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I want to invite you this evening
to turn with me in your Bibles to Romans chapter four, Paul's
epistle to the church at Rome and the fourth chapter. I believe we will seek the face
of God in prayer before we read the scripture this evening. Dear Father, we counted a great
privilege and an honor to come apart from the daily affairs
of our lives and to devote ourselves to the worship of our dear and
blessed Savior, your Son, Jesus Christ, the Lord. We ask again,
dear Father, that you would illuminate the message, the truth of scripture,
and bring it home to bear upon our hearts that we might have
a firm conviction concerning this most vital doctrine, that
of justification. Also, dear Father, we want to
pray in general for your blessings upon our lives as we seek to
live for you and walk with you. We pray for those who are facing
health challenges or other issues in their lives that you would
be gracious and minister to each of them. We also want to pray
for Nick and Carissa as they're flying out. in just a little
while for Texas and ask that you would protect them and keep
them safe. And we pray for others in Iowa
and Nebraska and various other places that have had their homes
destroyed or businesses and their lives upended through the storms
that have hit in those places. And we ask that you would be
gracious and merciful to them and that you would use organizations
and churches to assist them in this time of tragedy and work
powerfully spiritually in many people's hearts and lives to
strengthen your people and your kingdom, but also to awaken and
evangelize many who may be lost in those places. All of these things we pray in
Jesus' name, amen. Justification, very important
biblical doctrine, was introduced to us in chapter three, verses 21 through
26, as one of several doctrines that are essential to the righteousness
of God being applied to our lives. So let me just take a second
to remind us that justification is the act of God, who is the
judge, of course, of all the earth, in which he declares righteous
a sinner in Christ. Now, a lot of times
we emphasize justification by faith. I'm speaking, I'm not
leaving that out as a point, but just to emphasize that justification
in its bare essence is God declaring guilty sinners righteous because
they're in Christ. And of course, we are in Christ
through faith in him, by believing the message of the gospel. Now,
the passage that we have before us this evening, since justification
has been introduced, Paul knows that this is a difficult passage. And so, not a difficult passage,
but a difficult doctrine for the people that he's writing
to. He wants to go in greater detail on this particular doctrine.
And so what he's gonna do here in verses one through eight of
chapter four is prove the doctrine of justification. So before we
look at the proofs that are given to us in these eight verses,
I want us to think together just about for a second, just about
the importance of proof. Proof is important to all of
us. It's not just modern times. At all times, people needed proof
of certain, you know, claims that were made or pieces of information
that might be given to them. What is the proof of that? Is
what I'm hearing and receiving, is it true? Is it correct? And
so I want to emphasize the importance of this by asking, how much can
you and I believe today that we read literally in books, magazines,
on the internet, or that we hear on social media or all the different
media outlets that are in the world or television or podcast
or even in talking to people on the street or at work or someplace. I mean, we understand maybe more
than than any other time, how much misinformation is presented
with dogmatism by somebody who pretends to be an authority.
And we've learned that you simply cannot believe everything that
you hear. It's, I think, generally in our
society very important that we hear what we're hearing with
a sense of skepticism and the need to evaluate what
we're hearing. We need proof about certain things,
or most everything. So how do we know what to believe? Well, the essence of that, the
simplest statement would be we need proof. We need some visible
proof. Of course, we know today that
people can create videos that are complete lies. They're made up. We know that
movies, I remember I was very frustrated, the movie that was
done on Winston Churchill, having read a little bit about his life
through the years, and was just shocked when I listened to the
interview with the producers of the movie, because they added
things that were completely fabricated. And the producers said, this
was my truth. In other words, he made up a
lie, called it his truth. And that is a generally received
practice in our society, which shows us, of course, the bankruptness
of our society. You can't change what a person's
life was like, whether it was for good or for ill, and make
it true just because you say it's true. It doesn't work that
way in God's universe. In fact, when we talk about the
sanctity of life, we can also talk about the sanctity of truth.
And truth is sanctified in the same sense in which literally
life is sanctified by God. The Lord Jesus Christ is truth. And one of God's commandments
is that we're not to bear false witness. We're to speak truthfully
because God himself is true. So when we say simply, we need
proof about certain things, the proof must come from a valid,
trustworthy authority. We can't believe, I mean, if
somebody's gonna say something that's untrue, then they're gonna
say, oh, this is true, and maybe give some reason why. In the
case this evening, I'm going to appeal to the authority of
the Word of God, which is the greatest single authority in
all of creation. And really the church has a valid
authority that is greater than any other authority And there
are some legitimate authorities in the world, but none are as
valid as the Word of God, as the Word of God presents spiritual
truth, the way of salvation, and the revelation of God to
us. So having seen the importance of proof and having proof, Paul
wants to prove to his audience that the doctrine of justification
by faith in Christ is true. So he gives four proofs, four
arguments that prove justification. The first one is in verses one
and two where it says, What then shall we say that Abraham, our
father, was found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was
justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before
God. So the first proof of the doctrine
of justification, I'm gonna call a practical argument. It's a
practical argument. that proves justification. And
in very simple terms, the argument could be presented this way.
Abraham could not boast. Now, what makes this argument
a proof and a powerful proof of the doctrine of justification
is further things that are going to be said. But at this point,
the Jewish people generally believed in salvation by faith and works. You needed to believe God. They
had a lot of references to belief in God throughout the Old Testament,
but they also misunderstood passages of the Scripture and had become,
especially Second Temple Judaism, had become very dependent upon
and seeing the importance of the ceremonial law and works
and things of that nature. And Paul is saying Abraham could
not boast. Now let me show you that here.
First of all, let's think about the fact of who Abraham is. Abraham
is told, we're told in Isaiah chapter 41 was the friend of
God, which is a very significant statement written under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit many years after Abraham had lived. Abraham
is the person who's called out of Ur of the Chaldees to come
to a land that God would show him. He is the man who becomes
the father of the Jewish nation. He is the one through whom the
Abrahamic covenant is named. And he's the one that God entered
into a covenant or established a covenant more correctly with
Abraham. and has this far-reaching impact
in terms of the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ and the
plan and purpose of God from that day forward, which was a
revelation of the plan that God had had all along. So when we
come to verse one, the question of verse one can be read this
way, because it's a little bit awkward, the verse, or the question
there at verse one. And to smooth it out, I might
present it to you this way. What then shall we say that Abraham,
our forefather. So Paul is acknowledging Abraham
as his forefather and the forefather of the Jewish people that he
is addressing at this particular point. He is our forefather according
to the flesh, which means in natural descent. We've descended
from him physically and a part of the nation of Israel, the
family of Abraham. And the gist of this question
is, what is it that we as such have found in him, which refers
to his terms of acceptance with God. How is it that our forefather
Abraham that we have descended from, how did he, how was he
accepted by God? How did he become the friend
of God? And he answers that question
for us, or even before I give the answer from verse two, we
might even state the question in more simple and practical
terms, we might put it this way. How did he gain his position
of favor with God? Because if we look at it this
way, we can begin to see how clearly Paul is forcing them
into thinking about this issue. And the answer in verse 2 is,
if he is justified by works, he could boast, but not before
God. That's what he's saying in verse
2. And therefore, the way he's saying this, and we could read
past it and not appreciating it, he's saying Abraham couldn't
boast. He cannot boast. And he's going
to tell us in verse three why that is. But this is a practical
argument that he's giving us. And we see consistently Paul
speaking in these kind of terms, teaching us in other places so
that we will understand that we are not to boast in ourselves. To boast means to glory in Or
a better, more practical way might be to say that we are not
to take pride in ourselves. Abraham couldn't be proud and
say, I believed God when nobody else believed because he his
belief was, you know, the means of of his. his receiving this
favor from God or that he did these X amount of things the
way God required them and so God received him based upon those
particular things. And I think one of the best descriptions
that's given to us of the practical argument is Paul's own testimonial
words concerning himself. So hold your place here and just
turn with me quickly to to Philippians chapter three. And I only want
to read a couple of verses in this passage, but Philippians
chapter three is really a powerful passage on the righteousness
of God from a very practical point of view. So in verses eight
and nine of Philippians three, this is what Paul writes. He
says, Yet indeed, I also count all things loss. The all things
that he's talking about is what he had mentioned previously about
being circumcised on the eighth day of the stock of Israel and
the tribe of Benjamin being a Hebrew of the Hebrews. and concerning
the law, a Pharisee zealous and persecuting the church, and concerning
righteousness, which related to obedience to the law, he viewed
himself as being blameless in keeping all of that. He says,
all these things I count loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus our Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss
of all these things and to count them as rubbish, as trash, as
something to be thrown out on the trash heap, that I may gain
Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness,
which is from the law. I'm renouncing any righteousness
of my own from keeping the law. keeping the ceremonial law, keeping
the sacrificial law, keeping the moral law. I'm claiming no
righteousness, Paul says, by keeping the law of God. But that
which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from
God by faith. And so he's making this differentiation
clear, unmistakable, practically. He has nothing to boast of. He
counts it as rubbish. Any good works that he performs
as meaningless. He's resting solely in the righteousness
that is put to his account by the mercy of God through faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I would say to you this evening
that there is no way to have real peace of conscience except
by renouncing our own righteousness and receiving the righteousness
offered to us in the gospel by faith alone. So the first proof
or the first argument given proving the doctrine of justification
is a practical argument. Abraham couldn't boast. Now if
Abraham couldn't boast, which is in many ways the high watermark
of a person in the Old Testament, neither can we boast just as
Paul wouldn't boast. The second argument is given
in verse three where it says, for what does the scripture say?
Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. So the second argument, I'm going
to call a biblical argument. There was a practical one first,
but the second one is a biblical argument. And the biblical argument
can be stated this way. Abraham believed God. Now for his audience, many of
them would say, yes, Abraham believed God, but he also worked.
and that his righteousness was obtained by both belief in God
and works. But Paul is going to hear, as
he unfolds this biblical argument to us, he's gonna first of all
cite scripture, which really shows us the importance of this
argument, just the citation of the Old Testament scriptures.
Paul appeals to the sacred scriptures of the Jewish people. And he
quotes from Genesis 15, six. And of course, this passage on
Abraham comes into play not just in Romans, but also in Galatians. And it is vital arguments that
Paul is going to give for every doctrine that he's teaching us
about eternal salvation. So we can say this, and I think
we as a congregation understand this, but this is also important
for you to use in arguing with people in your evangelism, and
that is the conclusion of all questions is the clear teaching
of the Word of God. And whatever God is teaching
and presenting to us, that settles the argument. It's not about
what I believe or what I have felt or what I have experienced
or what another person feels or believes or thinks, but it
is what saith the Lord. And when God has spoken in his
word to us and given us information, then that becomes the end of
the matter, so to speak. And if God has not spoken on
a matter, we should remain silent. There's no reason for us to be
debating, as it were, with anyone about something of that nature.
But that's just the importance of this particular argument. Let me break down the content
of this argument in a threefold manner. It's really easy, but
this helps me to emphasize the statement of this verse. First
of all, Abraham believed God. And what it means when the Bible
says this, we believe something, it means we trust the one who is behind this statement,
which is God. We rely upon the veracity of
this statement, and we have confidence in the meaning and explanation
that Abraham believed God. And to be even more specific,
we can say that Abraham believed that God would save all of those
who would trust in the promise that God had given concerning
a future Redeemer or Savior being sent into the world. Now, people
falsely assume that belief is a work that puts them in God's
debt, but that is not at all what belief means. Belief is,
as I've noted previously on a couple of occasions, belief or faith
is not what saves us. It is simply the conduit or the
means through which we receive the promised gospel, the truth
of the gospel that has been promised. We receive it by faith. In verse
4, Paul shows us that the idea that faith is somehow a work
that saves us is patently wrong. And we'll see that in just a
moment. But not only did Abraham believe God, but we might secondly
explain the content of this argument with God accounted it to him. And the word accounted, as we've
already seen, means to have something imputed to us or credited to
us or reckoned to us. And it's translated all of those
ways in different places, depending upon the context. But it's basically
a mathematical or an accounting term of which something is possessed
by someone else and is given to or is put in your account
and credited or given or reckoned to be yours. And so God, through
Abraham's belief, has something credited to him or given to him
that he did not have and that was not earned by him at all. And that brings us to the third
explanation of the content of this argument, what was it God
accounted to him? Righteousness. Abraham believed
God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And righteousness
refers, as we've seen, first of all, righteousness is the
theme of this book. It's the main controlling thought
that the Apostle Paul is turning over again and again from various
doctrines and ways that we need. And this righteousness is a right
standing before God. It is literally, it is a legal
reality in the throne room of God that is given to people by
God because of the finished work of Christ. Not because of our
religious beliefs or our religious practices, but because of the
finished work of Jesus Christ who bore the penalty of the law
of God in our place. That is how we are justified.
God's righteousness is given to us and we are declared righteous. because we have received his
righteousness put to our account. And so Abraham is accounted as
righteous by faith or through faith, not by doing anything. The righteousness is a free gift
from God. So the second proof is the biblical
argument. Abraham believed God. That brings
us to our third proof. And it's found in verses four
and five, which says, now to him who works, the wages are
not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him, speaking of
Abraham still, who does not work but believes on him who justifies
the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. So whether
it's Abraham or one of us, this is how God is working with Abraham
as the illustration for us. So the third Proof is a judicial
argument. We've had a practical argument.
We've had a biblical argument. Now we're given a judicial argument. And in simple terms, that judicial
argument is this. Works deserve wages. None of us want to go to work,
work all week. And this has happened. People have worked before and
not gotten paid, did not receive the supposed wages that they
should have earned. Maybe the company went bankrupt
and things of that nature and they never received wages. But
the understanding of all of humanity is that if you work for someone
else and you labor for them, that you receive wages and you
receive what you deserve or what is promised to you for that particular
work. Now, to unfold verses four and
five and to make it plain, I'm gonna give you the principle
of works explained, and then the principle of grace explained. We'll start with the principle
of works, which is really laid out for us in verse four. Now,
to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but the
wages are counted as debt. If you worked all week somewhere
and then the boss came and gave you a check and says, I'm giving
this to you. You can just have this. I'm feeling
really, really generous today. I'm just want to give you this.
You'd say, wait a minute here. You're not giving me anything. You're
paying me what I have worked to earn from you. And this is
clearly the argument that Paul is laying out here. Works are
not according to grace. Works are according to debt. Debt is something that we owe.
So if we work for somebody, they owe us pay for those works. So works earn wages, and wages
are dues or money that is paid for work that is rendered. So
if justification is by works, it is not a gift. That's Paul's
argument here in verse 4. If justification is by works,
then It's something that we have earned and that we deserve and
that we are given because we have rendered the work that is
necessary. Now, many other places Paul argues
wonderfully against the whole concept that salvation is by
works. One of those places is Titus
3 and verse 5, where he says, not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy. He saved us. Mercy is something that we receive
that we do not deserve. And that is how God saves, by
His mercy, not by our works. And it's important for us to
think about these things and to be reminded of these constantly
so that we Never think about our works as having any saving
merit at all, but rather to think of our salvation always and only
as the result of the grace and mercy of Almighty God. So that's
the principle of works explained, but verse 5 gives us the principle
of grace explained. Both works and grace are mentioned
here, but we can see how works is explained and then we can
see how grace is explained. Verse 5 says, but to him who
does not work, doesn't work in order to receive salvation, doesn't
labor because he believes that if he does certain things that
he will receive mercy and grace from God, but believes on him
who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. So let me explain grace this
way. First of all, grace is not by
works. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, for by
grace you've been saved through faith and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. It's interesting how these concepts
are found in different forms, in different places, communicating
the same basic truth. Secondly, this grace is explained
as to be Grace is to the one who believes from God. Grace is from God. It's not gracious
in a natural sense or in any other sense whatsoever, but something
that God is doing. So this belief is the means through
which this salvation comes to us. This belief is not a meritorious
virtue. This belief is focused on God
who declares people righteous. This belief is in an alien righteousness
which is put to our account. So you see how he repeats some
of the same concepts from the first three verses in this fifth
verse again because he's reinforcing the same basic idea in different
ways over and over again. And then thirdly, in explaining
grace, we can see that this grace is to the ungodly. Now look at that fifth verse
again. But to him who does not work
but believes on him who justifies the ungodly. That's really startling to a
great deal of the world that we live in. I've had witnessing
experiences when I said God doesn't save righteous people. He saves
unrighteous people. And they were upset and thought
that I was some kind of a false teacher. Because they were taught
wrong. They were taught to devalue works
and devalue them as a as what brings merit and and benefits
from God. That's a deceptive false gospel. Who are the ungodly? And some
of these same people think that, you know, only certain really
bad people, they're in prison somewhere or, you know, they're
pedophiles or something like that, that they are ungodly. They don't think about themselves
as being ungodly. The scriptures are clear and
unmistakable. Everyone who has sinned is ungodly.
One sin, if you only committed one sin in your life, you would
be in the category of ungodly. Grace is to the ungodly. So if
you, this is why the statement made by our Lord is so powerful. Jesus says, I did not come to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. I didn't come
to call righteous people. And what that means there is
I didn't come to call self-righteous people. I didn't come to call
people who think that they're okay and they've earned their,
you know, status with God and they've made everything right
through their works and their sincerity and things of that
nature. And so they're okay. He says,
I didn't come to call, I came to call the sinners. And in the
audience that he was speaking to, they looked at sinners as
the prostitutes and the tax collectors that had sided with the Romans
and other notorious sinners in that category alone. They ignored
verses like Isaiah, all of our sins, All of our righteousness
is as filthy rags in his sight and and similar statements or
Psalm 32 or Psalm 51 or the faults and failures that we see in Abraham's
life Which are quite a few and we're not told everything obviously Only those John Calvin says,
who feel themselves ungodly will attain to the righteousness of
faith. Only those who feel themselves
ungodly will attain to the righteousness of faith. So from verses four
and five, we might say that there are two views of justification. One is by faith and one is by
works, or we might say works and faith. But if you say works
and faith, it's the same thing as just saying works. And the first of these, by faith,
is the grace of God. And the second one, by works,
is by merit through which a person earns his salvation. And of course,
that's completely opposite of the teaching of Paul. So we've
had three proofs given to us. A practical argument, Abraham
believed God. A biblical argument, excuse me,
Abraham, the practical argument was that Abraham could not boast. The biblical argument is Abraham
believed God. And then the judicial argument
is that works deserve wages. which the opposite of that is
salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone. And then
we have a fourth argument. And I'm gonna call this one a
religious argument. It's found in verses six through
eight. And I would like to read these
together at this point. It says, 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. So the religious argument in
a nutshell is this, David is forgiven and his sins are covered. David is forgiven and his sins
are covered. the religious argument, the fourth
proof that the Apostle Paul gives. So Abraham would be high up on
the list of every Jewish person as being extremely important,
the father of the nation. But if they had to pick another
person from the Old Testament that they would have great value
in, I mean, the next two would be either Moses or David. And
Paul here chooses David out and quotes from Psalm 32 verses one
through two in order to show that the argument about forgiveness,
because forgiveness of our sins and having our sins covered,
which is the practical benefit that is experienced by us and
enjoyed by us because of the righteousness of Christ that
we receive through faith in him, is so vitally important. And
he's gonna take up and discuss that forgiveness in other ways
as we move through this great epistle. David was highly respected
by the Jewish people as a king and as a deliverer of the nation
of Israel from their enemies at a critical moment in the history
of the nation. David was a man, as you know,
a man after God's own heart. Things are said about David that
are not said about anybody else, including Abraham. But also we
are told about David's great sin, when we're not given or
told about any such great sins maybe in some of the other characters. Moses is punished and not allowed
to go into the land for hitting a rock. And I've told you before
about the significance of that particular event and why such
a seemingly harsh punishment was given to him for losing his
temper with the nation of Israel at that moment. David sinned greatly, even as
a man after God's own heart. And David declares in Psalm 32,
which is a Psalm of confession, the blessedness of forgiveness. So I wanna take a couple of more
minutes to really unpack verses six through eight, which is a
religious argument. about forgiveness. Most people's
religion has to do somehow or the other with forgiveness. Many
of the false religions only proves that man is created in the image
of God. that he has some concept of or desire for a cleansing
or forgiveness of his sins. Now, in these three verses, what
we see here, and we can take it up this way because David
talks about being the blessed man at the beginning of that
Psalm. So let's put it this way. First
of all, in verse six, we see that the blessed man is the one
whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. Very same thing
that we've had given to us several times already given to us again
as it relates to David. David describes the blessedness
of the man to whom God what? Imputes righteousness, puts to
the account of a person an alien righteousness, a righteousness
not their own that is apart from worse. There's no way to state
this more explicitly than that. And of course, who is this man?
Psalm 32 and verse five, David writes this, I acknowledge my
sin to you. He didn't hide his sin. He didn't pretend that he hadn't
sinned. He admits it. He acknowledges it fully and
completely and says, and my iniquity, I have not hidden. And what a
powerful psalm that is. Secondly, we see in verse 7 that
the blessed man is the one whom God has forgiven. It's the one
that God has forgiven. The word forgiven that we have
here in verse 7 means, as it does most everywhere in the scriptures,
to cancel. or to remit or to pardon in the
sense of removing a debt. There is a debt. We have to all
see ourselves as the guy in the parable who has a debt of, if
we turned it into modern vernacular, we could say a debt of one billion
dollars. I mean, none of us could ever
repay a debt of a billion dollars. We can never repay the debt of
one sin, just one sin. We cannot ever pay the debt of
one sin. This is why hell is eternal. The debt can never be paid. But our sins are forgiven, all
of them, because a righteousness has been given to us that covers
those sins. God's forgiveness is an act of
his mercy. It is not an act produced by
merit. The blessed man's sins are under
the blood of Christ and are not brought up against him ever again. So the psalmist writes in 103.12,
As far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our
transgressions from us. And you know how far the East
is from the West? It's infinite. That's how far
God has separated our sins from us. I mean, we have reason to
rejoice and to be full of joy that our sins are forgiven. and removed from us that far."
The blessed man is the one whom God has forgiven in verse 7. And in verse 8, the blessed man
is the one whom God does not impute sin to. And basically
what verse 8 means in this is that those who are forgiven have
no sins put to their account. That'd be contrary to having
righteousness put to our account. No, what happened to our sins? Our sins were taken and nailed
to Christ on the cross and His righteousness was put to our
account. So our sins were atoned for and His righteousness was
given unto us. So in conclusion, these four
arguments are proofs and they're meant to persuade us. I mean,
first of all, you and I, we have to be persuaded. And they're
meant to persuade us of two wonderful gospel truths. One is that justification
is by grace through faith in Christ alone. That's the first
gospel truth that is to be proven to our hearts and souls. There
are times, I would say, in many a Christian's life and experience
when they begin to doubt their salvation, they begin to doubt
God's promises, they begin to doubt that their sins have been
removed from them and struggle in some way. But when those times
come, Brothers and sisters, we should flee to the cross. We
should get down on our face before God. We should open the Word.
We should read it, seek the face of God, and cry out to God that
we might get through that valley of doubt and struggle so that
we might enjoy on an everyday basis the fruit of God's gracious
salvation that has been given to us through Jesus Christ our
Lord. So these arguments are meant to persuade us of that
gospel truth But also, these four arguments are meant to persuade
us that we are not to consider what we are in ourselves, but
how God regards us. Once we begin to see what the
gospel really is in this sense of justification and God declaring
us righteous purely by his grace, then It doesn't matter what sins
we have committed. It doesn't matter what thoughts
that we have had in our minds, or maybe what actions we have
performed. We are to consider ourselves
as God considers us, cleansed, saved, and washed, and pure and
righteous because of Jesus Christ. And this, of course, is also
what motivates us to worship him, to serve him, to follow
him, to battle against indwelling remaining sin within us and all
those things that are a part of our sanctification. And it
also gives us a message to give to the world because everybody
else is struggling with sin. I think this is really what Grady
was speaking of this morning. We talked about people wanting
to know about Jesus. They have a sin problem. They
are plagued by, and there is the weight and burden of sin,
and they need to be liberated from that. And the only liberation
is found through faith in Jesus Christ. Not found in religious
practices, not found in doing better by your neighbor or thinking
differently. It's found at the foot of the
cross through faith in Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Dear Father, we are so blessed
to be in this place today and to be able to serve you and to
worship you and to give glory and honor unto your blessed and
holy name. And so it is our prayer that
you would be gracious to us As we go forth from this day of
worship and from this place of worship and we go to our respective
homes and to our workplace and may we reflect the glory of Jesus
Christ. May we speak the gospel of salvation. Cause us to overcome the fear
of the world. Help us not to look for the applause
of men, but help us to bear the reproach of Jesus Christ, the
eternal son of God, who was led through the streets carrying
his own cross, beaten and torn, and laid his life down to pay
the debt of our sins. For it's in his name we pray,
amen.
"Justification Proved"
Series Romans
"Justification Proved"
Romans 4:1-8
| Sermon ID | 429242129542102 |
| Duration | 46:08 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Romans 4:1-8 |
| Language | English |
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