what I did today, and it crashes to the floor. We get mad, because we've sinned again. We throw it out the living room window, and we go back, and we get up, and it's Groundhog Day, because the next day is the same, and the next day is the same. Galatians chapter three. If you begin by believing in justification by faith, you don't start pursuing sanctification, pursuing holiness by works. You do it through the same gospel that saved you. It's based upon the truth of your justification. That you now have the power of the cross directed toward you. That's what Paul was telling the Galatians. Look at chapter three. Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? And we can say with our topic today, did you receive righteousness by works of the law or by hearing through faith? Verse three, are you so foolish? Having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain if indeed it was vain? Does he who supplied the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Do you see that? You can preach the gospel from Genesis chapter 15 verse five, just as you can preach it from Genesis chapter three. The gospel is the point of the scriptures and it's not just an idea, it's a person. And the person is Jesus Christ. Verse 10, For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith. The quote from Habakkuk that Paul used in Romans 1 chapter 17. But the law is not of faith. Rather, the one who does them shall live by them. You want to live by the law, you will die by the law. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree, so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith. The last verse in that chapter, And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. There's an old story told that Ray Ortlund tells. I'm just gonna read his version of it. He says, we were married to Mr. Law. He was a good man in his way, but he did not understand our weaknesses. He came home every evening and asked, so how was your day? Did you do what I told you to do? Did you make the kids behave? Did you waste any time? Did you complete everything I put on your to-do list? So many demands and expectations, and hard as we tried, we couldn't be perfect. We could never satisfy Him. We forgot things that were important to him. We let the children misbehave. We failed in other ways. It was a miserable marriage because Mr. Law always pointed out our failings. And the worst of it was he was always right, but his remedy was always the same, do better tomorrow. We didn't because we couldn't. Then Mr. Law died and we remarried. This time to Mr. Grace. Our new husband, Jesus, comes home every evening and the house is a mess, the children are being naughty, dinner is burning on the stove, and we have even had other men in the house during the day. Still, he sweeps us into his arms and says, I love you, I chose you, I died for you, I will never leave you nor forsake you. and our hearts melt. We don't understand such love. We expect him to despise us and reject us and humiliate us, but he treats us so well. We are so glad to belong to him now and forever, and we long to be fully pleasing to him. Being married to Mr. Law never changed us, but being married to Mr. Grace is changing us deep within, and it shows. Do you see the juxtaposition? It's not that we don't care about our sin as righteous, redeemed, redeemed believers declared righteous. It's that Jesus loves us while we were yet sinners and continuing until the day he returns. And that produces in us a desire to be obedient to him by the power of the gospel, not by the works, because he loves us in spite of ourselves. That's the picture of the gospel that you live by. It fuels your sanctification. It fuels how you obey Him. It fuels how you deal with it when you fail Him. It fuels how you take insults. It fuels how you deal with lost people. It fuels your conversation with people. Because you know that if they put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, they will be declared righteous as well. And all of their sin, the sin that is driving you crazy in their life, either is or will be redeemed, so what right do you have to do anything except love them? It may be hard, it may be speaking the truth, but it is loving them nonetheless because Christ first loved us. John Wycliffe, we started in, after the Reformation, we'll end at the beginning of it. He writes, trust wholly in Christ, rely altogether on his sufferings, beware of seeking to be justified in any other way than by his righteousness. Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient for salvation. There must be atonement made for sin according to the righteousness of God. He is the just one and the justifier. The person to make this statement must be God, not man. That's the doctrine that was uncovered again in the Reformation that we need to keep in the forefront of our minds if God will use us in the next Reformation.