Romans 4 | Justified by Faith: Abraham, Grace, and the Promise of God

Paul teaches us, along with grace, we are also justified by faith.

And today we're going to see that Paul holds Abraham up as a clear example of a kind of faith that is counted for.

As you turn with me to Romans chapter 4, Romans chapter 4, I want you to mark that.

Romans 4 · chapter mention Romans 4 · chapter mention

If you're using the Church Bible, that'll be page 1119.

1119, where we get our scripture from this morning, a scripture reading from this morning.

We also want again over in Genesis chapter 17.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 17.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

So Mark, or put your finger there in chapter 4 of Romans, and then meet me over in Genesis chapter 17.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 17.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

So good to see everyone here today.

If you're a guest with us, we welcome you this morning.

Glad that you are here.

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And so hope that you will consider that and talk to us more if you have questions about that.

The Lord's constantly growing and adding to our number, and we'd love for you to be a part of that as well.

And so appreciate your presence here, both member and guests alike.

We're in a series, as you already know, of Romans.

It's been mentioned already this morning.

And if you've missed some of that and like to pick up from an area that maybe you missed, uh I will tell you that Romans builds upon Romans.

So oftentimes we try to do series that actually don't build on each other.

Each lesson could stand alone.

But actually, with Romans, it's good to have uh a background and to have been building on each lesson consecutively.

Uh and that's the way Paul has laid the letter out and written, and God has had him write it.

And so if you've missed some of that and you need to uh go back and and look at some of the places, something seems confusing to you.

It might be that you've just missed a section that's been previously talked about.

And you can do that.

If you go back on YouTube, uh the Milwaukee Avenue Church of Christ, you look that up or your favorite podcast, I think.

You can find it there as well.

Uh just look up Milwaukee Avenue Church of Christ and then find the lesson you have missed.

Uh today's lesson takes uh what I consider to be some brain power.

In other words, if you're a complacent, a complete a complacent listener, then you need to change that this morning because you'll need what you have in order to follow along, I believe.

Uh to me, it is a it is somewhat of a difficult topic, not because it is all that difficult, but because the world makes it difficult, and in particular, denominations make it difficult because they teach improperly on certain things we'll be looking at this morning.

So if you are used to and think you are accustomed to knowing what God says about grace and faith and salvation, put that out of your mind and let's just go to what Paul says about it, okay?

Let's look at what Paul and some of the other apostles say about this and come to the right conclusion, regardless of what we think we already know.

It would be helpful to not have preconceived ideas already this morning, but to simply look at what the scriptures teach, which is actually what we all want, and that's why we're here, isn't it?

Uh, in our worship to God.

We care about what God says to us.

Think about uh how to introduce this subject matter, and one of the thoughts that came to me was a tidbit of information that I came across years ago from the Guinness Book of World Records, the most children ever delivered by one woman happened in Russia in 1782.

That's a pretty long-standing record, isn't it?

Even till today.

Sixty-nine children were born to this one woman.

16 sets of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quads.

That is, well, that that would be difficult.

That woman has gone through it.

Uh, I don't want to hear anybody saying, well, I've had two kids, and that was such a dilemma.

That was very hard for me.

I agree with you.

It probably was.

I've never had children, obviously.

Uh, but to have 69 of them uh puts a new a new picture to all of this.

And uh then there was this entry as well that isn't accurate that it's in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Can you believe that?

I mean, they take great effort to make sure that they're accurate on their information.

The oldest mother on record, according to this book, is 57 years old, and she gave birth to a baby girl in Glendale, California.

But I would submit to you that Abraham and Sarah of Canaan, around 1900 BC, beat them by more than 30 years.

That is an atrocious um oversight, because that's not just like a couple of years.

30 years is a long time.

And we have record of that in our text of Genesis chapter 17.

Genesis 17 · chapter mention

And so looking there at God's historical document regarding Abraham, we see in chapter 17, verse 1, when Abraham was 90 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and he said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless.

Look at verse 4.

Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.

Verse 17.

Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, Shall a child be born to a man who's a hundred years old?

Shall Sarah, who is nine years old, bear a child?

Look at 18, chapter 18, now and verse 10.

The Lord said, I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah, your wife, shall have a son.

And Sarah was listening at the tent of the at the tent uh the tent door behind him.

And Sarah laughed to herself.

Look at verse 13.

The Lord said to Abram, Why did Sarah laugh and say, Shall I indeed bear a child now that I am old?

Is anything too hard for the Lord?

At the appointed time I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.

When we read that, what may stand out to us is the thing that stood out to Abraham.

Abraham's, he's centering in on this one fact.

I'm a hundred years old.

100-year-old people don't have children.

Sarah's 90 years old.

90-year-old people don't have children.

But actually, if you look at the text and you and you kind of dissect the real heart of what is going on here, it has nothing really, at least not that much, to do with Abraham and Sarah as it does with God.

God is actually the focal point of this because it is God who is making the promise.

And God could be trusted, is the point.

God is the one who is behind all of this, and God is the one who will perform the blessings that he is promising, even if it means defying the natural order, such as the natural time in which people normally have children.

God can do away with nature, and God can do what God wants to do because he's the creator of it.

This is a case study that we're looking at at Genesis 17, which is meant to teach us nothing is impossible with God.

The actual center point of the text is found at verse 14.

Genesis chapter 21.

Genesis 21 · chapter mention

Look at verse 1.

The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he promised.

He said, and within the same verse we learn he did.

You see, it's all about God.

Abraham was a hundred years old when Sarah, his uh uh when his son Isaac was born to him.

And Sarah said, God has made laughter for me.

It's kind of neat.

She laughs at first and then she laughs after for absolutely two different reasons all together.

One is out of joy, and one is out of a lack of faith.

What has all of this got to do with our section of Romans, chapter 4?

Romans 4 · chapter mention

Well, in fact, Paul uses this very situation as a proof text of what he's been teaching.

Not in abstracts, and not just in words.

He's taught in words all along here.

But rather now he is teaching by way of a historical, documented person.

The example of Abraham is what this text is about this morning, at least in part.

It's a proof text of what he's been teaching already in this book.

He stands uh as an example for us to implement.

And so be looking as we go along for ways in which you can make application of the faith that we see in Abraham.

He starts by using a word that we need to all understand, be on the same page about, not doubting anyone's uh ability to know what words mean, just saying let's all be on the same page.

And when we read the word just or justified, think in your mind declared right.

I would say declared righteous, but even the word righteous is not really used that much anymore.

It's more of a biblical word, typically.

And so think in your mind, he is declared right.

If we want to get more technical about it, we could say justified is to be seen by God as right in his eyes with regard to justice through faith for the Christian in God's promises.

And this is the way that it was for Abraham.

It's clarified better in verse 3 of our text this morning.

Look with me at beginning in verse 3 of our text.

He he goes on to say here, what does the scripture say?

Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.

It wasn't through his works that Abraham was saved, in other words.

That's not how he was justified before God, verse 2, but his belief, his faith in verse 3.

Because as you read here in verse 4, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.

David also speaks of the blessings of the ones of whom God counts righteousness apart from works.

So the doctrine that Paul is teaching is not something that the Jewish people, for example, knew nothing about.

They should have known this, even from an old covenant perspective, let alone prior to the old covenant, as we'll see later.

Blessed, he says, David does, as we look at it in verse 7, 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.

That is a privilege, that is a blessing.

But make no mistake, it is unearned.

First of all, Paul is making the point.

And secondly, it's available to everyone.

And that's what makes it so fantastically great.

I want you to turn with me to the book of James now.

James chapter 2, and beginning at verse 22 of this text.

James 2 · chapter mention

James 2 and verse 22.

Here we read that Abraham's faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works.

And the scripture was fulfilled that says, and he's quoting the same passage that Paul has quoted from, that says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God.

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

Sounds confusing?

I think we can dis uh do away with the confusion simply by uh by thinking about this point.

James is speaking here of the byproduct of our faith.

Isn't that what he said?

Faith without works is what?

It's dead.

It's a byproduct of faith, leading to salvation.

Without which no one's faith is useful, without which no one's faith is is alive.

It is useless, it is dead.

So James speaks of the byproduct of faith.

Paul speaks of our initial response to God's grace, our belief in God's promises.

Are either one non-essential?

No.

Notice where here in our text, back in Romans 4, that Paul does not, nor will he ever say, that faith alone saves you.

He's already said earlier in the text, chapter 3, verse 24, that we are saved by grace.

Which one is it?

Is it grace or is it faith?

Paul's teaching is it requires both for one's salvation.

We are justified by his grace as a gift, we are told.

And then we are saved by faith apart from works of the law, we are told, in chapter 4, verses 5 and 6.

So Paul shows that Abraham was saved before his works of the law or circumcision.

How?

By faith.

He was right before God, long before actually he had been circumcised.

And he was right before God, more than a thousand years actually, before God's old covenant through Moses came into existence.

So then how was he saved if it's by those other two things that we are saved?

He was saved through faith, is possible.

And what Paul is doing here is he's proving righteousness or justification being right before God was not in what the Jews had come to believe that righteousness was found in.

May I just say there may be a lot of Christians who think the way that those Jews did about how they were justified.

It is not through the keeping of law.

For the Jew, it was not through the keeping of the law of Moses, it was not through circumcision.

So why does Paul tell us about all of this with regard to Abraham?

I want you to notice verse 11.

He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.

The purpose was to make him the father, Paul says, of all who believe without being circumcised.

So that righteousness would be counted to them, the Gentiles, as well.

In other words, brothers and sisters, circumcision was only God's stamp of authentication.

To say it another way, uh, it was it was a stamp of testimony that Abraham had faith, that Abraham believed, and that belief was counted to him as righteous, and God said, stamp of approval.

Circumcision.

Abraham's salvation.

It came after faith, not before.

Abraham's the father of the physical Jew, yes.

But not because they had the law and not because they were circumcised, but only because they walked in the steps of faith like Abraham.

It was about believing God before anything having to do with rule keeping.

So it is faith, not law-keeping, which connects people with God's grace.

It is faith and not law-keeping, which connects people to Abraham, the father of the faithful.

And it is faith and not law-keeping that adds us to God's spiritual family still today.

That was true before the old covenant, it was true under the old covenant, it is true still now today.

Works may validate one's faith, brethren.

But it will never replace faith.

Just as faith will never replace God's grace, his unearned favor.

And that is the point that Paul is making as we go back to our text in chapter 4.

Look at verse 13 of the text.

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world.

We read that in Genesis chapter 17, verse 4, as we set out this morning.

Genesis 17:4

You can read it again in chapter 12, 1 through 3.

The promise to Abraham and his offspring did not come through the law, but through righteousness of faith.

For if it is the adherents of the law who are the heirs of faith, who are the heirs, then faith is null, and the promise is void.

Again, let's think about that for a second.

Abraham did not have the law.

The law came a thousand years later.

The law came after the people were already in Egypt.

The law came after they had left Egypt.

The law came at Mount Sinai.

A long time after Abraham.

So to be justified like Abraham would require something other than what the law demanded of people.

This whole point.

In fact, verse 15: the law brings wrath.

That's the purpose of law.

Listen, if you're a Christian and you're confused thinking that you're saved by your own works of the law, by your own righteousness of working, what God says in scripture should be a byproduct of our faith.

Please understand that's just not truth.

You're dependent on the wrong one for your salvation.

You're dependent on yourself.

And your ability to properly keep what the scriptures teach us with regard to the law.

The law brings wrath.

But where there is no law, there's no transgression.

What if we could take the transgression of the law out of the equation?

Then we're free.

What does the law do?

It only points out where we fail.

It has no redemptive ability.

Paul is making the point.

Only Jesus has that.

Only Jesus is the Savior.

You're not the Savior, and you're not the Savior by keeping the old law or the new law, for that matter.

Laws can't save you.

Laws can only point out what should or should not be in your life.

And it is through faith that we connect with the grace that God has given us.

I don't know.

I'm trying to get more simplified in this with the example.

I've heard people tell me before, and maybe you have said it or you have you have thought it as well.

I want to become a Christian.

I remember thinking this when I when I was uh young, before I became a Christian.

But I've got to get some some needs taken care of first.

I've got to get some of these problems that we call sin out of my life first.

How does one propose doing that exactly?

Do you have the power to get sin out of your life?

By keeping laws that God has set forth?

This is what a Christian looks like?

This is what a sinner looks like?

Are those the things that cause us to have freedom in Christ that free us from the debt and the problem of sin?

If that's the case, then we're saved by making ourselves right in the sight of God.

I actually don't need Jesus in that case, do I?

If I can just keep the laws and I can keep from transgressing, which is an impossibility, then I don't need Jesus.

And that's the point Paul is making.

How many of us felt that way?

Before we could become a Christian, we needed to first start living life with integrity.

We needed to first clean up our lives, start doing good works like Christians are supposed to do.

And I'm saying to you, those are all noble actions, right?

But I'm also saying none of that's going to be able to save you from your past.

Not one good deed takes away one lawful, unlawful deed.

That is not the system in which God has set up.

We need something else besides perfection in order to save us.

And I will say to you that it is only if God is willing to reach down to us in his grace, his undeserved affection, his undeserved favor towards us.

Will our reaching up to him in belief or faith mean anything at all?

Verse 16, Paul says that is why.

Our justification depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on self, no, but on grace, and be guaranteed, we can trust his promises, to all his offspring, not only to adherent of the law, the Jews, but also to the one who shares faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations, in the presence of God in whom he believes, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

Sound familiar?

Like a paraphrase, faith is the foundation of the things hoped for, the evidence of our belief in God regarding the promises of God not yet seen.

Faith is absolutely essential to salvation.

And not one word will save from your sin.

I don't know that we can make it any plainer than that.

Paul is effective in the way that he is teaching this.

Does the prospect of God's judgment create anxiety for you if you're a child of God?

You need to think.

It should create assurance.

Because you see, your salvation is not based in you, it is based in God and your faith in him.

To actually do what he says he will do.

Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

If anxiety plagues your heart and mind when you think of judgment, perhaps it is because you're still trying to rely on getting God's attention so that he will count you worthy in your good works and apply his grace to you.

Listen, we had God's attention the moment that we sinned.

Whatever age that was, the very first moment in which you sinned, you got God's attention, and he's been reaching down for you ever since.

The question is: have you had the faith that we'll reach up to him and believe him?

Anxiety is created, brothers and sisters, when we start to think our works are the very foundation of our justification.

How would we know?

Actually, how many works do you actually need to do in your life in order for God to apply grace to you?

How many?

And which one is going to be the most important that you certainly can't leave out compared to any others?

I submit to you this fact that when you're guilty of one part of the law, you're guilty of every part of the law, according to Jesus.

So his answer is you can't.

You could never know.

All you could do is, oh, maybe I've done just enough that God will just kind of let me go.

Push me over the edge.

Paul teaches faith is our justification, not our own word in law keeping.

Peace and assurance come only on the basis of God's grace resulting in faith.

And our good works, if we need to talk about those for a moment, are a result of the appreciation of those two things.

God's grace reaching down, our faith reaching up.

That's where good works come in.

Because here's the thing if you say you have faith, but you don't follow, you don't walk with God, your faith is dead.

It's not real.

It hasn't reached up.

As Paul concludes this section of text, he's he's making the point in verse 18.

In hope he believed, Abraham believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations, as he has been told.

Or uh as he had been told, so shall your offspring be.

What does faith or what does hope against hope mean in this text?

It means Abraham took action.

He determined to keep trusting in God through faith.

Even though every logical conclusion to God's promise made no sense when it came to their age.

And even when it seemed that God just wasn't gonna fulfill what God said he was gonna fulfill, Abraham pushed through that in hope, in faith.

And he got to the point that says here in our text of verse 19 that he did not wait in his faith.

Brother, that's where we all ought to be.

That's faith.

In the example of our father of the faith.

Even though he considered, he says, his own body, he did not weaken in faith.

Or when he considered the barrenness of Abraham, of Sarah's womb, yeah, not Abraham's, but Sarah's womb, he did not waver in faith.

No distrust.

Verse 20.

None of the seeming impossible obstacles made him waver concerning the promise of God.

He grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

We are blessed when we duplicate the kind of faith we see in Abraham.

I want you to go back to James again as we start to wrap up this morning.

James in chapter 1, verse 6 says the following: The one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven, tossed by the wind.

For that person must not suppose that he'll receive anything from the Lord.

A double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

So, what do we learn in Abraham?

We learn in Abraham it was not on account of his works that he was counted righteous, but on account of his faith.

And what does that look like?

When compared with the power of God, he went with God.

That's what that looks like.

Even though it defied all logic, even though it defied scientific reality, physiological reality, he went with God.

The knowledge of God made him believe in what God said.

Most people see faith and facts as opposite in our world.

Paul shows that simply is a falsehood.

It's just that faith believes God over the impossibilities that nature has to perform those things, in other words, that God has set in motion from the beginning.

God has the ability to manipulate them.

It was the foundation of his salvation.

Nothing is impossible for God, is what the Lord said when he appears to Abraham back in Genesis 7.

Abraham grew strong in faith.

And he didn't waver from that.

Paul concludes in verses 22 through 24.

That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness, as rightness before God.

But the words, it was counted to him, were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also.

It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our transgressions or trespasses, and raised for our justification.

So, like Abraham, who believed in the promise, the impossibilities, that God could do what God wanted to do.

We too are counted righteous.

When we believe in the possibilities performed in Jesus, birth, his resurrection.

We could add on to what Paul says there and say even his ascension.

All of these are contrary to nature.

What we call miracles.

But we believe God did.

I need his grace.

And we believe in that don't.

That is called faith.

Two major points, if you're looking for a place of more application, has to do with the fact that we see in Abraham a faith being strengthened while yet waiting.

It's hard to wait with our faith, isn't it?

It's hard to be the person who says, I know God will do what God said he will do.

And I've known that for years, and it still hasn't happened, as I would expect.

How easy it would have been for Abraham at the end of that time to have said, he's just not gonna do it.

We all know Abraham wasn't perfect in his faith road.

Ishmael is a byproduct of a lack of faith.

But his faith proved.

And that's where we're at.

We keep growing, we keep strengthening, and we do that not through everything being fulfilled immediately as we're asking and wanting, but we do it through waiting, just like Abraham.

We still have to wait in order to prove our faith.

Real faith only grows at waiting.

And in the meantime, it overflows in words from gratitude for God's grace and his promises.

We walk with God.

Our faith causes us to do that.

And this kind of faith, secondly, sees God as greater than physical limitations.

How great is our God?

To create a system, think about that.

To create a system whereby we trust in Him rather than in our own ability for works.

That is a far superior system than what you and I could come up with.

What our salvation is based upon.

He never lets us go, brothers and sisters.

He never lets us go.

Jesus affirms this in places like John chapter 10 and in verse 27.

John 10 · chapter mention

I give them eternal life.

Maybe you're facing some difficulties in your face today.

It's not easy.

It's a difficult thing.

And it takes constant persistence.

Maybe you've been under the impression that faith alone can save you.

I'd like to point out to you, we didn't do it as we passed by in James, but it is the only time that the Bible uses the words together, faith only, and he says that won't do it for you.

Or maybe you have been under the opposite impression, but it's all about your performance.

Paul and James agree.

God has proved that He'll reach down to you in grace.

Your reaction should be to reach up to him in faith.

And then to determine, I want to walk with him.

You can't get the heart cart ahead of the horse, or it'll mess up the whole system of God.

It'll displace how you're real estate, and it'll put it on yourself instead of giving God the glory for it.

You need to give God the glory for your salvation this morning.

Hope you'll respond to his call.

You can talk to us more about that afterward, or you can step forward now in repentance, coming to God, wanting to walk with him after your salvation.

He can do that for you.

He can take you from your sins, he can bring you into righteousness, he can give you his Holy Spirit, and He can add you to His safety family.

He's calling for you to respond to that gracious thing.