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.