We are called to time of fellowship with the words of the psalmist. Then I said, behold, I have come in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do your will, oh my God. Your law is within my heart. Here we find that our fellowship with the Lord comes from the words written in the book. These words, of course, are the holy scriptures. And one of the means of grace that we use here is the preaching and reading of the word of God. Our catechism says that it's the reading, but especially the preaching of the word that brings us the means of grace. So as we hear the word of God preached this morning, remember it is God speaking to us through his word. Well, it is good to be with you again this morning and see the many faces that I recognize. And you know, I was thinking, well, when I'm done after, I think I have next week, too, it's not going to be a relief. I'm going to miss being with you. So it is good to be here. Please open your Bibles and turn to the Book of Romans. We will be reading from Romans 3.21-4.8, and then we will be focusing on chapter 4.1-8. God's Word, Romans 3.21. This is God's perfect, infallible word. And God has given us his word as a gift. He's given us his word that we might know him and that we might love him, and that he might reveal his very self to us. For in the gospel, God gives us himself. Hear God's word. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he has passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. What then becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also. Since God is one, Who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith? Do we then overturn the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now, to the one who works his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Let us pray. Our Father, Lord, we are holy and entirely dependent upon you. Lord, you are the Savior. You are our creator. You are the one that we will be with for all eternity. So, Lord, we turn to you for all things, and we turn to you especially this morning that you might seal our hearts in worship. Lord, that you might instruct us from your word, that you might give us the blessing and the help of your Holy Spirit. for we can do nothing apart from you. Guide and direct our time, our words, our hearts, and our ears. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, do you remember your first job? I mean your first paying job. See, it's one thing to do chores at home, but it's quite another thing to go out and to be paid for your work. And think back to the first paycheck that you had and how proud you were of that paycheck. See, work is a significant part of life. And there is pride in earning money. There is pride in buying something by the sweat of your brow. It's called the pride of ownership, and it comes from work. Now, let's think along a different line for a minute. Remember some of your favorite birthday presents, and I am sure that the children here love birthdays and Christmas presents. Now, if you think about it, A birthday present is not quite free and unexpected. I mean, it's your birthday. You're supposed to get a present. And so there is some obligation there. But sometimes, as a surprise, you receive a gift that is so extravagant, so unexpected, that you know it is completely free and unmerited. You know that it comes entirely from the heart of the giver. You know that it is given out of love. You know, sometimes I have the opportunity to speak with young men, particularly at the time when they're getting married, and one of the things that I tell them is, you know, you have to give flowers at anniversary and Valentine's Day. But the most important flowers you will ever give your wife are just because flowers. Now, just because flowers show up with the card that says, just because I love you. Just because. And by the way, if you give just because flowers, they should show up in a public way. And everyone knows why. You see, in our personal lives, we understand the contrast between a gift given and a wage earned. We understand the pride that comes with a wage earned, and we understand the thankfulness that comes with a gift given. We understand that a wage earned is given out of duty. It was earned. And we understand that a gift given is given out of love. It is given out of the heart. But somehow, when it comes to God, when it comes to salvation which is totally unearned, coming entirely from God's free grace, motivated entirely by the love in God's heart, somehow we get confused between a wage earned and a gift given. Somehow, Mankind always feels that we have to earn our place before God. And I suspect that you know the reason for this. You felt it in your heart, just as I felt it in my heart. And the reason is guilt. You know, it is hard to assuage a guilty conscience by a gift given. In fact, if I have offended somebody and I get a free gift, that's going to prick my conscience even a little more. And so, when we come to God, whom we have offended in the worst of ways, we have broken His law, we have rebelled against Him, we have harmed His children. We have even caused a curse on His creation. When it comes to God, The guilt and shame of conscience seems to demand that we approach God by a wage earned. This is the plight of sinful human beings. We have sinned against a holy God, and yet we need salvation from our sin. And we have no standing, we have nothing in ourself that we can earn a wage before God. And so God gave us the gift of the gospel, freely given out of God's heart of love. The gospel is built on the principle of a gift given, not of a wage earned. And see, you need to have fixed in your heart that salvation comes by a gift given. Salvation is given out of God's heart of love. You need to have the gospel fixed in your heart. Why? Because the whole world wants to take it away from you. You know, I could list all the various cults and heresies and things that I studied in seminary and, you know, things like Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, Modernism. You know, all these want to take away grace. And I don't know if you've noticed, when churches lose the gospel, they always turn to some form of the social gospel. Well, because they have to. They don't have any way of salvation. They have to find some way of a wage earned to assuage a guilty conscience. And so they turn farther and farther from the gospel. But in Christ, you've been saved by grace. You have been justified by grace. You have been adopted by God as his children by grace. And you will be sanctified by grace. And someday it is by grace that God will bring you safely home. Now the context of Romans 4 is Romans 3 that we just read a portion of. And Paul declares that all mankind, Jew and Gentile alike are under God's wrath and curse. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one. But then comes these amazing words in Romans 3.24, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. It says being justified freely freely by His grace. Now the question is, how can you and I as part of that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God? How can you and I as sinful human beings come to a holy and righteous God? And the answer in this passage is that Abraham, David, and you and I are saved by grace alone. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And that will be our outline, and that's what we're going to look at today. Salvation is by grace alone. It is through faith alone, and it is in Christ alone. So firstly, we consider grace. Now let me read verses 4 and 5 again, just so we can see the structure of what Paul is saying here. Verse four, it says, now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as due. And so we notice the structure, to him who works. Okay, so there's one who works. And then there's something that's not of work. It's grace. Work has to do with due, with wages, with the debt. And then in verse five it says, but to him who does not work. Okay, so this is the one who works, the one who does not work, this is called the one of grace. The one who does not work. But rather, who believes on him who justifies the ungodly. So what does the one who does not work do? The one who does not work believes, has faith in him who justifies the ungodly. So these two verses set up two polar opposites of work and of grace. And you notice that there's no middle ground. Once you begin down the road of work, you are in the road of work and a wage earned and a due. but down the road of grace, you are on the road of a gift given. And so we ask, what is grace in this book? Grace is what's called a technical term, and what that means is, you know, I have Greek lexicons and such, and I can look at what's the popular usage of words, but that's not how I find out what grace means. To find out what grace means, I go to this book, and I look at how it's used, and I say, oh, that's what grace is. And so we will try to get a handle on grace. God communicates in language. He spoke the world into creation. So words like grace, justification, righteousness, these are important to God. It's how he communicates to us what he's doing. Consider Joseph in the Old Testament. Consider Joseph in the midst of the seven-year drought. The people of Egypt were starving. They had nothing to pay for grain, and yet without grain, they would die. And they had no choice but to throw themselves onto mercy, to cast their lives upon Joseph. And so they asked that they might find grace in his sight. Genesis 47, 25, it says, and they said, thou has saved our lives. Let us find grace in the sight of my Lord. And we know that Joseph showed grace. And so we noticed the wording here. Find grace in the sight of my Lord. Now, these words are repeated throughout the Old Testament. In fact, wherever you find grace, it's generally within this phrase. You can think of Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And we learn something here. We learn that grace is found. It's not due, it's not earned, it is found. It is found in the sight of the giver. This tells us that grace exists entirely in the heart of the giver. Grace results in a gift to someone in great need who cannot help themselves. The people of Egypt would die without grain. Now the gift is not grace, but is given out of grace. We can go a little further in the Old Testament and think about Ruth, a destitute widow. And here's what she said. Please let me go to the field and glean heads of grain after him in whose sight I may find grace. And it says that she just happened on the field of Boaz, and that Ruth found grace in the eyes of Boaz. And so Boaz cared for her. He even gave her extra grain to take home to Naomi. Ruth was a destitute widow. She had no choice. If she was to survive, she needed to depend on finding grace in the sight of someone like Boaz. You know, amazingly, even King David, there was a point in his life when he was running for his life. And who did he turn to? He turned to Jonathan. In 1 Samuel 23, it says that David said to Jonathan, your father certainly knows that I have found grace. in your eyes." So here was David fleeing for his life. Saul would kill him. And so what did David do? He sought grace in the eyes of Jonathan. And we know that Jonathan helped him escape. Jonathan had no obligation, but Jonathan loved David. And so out of grace, he gave the gift of helping David to escape. David found grace in the eyes of the giver. But the Hebrew word, hebrew word, hen, grace, is applied to God more than any other place in the Bible in Exodus chapter 33 and 34. And you may know that in those chapters, the people of Israel went far astray. Moses was up on the mountain, Aaron molded a golden calf, and the people all fell down and worshiped the golden calf. And by the way, that was the idol of the gods back in Egypt. And it is amazing, the people of Israel, not only had they grumbled all the way, but they said to this golden calf, this is the God that brought us out of Egypt. Now, what an affront against God. Moses is leading them, and the first moment when he gets away up on the mountain, oh, let's turn back to these idols. And God gave a terrible judgment. He said, I'm not going to go with you up to the promised land. You are going yourselves. I'll send an angel to help you, but I will not be with you to be your God. And Moses came to God and he pleaded with God. He said, now, therefore, this is Exodus 33, 14. I pray if I have found grace in your sight and you notice those words, show me now your way that I may know you, that I may find grace in your sight and consider that this nation is your people. And the Lord answered, My presence will go with you and I will give you rest. And then God said, I will do this thing that you have spoken for you have found grace in my sight and I know you by name. You know, this was perhaps the very low point for the nation of Israel. They were in a place of desperate need. They could not help themselves. They were, well, they were out in the middle of the wilderness for one thing, And there was a lot of them. They depended upon God for food and water. And they depended upon God a lot more than that. And it was precisely at this low point that they found grace in the eyes of God. In Deuteronomy 7 verse 7 says this, The Lord did not set his love on you, nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people. For you were the least of all peoples, but because the Lord loves you, and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers." See, it was not for anything in the people. It was not earned in any way. It was entirely out of the love in God's heart that he extended grace. Now, You've probably heard grace defined as unmerited favor, and it is certainly that. But what I want to try to convey is that grace is so much more than that. Consider what we just read. Grace is found. It is not given out of duty or obligation. It is a free, freely given gift. Grace exists entirely in the heart of the giver. Grace always results in a gift or some action to save. Grace is always given to one in desperate need who cannot help themselves. See, David doesn't need grace as a victorious king, but when he's fleeing for his life, It doesn't talk about grace to Ruth when she's the wife of Boaz, but when she is a desperate widow. And Israel receives grace at precisely the point when they rebelled against God. Now, there's something we didn't talk about, but it's applied in Scripture to grace. It is that God's grace is expressed in covenant. You see, grace carries no obligation in itself. And so by covenant, God promises that he does not change. He tells us that there is commitment within his heart, that his love compels him to give grace and that it will be for all eternity. You see, by covenant, God creates a bond between himself and his people. And so you see the fullness of grace. Grace is given only to those who are in desperate need, who cannot help themselves. And I think you can see where this is going and how this applies to the gospel. If we can help ourselves, then we don't need grace. If we are not in a desperate situation destined for hell, then why do we need grace? Grace is given to those in great need who cannot help themselves. Now, why go to such lengths? I mean, most of my sermon, and we're just on grace here, You know, the gift that is given by grace, grace always gives a gift, is salvation. Titus 2.11 says, For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. So you notice, the grace of God that brings salvation. and we are in need of salvation. Psalm 40, and Dave alluded to this, says, God drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon the rock, making my steps secure, placing me on the rock. You know, I've been in some heavy mud irrigating, and even that little bit of mud, you know, And, you know, if you're in a miry bog and you try to get one foot out, all you do is push the other one down further. And then you try to get the other one out and you push this one down further. And pretty soon you're getting more and more stuck. You are not going anywhere. Unless. Unless someone puts out a platform. unless they help you, unless they grab you and pull you out. See, that's the picture of grace. We cannot help ourselves. We are sinking down in the miry bog and we depend upon a free gift of God's hand to pull us out. You will need to have grace fixed in your heart, especially when you face the reality of sin and corruption in your own heart. You will need to know that grace comes entirely from God's heart of love. You will need to know that it is a gift given. Romans 5.20 says, but where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. Let's stop and think about your relationship to God for a minute. Is your relationship to God defined by grace? If I feel like I have earned my way, then I have a boast." And that's precisely what the Apostle Paul said. He says, what should we say of Abraham? For if Abraham found something within himself, then he has a boast before God. And that idea is so repugnant to Paul, he says, but not before God. But if I am saved entirely by grace, then I am in a relationship with God of humble dependence upon him. I am in a relationship of being thankful, of being entirely dependent upon him. You see, a right relationship to God depends on the foundation of grace. and on the fullness of grace, that grace comes from God's heart of love. You know, I do not know why God allowed sin and corruption in my heart, but I do know this, I know the Lord Jesus as Savior. I know that he pulled me out of the my rebug. I know that I am dependent upon him and I know that it is by God's grace driven by God's love. And that is a good place to be in relationship with God. I don't want, I don't want to come to God with a boast in pride. I want to come by grace. Ephesians 2.8 says, by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. So I want to look briefly at salvation is by faith, I'm sorry, through faith. And those words are important. Back to verse 5, it says, to the one who does not work but believes, on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Romans 4.16 says, therefore, salvation is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, to all the seed of Abraham. In other words, Faith is the matching pair to grace. Grace is freely given by God. Faith receives the gift. And that's why it says salvation is by faith, by faith given by God, through the means of received by faith. Now, Paul gives this example of Abraham, and the objection of the Pharisees was, well, what's this talk of salvation by faith? Abraham was a righteous man. And Paul says that a rhetorical question, what should we say of Abraham found according to the flesh? And the answer is nothing. And so Paul goes on to quote from Genesis chapter 15, verse six, which says, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. It was Abraham's faith that was counted to him for righteousness. And of course, verse four and five that we just read, generalize that into everyone. It is anyone. who believes on him, who justifies the ungodly. His faith is counted as righteousness. There is only one way to righteousness, and that is through faith. Now, what does it mean to be counted righteous? It means that something to be counted, something is marked down as belonging to you. In this case, righteousness is marked down as belonging to you. Your faith is counted for righteousness. Perhaps you've been in a courtroom and you've heard the judge make a pronouncement. Innocent, which leads to justified. Guilty, which leads to condemn. And this was brought up earlier in the service. The picture here is that God is a righteous judge. And by faith, he brings the gavel down here, not here. He declares righteous, innocent, justified. It is a declaration by God, just as to be judged, to be condemned is a pronouncement by God. The only option for you is for God to count you, to declare you, to pronounce you righteous, to account your faith as righteousness. Before we get to the source of righteousness, we need to see what a beautiful picture of faith is in this verse. We notice that it says, he who believes on him who justifies the ungodly. In other words, the one who believes is still ungodly. The picture is that faith is not a righteous act to make you righteous in itself. Faith is not a commandment by which you can earn your way. You see, if faith was a commandment that you had to obey, you'd be right back in verse 4 to the one who works. And then you'd have a do. And then you'd be right back, and your relationship with God would be changed entirely. You see, it's not as though God said in the Old Testament, OK, you can't keep the Ten Commandments. I'm going to give you just one commandment this time. One commandment, have faith. You see, we couldn't keep that commandment any more than we could keep the Ten. Or, by the way, Adam only had one command, and he couldn't keep that one either. You know in your heart that doubts creep in, that our faith is weak. And then where would be our assurance of salvation before the Lord? No, faith receives the free gift of grace. And so we know that we are secure in the hands of our Savior. Romans 5.1 says, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God. In other words, because we're saved by grace through faith, we are out of the realm of work, we are into the realm of grace and gift. And so we have assurance before God. We have peace with God. We can call upon the Lord as our loving heavenly father who has adopted us into his family. You know, Jesus gives an awesome picture of faith in Luke 18 when he describes the tax collector in prayer. The tax collector who would not even lift his eyes up to heaven, but he stood far off, beating his breast and crying out, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. And Jesus said, this man went down to his house justified, that is declared righteous. His faith was counted as righteousness. So true faith is a complete trusting in God, a casting our lives and our cares entirely upon Christ. It is receiving as a free gift God's grace. Now, thirdly, we want to look at we are saved by grace through faith in Christ. If God counts righteousness to you, as it says in verse 5, the question is, where does that righteousness comes from? And the answer, of course, it comes from Jesus Christ. And if God does not count your sin against you, as it says in verse 8, where does that sin go? And the answer is that sin goes to Jesus Christ. Romans 8 says that Christ condemned sin in the flesh. In other words, Christ took all of our sins, past, present, and future, on himself. He condemned them on the cross. See, without Christ, there would be no grace, there would be no justification, there would be no righteousness. Without the atonement, without the death of Christ, without the blood of Christ, we could not be saved from the wrath of God. We would be stuck in that my repet and going down. Romans five, nine. Therefore, since we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. This is the great exchange of second Corinthians five 21. God made him Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of Christ in him. God took our sin and gave us his righteousness. Remember Titus 2.11, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. Grace always gives a gift to those who are in desperate need, who cannot help themselves. What is the gift that comes by God's grace? It is Jesus Christ himself. God has given us his very self. Now, to conclude, let me just say a couple things. I am trying to accomplish two things in this sermon. First, I want you to see how connected this book is from beginning to end. The picture of grace and salvation is complete and uniform. I want you to know that you can turn to this book for everything. But second, I want to raise a guard around your life because the whole world wants to take away grace. You need to have fixed in your heart grace and faith and the atonement of Christ so that no one can take that away from you. Assurance of salvation comes by having grace fixed in your heart. Now think about your life for a moment. Are you afraid of being found out by God? God who sees all things. Do you want to hide from the searching light that God shines into every corner of your life? into every thought in your mind, into every word spoken, into every harm you have ever done? Are you afraid to be exposed before your Creator? Are you still caught in the grip of guilt and shame, in bondage with no way out? God has a prescription, and the prescription is in the gospel. It is to cast all your cares upon Jesus, to trust in him and in him alone, to receive by faith the wonderful grace of God, which brings salvation. Now, I said this once before here. I'll say it again. God is so good to be apart from him for even one day. is too long. Let Jesus grab your heart and draw you to himself. He is lowly and gentle. He is the one who cares for your soul. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we come to you again, dependent upon you, thankful to you, knowing that we were lost. You had no reason to come save us other than love. And so, Lord, may we experience your love in our hearts. May we turn to you, trust you, and Lord, we pray that you would give each person here that rock-solid assurance of salvation, that they know beyond a shadow of doubt that You have called them to belong to Yourself. In Jesus' name, Amen.