We continue our study in the book of Romans, beginning a new chapter today, chapter 4, and we'll look at verses 1 through 8. Romans chapter 1, chapter 4, verses 1 through 8. What then shall we say that Abraham, our father, has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something of which to boast, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. This is God's holy, inspired, inerrant word. May he write it upon our hearts, let us pray. Heavenly father, we do praise you that you have spoken and you still speak. You speak by the spirit of God through the scriptures. Give us ears to hear, open our eyes to behold wonderful things from your word in Jesus name. Amen. In the first three chapters of the book of Romans, Paul labored to show us the sinfulness of sin and in Romans 3 10 he says he concludes there's none righteous no not one for all it's in and fall short of the glory of God verse 23 so all of us all human beings since the fall were born with a sinful nature we became corrupt in our hearts and guilty before God And the result of our sins and sinfulness is separation from God. We're all subject to death. Wages of sin is death. We're born under the wrath of God. We're children of wrath by nature. This is what we deserve, and there's nothing that we can do to remedy our situation. However, as we're learning now, beginning in midway through chapter three, that God has done something. God has provided a solution to the sin problem. And he sent his own son into the world. This is why the incarnation was necessary, because Christ had to come into the world to redeem us through a propitiation, an atoning sacrifice by His blood. Well, we know what we deserve. We deserve death. We deserve hell. And Jesus, who didn't deserve any of these things, took our sins, died in our place, and suffered the punishment we deserve. So Christ paid the debt of our sins so the gift of salvation could be offered to us by grace. And all that's left for us to do is simply to accept that, to receive it as a gift. And Paul made the point in Romans 3.30 that God will justify both the circumcised and the uncircumcised, both Jew and Gentile, by faith. All people are justified the same way. whether Jew or Gentile, by believing in Christ, trusting in his work on the cross. Now, to the Jews, Paul says in Corinthians, Christ crucified was a great stumbling block. And of course, foolishness to the Greeks, but he's focusing on the Jews in our passage today, the objections, the difficulties that they would have with this doctrine, this teaching of justification by faith alone. And so they were offended by that idea that someone could be eternally saved or made right with God simply by believing in Jesus. And so Paul introduces for us in this passage two of the most respected fathers in the faith, most respected Jews from their history, Abraham and David. to illustrate and prove what he has been teaching, that it's not by works, but only through faith in Christ. So we study this portion of scripture today. We see Abraham and how he received a righteousness from God that was imputed to him because of his faith. He was accounted righteous through faith. And then we see David At the end, we'll look at him briefly and how he was also justified by faith. He received the forgiveness of sins and you. Should recall, I hope that justification has two parts. There's the forgiveness, the pardon of our sins, and then the accounting of ourselves by a declaration of God, of righteousness, also as a gift of God. So on the one hand, Abraham is, we see the emphasis on the accounting of righteousness, and David, the forgiveness of sins. Now they both experience both of these things. but there was an emphasis on one or the other. So the first point that we see when Paul is using Abraham as an example of justification is that Abraham was justified by an imputed righteousness received by faith alone. Put yourself in the sandals of the Jews who heard the Apostle Paul preaching that God would justify the ungodly. The ungodly. All throughout the Old Testament, any human judge who justified the ungodly was said to be a corrupt judge. And yet here is God justifying the ungodly. They would have thought that Paul was a heretic. They would have dismissed his rhetoric as blasphemy. And so Paul was saying the Gentiles could be saved. They didn't even have to become Jewish. They didn't have to be circumcised. They didn't have to keep the law to be saved. The Jew would have been incensed to hear these things. And how could Paul say such a thing? Well, he anticipates the objections, and he brings up this example of Abraham, Father Abraham, the great father of the faith. And the question is, how was Abraham justified? And it's wonderful the way Paul asks questions, because that gets us to think, how was Abraham What did he discover in this matter? If Paul could prove that Abraham was justified by faith only, then perhaps he could persuade the Jews to whom he preached. And we'll see later in chapter 10, Paul loved the Jews. He desired their salvation, even though they persecuted him. And he, of course, had been once one of those Jewish persecutors. Verse one, what shall we say? What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? Most translators say that really we're talking about Abraham was our father according to the flesh, that it's kind of an awkward sentence to translate, but that's what's really being said there, that Abraham is our father according to the flesh. How is Abraham justified? Well, They were very proud of Abraham, their father, according to the flesh. They were proud of their connection with him. We are children of Abraham. They defended themselves against Jesus, who told them that their father was the devil. And they said, no, Abraham is our father. That's how much they thought of Abraham. And so how was he justified? How was he justified? Well, it all began with Abraham, the literal father of the Jewish nation. It all began when God called him and made a promise to him to give him, through covenant, a land, a seed, and a blessing. And so God made this covenant with Abraham, but also with all his descendants, the Jews. And what a great thing, what a great privilege to be able to say Abraham is my father and I, like Abraham, I'm a son or a daughter of Abraham. I am in covenant with God. I'm a Jew. The Apostle Paul, by calling Abraham our forefathers, reminding them that he's one of them, our forefather. I, Paul, born a Jew. Well, he made this statement then about Abraham in verse 2, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. And remember, last week we saw that Paul said that God's method of justification removes human pride, it removes human boasting. And he makes this hypothetical statement, if Abraham was justified by works." So he sort of, at least for the moment, for just a moment, leaves the question open. Let's consider if Abraham was justified by works. Was he? Well, actually it was a commonly held opinion among the Jews that Abraham was indeed justified upon the grounds of his works. If you read some of the ancient Jewish Writers, for example, one said, Abraham was perfect in all his deeds with the Lord and well-pleasing in righteousness all the days of his life. Another one said, he was one of the righteous ones not needing repentance. Now, if these scholars were right, then Abraham clearly did have something to boast about. And yet Paul says, but not before God. We can boast among ourselves. And sometimes that boasting may be true. We shouldn't do it, but sometimes it may be true that we have something over others. And Abraham did have some things that he could have boasted about before others, but not before God because Abraham was a sinner. And no sinner can glory in the presence of God, but the Bible doesn't, of course, hide the fact that Abraham was a sinner. When God called Abraham, what was he doing? He was an idolater. He worshipped idols. He was ignorant of God. He certainly was not righteous at that time. And then later, after he met God, he failed to trust God, and he lied about lied to Pharaoh and said Sarah was his sister, didn't say that she was his wife, and he lied a second time in the same way to Abimelech. That shows that he was an individual liar. So Abraham was not anything but a sinner. Now the question that comes up, why is the Bible so open and starkly honest about the sins of the heroes of the Bible, of the great men and women that we look up to, we read about in Scripture. I think there are probably several reasons, and one certainly is to show that, to prove the point that all his sin falls short of the glory of God. There are no exceptions. Abraham is not an exception. And second, if the Bible is so honest, about the sins. I mean, you know, David was a man after God's own heart. I wish he hadn't committed adultery and committed murder, you know. I would have felt better about David. But the Bible does not hide that. And so I think another lesson we learn from that is that you and I should not hide our sins. He who covers his sins will not prosper. Uncover your sins to God. Be open, be honest. and to others if necessary in your life that you have sinned against. Another lesson we can learn from the sins of these fathers in the faith is that there is hope for us, even though our sins are many, even though we too have our habitual sins, there's hope for us. If God forgave Abraham, if God forgave David for what he did, then he can forgive our sins and accept us. So, you know, Abraham and David are men that we look up to. We certainly should look at them in many ways as examples Not in every way, obviously. And sometimes we do that. We look at great men and women of the faith, men and women that we know now, who are more godly perhaps than we are, and we think, well, we could never be that good. They're righteous, they're righteous. But you know, the Bible won't let us do that. The Bible won't let us put people on a pedestal. And the Bible reminds us that David and Abraham were not good. Jesus put it this way. There's none good but God. And so that means the rest of us are in the other category. We're not good. We're not good. David wasn't good. That great person you admire, this you think is a perfect Christian. Sometimes people put pastors on a pedestal. Don't do that. Don't do that. The pastor is no better than David, no better than Abraham, no better than you, no better than any. The pastor's not good either. Only God is good. And so David himself wrote in Psalm 14, there is none who does good. He knew it. So these men were seriously flawed. And if they were saved and accepted by God, it had to be by grace. And if you're going to be saved and accepted by God, it must be by grace alone. We add nothing to our salvation. No, Abraham couldn't boast before God because all his deeds were tainted by sin and needed to be cleansed by Christ's blood. And that's the wonderful thing as a Christian, as a believer, that even though we fall short in all things, even our righteousness is tainted, it's filthy rags. In the purification of the blood of Jesus Christ, he accepts even our imperfect deeds done for his sake and in his name. He rewards the things, again, by grace that we offer to him. So Abraham had no righteousness, had no works. He couldn't boast before God. Verse three goes on to make a slightly different argument. Paul says, for what does the scripture say? Now, there's a good way to settle an argument, right? What does the Bible say? And so that little phrase, that little question is something we ought to use all every day of our lives, but especially when we're engaged in a conflict or a controversy or a discussion or a debate about something that arises, especially concerning our faith. does the Scripture say? And so, by this statement, Paul is assuming some amazing things about this book we call Scripture, this book we call the Bible. He's assuming that it's one, the Scripture. Yes, it's made up of many books and different human authors who wrote down the Word of God, but it's all one book. It's God's book, and it's His Word. And that book, he assumes that this book is authoritative. What does the scripture say? Because that will settle it. The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it. Period. Not just for me, but for anyone. And so our confession of faith puts it this way in the first chapter. The men will study this coming up in January. So if you're planning to study with us, get a copy of the book, read the first chapter of the Confession and the commentary that's given in that book. But the first chapter on Holy Scripture says this towards the end of that chapter, the supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined and opinions of men are to be examined. People have a lot of opinions about religion and about God and about the afterlife. But the opinions of men are to be examined can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the scripture. All controversies, all opinions can be settled when we look to what the Scripture says. So what does the Scripture say? And again, notice, he uses the present tense. He doesn't say, what did the Scripture say? What did God write in the past that we can look at? No. You see, he's teaching us that God is a very present God. When the Scripture is read, when the Scripture is proclaimed, when we hear it, God is speaking now. It's present tense. So the question is, are we listening? Because God is indeed speaking even through fallible men who may proclaim his word. He spoke through a donkey once, so maybe he would speak even through me if he wanted to, if he chose to. So God is still speaking. The word of God, Hebrews says, the word of God is living and active. It's not a dead letter. It is living. It's active. And one scholar put it this way. Through the written text, the living voice of God is heard. And since that's true, we need to pay close attention and we need to turn. We need to remember to think this way, that the scriptures are the final court of appeal, the perfect standard by which we judge all beliefs, all actions and all things in life. And he quotes, the scripture he quotes is from Genesis 15 and verse six. Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And so scripture settles it. Paul says to the Jews, Abraham had righteousness, but it didn't come through works, it came through faith. The Jewish rabbis, again, just like we tend to do in general, we twist the scripture to make it say what we want. They thought that that verse taught the very opposite. they understood faith as a meritorious work. Again, some Christians mistake this matter and think the same way. So they thought Abraham had merit because of his faith. That's not what faith is. And it seems like Paul is deliberately going here to hit their wrong, teaching their error head on and to explain why they were in error. And in verse four, he gives us the correction. He gives the Jews the correction. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. It's either or. If you work for someone, you are under a contract, they agreed to pay you so much money for so much labor, then when they pay you, then yes, they are giving you what you are owed. But it's not that way with God, because no one can put God in his debt. So grace is the very opposite. It's not something we can earn. It's not something we deserve. So if Abraham had been justified by works, then God would have owed him a reward out of debt and not of grace. But we know that God is not obligated to anyone who is first given to God that God should repay him, the Bible says. And that's true of man even before sin or without sin. But how much more or how much less would God be indebted to a sinful human being? No, God was never indebted to Abraham for anything that he did or would do. Whatever Abraham received from God, he received by grace just as any sinner must do. And he explains in verse five, but to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. So here's the contrast between the person who works and the person who doesn't work. We normally think of, well, the person who doesn't work, that's a lazy person. He doesn't deserve anything. And you would be right in this case. But the point is that The person who doesn't work means the person who understands that he or she cannot merit or do anything good in the sight of God that would deserve anything from God. And the interesting thing again is that this person who doesn't work is also labeled as ungodly. God justifies the ungodly. Again, that would have been counter to the thinking of a Jew. And it runs counter to human nature, indeed. You know, for God to forgive someone who is committed, think of the worst person in history, the worst person you know or have ever heard of. If you think, you know, God shouldn't forgive that person, then you haven't seen yourself as you ought to have seen yourself. Because God shouldn't forgive any of us, but he's chosen to do that because he's God and he's good. God justifies the ungodly by faith and faith only, because the ungodly has nothing but ungodliness to offer to God. And his standard is perfection. We all fall short of that. So if anyone's going to be justified as the ungodly, I'll own that if I can be justified by faith. If that's all I have to do is own my sin and trust in my Savior. And that's true. That's all you have to do. Easier said than done because we're so proud. Matthew 9, 13, Jesus said, I'm not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Are there any centers here today? Only a few. I see that. Yes. I saw those hands. Um, no, we, we, we are all centers and Jesus didn't mean that there are some who are righteous. No, it just, there's some who think they are. And then it's the others who know they aren't. Someone said, we're all sinners, but not all of us know we're sinners. But we need to know that. Jews didn't see themselves as sinners. And most of them missed out on salvation. And since they were guilty sinners, the only way they could be saved, the only way we can be saved is by faith. And Paul correctly interprets and explains the concept of faith is simple trust It's simply the instrument by which we receive the gift. It's the hand, the beggar's hand that received the gift of God, salvation. So faith does not merit anything. It simply receives what God gives us through the merit of another. And that's Jesus Christ, as we know. But what did God promise to Abraham? He promised to give him a son. and that through him, all the nations on the earth would be blessed, that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand of the seashore. But Abraham and Sarah, his wife, began to grow old, and still no son was born. So it began to be more difficult to trust and believe in that promise. But yet, that's what Abraham did. He didn't have a choice, really. Eventually, he does simply trust the promise of God. So if you would be justified, you too must trust the promise of God. Francis Schaeffer wrote, he said, Christian faith, like Abraham's faith, is never a vague thing. It's always acting on the specific promises God you say I'm saved that I'm going to heaven show me the promise that God has given to you That you have believed Well, God made that promise to Abraham the whole earth would be blessed through his offspring though He was he reached the age ripe old age of 99. He still didn't have a son and God believed that specific, I mean, Abraham believed that specific promise of God, and it was credited, accounted to him as righteousness. So what specific promises God made to us regarding salvation? Well, there are too many to list, aren't there? Let's just try one. John 3, 36. He who believes on the Son has everlasting life. Do you believe that promise? Do you believe in the Son of God, the Savior of sinners? Do you rest and trust in Him? Then you have everlasting life. Do you believe that you have everlasting life? Some people say, I believe in the Son, but I just don't know if I have everlasting life. Well, you're not believing the promise. Believe the promise. It's twofold. Believe in the Son, that Jesus is God's eternal Son. Believe that now, by believing in Him, you have eternal life. That's confidence, it's faith, it's trust. And the promise in Romans 4, 5 is that though we are ungodly, though we have no good works, and even if we thought we did, we couldn't be justified that way. The good news is that God justifies those who believe. He justifies the ungodly. and we're counted righteous in His sight by faith alone. If you're an accountant, your ears perk up in this passage because there's a Greek word here and it's an accounting term and it's logizimae and it's used five times in verses three through eight and it means to be counted, to be credited, to be reckoned, to be imputed. And so Christ's righteousness is imputed, it's credited to us through faith alone. And that leads to the second example. It will be much more brief. And that's the example of King David in verses 6 through 8. And we see here that David was justified. And that justification is demonstrated in the forgiveness of sins received by faith alone. As I said before, forgiveness is one part. Being counted righteous is the counterpart of justification. Both were true of both Abraham and David. But the emphasis in these couple of verses is on forgiveness. Verse six, David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. And I think Paul, again, uses terms here that would make the Jew pay attention. All throughout the Old Testament, we read about, you know, blessed is the man who, and you fill in the blank so many places, you know, blessing comes to the man or woman who, you know, whatever. And who is the blessed man? Who is the blessed man? Well, the one to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. That's where true blessedness begins. It's the beginning point of our experience of blessedness and there's much more to come because the Bible says in Ephesians that we have been blessed once we believe in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. And then in verses 7 and 8 he quotes from Psalm 32 that David wrote, the first couple of verses that we read. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. Well, there's so many concepts in here and truths that we could go deep, deep, deep into. And forgive me for not explaining every single detail of these verses today because there's so much here. But Abraham was saved by grace through faith, not by works. And so was David. Paul brought these two, I think, also not because, you know, David was the greatest king of Israel, Abraham was the father of the nation, but Abraham believed God before the law ever came into being. The law had not been given yet. David believed God and was justified after the 500 years after the law was given. Abraham almost 500 years before the law was given, David after the law. So a Jew might have thought, well, you brought Abraham, he didn't have the law. Now David had the law. Surely that means he needs to keep the law if he's going to be justified. Not so, says Paul. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. And you see, the covenant of grace is the same throughout scripture. It has different forms. It looks different in the old than under the new, but it's all one covenant. It's all pointing to Jesus Christ, who is the one who shed his blood to secure that covenant for us. And so Abraham, before the law, was saved through faith alone. David, after the law, was justified by faith alone. And so for you and I, we don't think of pre-law and after law. We might think of before the cross and after the cross. Before Jesus came, how were people saved? The same way they're saved after Jesus came. They're saved by trusting in the promise of God. Well, a promise is something future. Typically the promise of a Messiah the promise of a Savior who was to come it's all all you have to do is read the book of Isaiah I don't know how a Jew can read the book of Isaiah and not see Jesus there Of course God has to open anyone's eyes to see him but but but the scripture is very clear that that Abraham was justified by faith and David was too and so are those who come after the cross We have even more information, but they had enough They had enough to be saved under the old covenant. Schaeffer again, he said, salvation is always on the basis of the finished work of Christ. And the instrument is always faith. It doesn't change. So when, when you and I trust in Christ. We are credited with a perfect righteousness. And this little word, impute, is translated as impute in verse eight. And it says our sins are not imputed to us any longer. And of course the reason is, is because our sins were imputed to Christ when he died on the cross. And then his righteousness is imputed to us. This is a great exchange. There is actually a threefold, and this is in your bulletin in the notes, but there's a threefold imputation that's spoken about in the redemption that we have from God. First is that Adam's sin was imputed to us through federal headship. Adam was the representative of the human race. When he fell into sin, we all fell with him. We became guilty, we became corrupt. And so Adam's sin was imputed to us, but secondly, our sin was imputed to Christ on the cross. And third, Christ's righteousness is imputed to us by faith. So this imputation is a powerful and wonderful thing to consider. But the interesting thing is we could say that there's a fourth imputation, but it's a non-imputation, is what David is saying. And he speaks of the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. To not impute sin is simply to forgive it. Sin is no longer credited to your account. You don't owe anything on account of sin because it's been wiped away by the blood of Christ. It's not imputed to you, it's forgiven. The debt is forgiven. Now, our sin belongs to us. Our guilt belongs to us. The punishment is deserved by us. But Jesus took it all upon himself. Our sins, our guilt, our punishment, he took so that by faith and faith only, we could be forgiven. We could have sin not imputed to us. They were imputed to him, so they wouldn't be imputed to us. Now, we know these things. And a lot of these ideas are not new. Forgiveness is one of the things that almost everybody believes in, or at least in certain times of their life they do. But it's so easy for us who know a lot about forgiveness to take it for granted. David in Psalm 51, another psalm of confession and contrition and repentance. He understood this, that he had lost his focus and appreciation for God's forgiveness. But when he sinned, when he sinned greatly, when he sinned gravely and Nathan showed him his sin. Then he began to pray. Then he began to confess the sin. Then forgiveness became much more of something he was excited about. And then he prays. He says, restore to me the joy of your salvation. And it was already being restored, as you can read it in the psalm. How can the joy, how can we begin to appreciate something that we so take for granted? We ask forgiveness every day. We should ask forgiveness every single day. at least at the very end of each day. But how can that become meaningful to us? Well, there was a man named Anselm, and he was writing in the year 1098, and he wrote this great work called Cur Deus Homo, Why Did God Become Man, is what it means. Why did God become man? And Anselm began to argue for the atonement that it was absolutely necessary that Christ come into the world, become man, so that he could die as an atonement for sin. And Anselm said this, he said, if a person does not appreciate the moral problem involved in God's forgiving sinners, it's because he has not yet considered how serious a thing sin is. Wow, we have to go back to sin, don't we? We have to see the reality of it. See, David had begun to think that Probably he wasn't such a bad person. He was a man after God's own heart. He was the sweet psalmist of Israel. He had done many great exploits for God. But one night, when he saw a woman bathing on the roof, something happened. He gave in to temptation. And then he tried to cover it up. Ended up murdering, having someone murder someone in order to do that. And so he needed an atonement. He couldn't atone for his own sin, but he appreciated that atonement. He appreciated that forgiveness when he saw his sin, when he heard Nathan say, you're the man. And then it all came crashing down. Well, for those who are sinful to be declared righteous in sight of God required nothing less than the eternal son of God, the creator of heaven and earth, to become man, to enter the world through the womb of a young virgin, that he might be born, that he might grow up, that he might suffer, that he might die. He might die a cruel death on the cross and be raised from the dead. There is no other way to be made right with God. And people speculate, was there some other way God could have saved us? And I believe Anselm answers, no, it must have been, it needed to be an atonement by the very perfect spotless Lamb of God, the Son of God in our place. No other way, no other way to obtain righteousness. So Abraham and David, there's no other way for them to obtain that righteousness other than by faith in the coming Messiah. And there's no other way for you and I to obtain it other than by faith in the Messiah who has come. and who promises to justify the ungodly. And you say, Mark, you don't know how bad I am, how ungodly I am. No, I don't, but I know you're ungodly by nature. And I know, like me, that you have many sins. But Christ, the Bible says the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin. So their hope was not in themselves, not in their works, it was in God who justifies the ungodly. So this is amazing. And I hope it becomes more and more amazing to each one of us. And I want to close today with an invitation. We don't do altercals. in this church, but every sermon should be an invitation to put your trust in Jesus Christ, to return to Jesus Christ if you already have come to know him. But this is from an ancient writer whose name was James W. Alexander. I don't know anything about James W. Alexander. Somebody else probably here might know anything about him, but here's the invitation in his words as we close. Look upwards and see heaven opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. Forget thyself. Forsake thyself with all thy merits, all thy strivings, all thy tears, all thy repenting. Yea, even more and harder forget thy shortcomings, thy iniquities, thy hardness of heart, thy unbelief. Flee away from it all. and leave all far behind thee while thou does fix thine eyes upon the advocate with the father. Look unto him and be saved. This is the beloved son in whom the father is well pleased. Let's pray. Well, Lord, we thank you that you are a good and gracious God. And we know that because you sent your son, your beloved son, your sinless son, a spotless lamb, to be crucified, he was horribly mistreated. But that was not the worst of it. As he hung on the cross, he said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Oh, Lord, let every person, young or old, in this room come to have true faith, saving faith in the Son of God. In his name we pray. Amen. Please let's turn together in our hymnals.