ROMANS: Inheritance

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This morning we're going to continue on in our series in Romans.

I'm going to pick up in Romans chapter 4, verse 13.

Romans 4:13

Romans chapter 4, verse 13.

Romans 4:13

If you don't have your Bible, there are Black Pew Bibles in the seats around you.

The scripture will also be on the screen.

I'll do a little bit of moving around some Old Testament.

We'll move into some more of the New Testament.

And just know that the scripture will always be on the screen.

So I know for some of us we're trying to juggle pins and notes and thoughts.

And so just let that be one less thing you have to worry about this morning if that suits you.

Romans chapter 4, verse 13 through 25.

Romans 4:13–25

It says this for the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir to the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

For it is if if for if it is the adherents of the law who are to be their heirs, faith is null, and the promise is void.

For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression.

That is why it depends on faith.

In order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring, not only to the adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all of us.

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

In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations as he had been told, so shall your offspring be.

Verse 19.

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the bareness of Sarah's womb.

No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.

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 trespasses and raised for our justification.

This is a thick bite of Scripture this morning, and I believe that there's there's a lot of things in here, but I believe that God has uh have pointed us to three things that we're gonna look at this morning.

Titled the sermon inheritance.

Inheritance.

I don't know what that brings about in you, that word inheritance.

Um to be honest, it didn't really uh bring a lot in about in me.

I don't come from a rich family, so I'm not banking on anything coming uh when my parents pass.

Uh but it was either late last night or early this morning.

I was reading the news online, and some of you might have seen this.

Uh there was a man up uh, I think Massachusetts, I could be making that up, who passed away this past week.

Um he was worth about$1.2 million.

And uh he left, he split his inheritance, half a mil, half a mil, and uh and gave it to two actors he didn't know.

He had no family, his dad had passed away, he had inherited the land and money from his dad, he has no kids, no family to speak of.

And so back in 2007, he retained a lawyer and set up his will that it would go to these actors that you have never heard of.

Uh and I don't want to pick on anybody that's a soap opera fan.

That's my mom.

Uh, but uh one of the actors was a soap opera actor, but he was only on a show for like a year.

I was like, pick a real actor, at least, right?

Uh but he did that, and they asked the uh they they asked the lawyer, they said, Well, what did he tell you when he was going?

He said, Well, I asked who these who these men were, and he said, They're friends of mine.

And they asked actors, we've never met this man before in his life.

Turns out he never did.

Um, he just gave them a gift that they didn't earn.

Um, and that they didn't do anything to earn their way into his good graces.

It was just given.

And I thought, man, what a beautiful uh segue uh to where we're going this morning as we talk about being inheritance of Abraham's righteousness.

As we hear about his faith, when his body was old and dried up, um, when his when his wife was beyond what she believed to be conceiving age, it says that God rewarded her faith.

Uh the first point I want to look at this morning is in verses 13 and 15.

And the law has always been a means of pointing the way to God.

The law has always been a way, has been a means, rather, of pointing the way to God.

Here's what I mean.

Uh when we read thirteen and fifteen again, it'll be on the screen.

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

For if it is inheritance of the law who are to be their heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression.

Um I think to really uh wrap our head around this, if you've been here for any length of time, we started the Book of Romans in the fall.

We took a break for Advent and Christmas, and we did an Advent series in the month of January.

We went through the core values.

Last week, Neil picked back up in Romans in Romans 4.

What I'd like for us to do, it's already been preached, I'm not going to try to re-preach it because it was done much better than I could ever do it, but I would like us to just kind of back up a little bit into Romans 3.

Because I think looking at a couple verses in Romans 3, verses 19 and 20, it gives us a frame of reference to understand this big, kind of thick, hard to digest and chew up bite that Paul has given us here in these verses.

Romans 3:19

Romans chapter 3, verse 19 and 20.

Romans 3:19

It'll be on the screen.

It says this.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who is under the law.

I'm gonna read that again, because it's gonna it's gonna play into where we're going.

It says this.

Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Now, as Paul is writing this letter all throughout, he's writing mainly to two groups of people, that being Jews and non-Jews, Gentiles.

And so he's very aware that Jews will be reading this letter, and Jews, by culture, are very, and for good reason, are very concerned and very driven by the law.

And so he makes a special point here of saying the law speaks to those who are under the law.

Now, a Jew would take this law and do two things with it.

One, they would take the law and they would use it as a way of uh showing the godless heathens how ungodly they are.

Uh you godless Gentiles that sit amongst us today, uh, you would be instructed on how ungodly you were because you didn't have a knowledge of the law, and because you didn't have a knowledge of the law, consequently you didn't adhere to the law.

And so when he says you're under the law, the Jews were thinking, well, yeah, we're under the law, but not the way that you say it.

You've left the Jewish faith, and you're talking about this nonsense about the Christ.

And Paul is saying, No, no, no, you are absolutely the ones I'm talking to.

Because not only would they use this law as power, they would also use it and worship the means before the end.

And they would use the law, and here's what I mean by that, they would use the law as almost a stepladder to righteousness.

Righteousness being a right relationship with God.

They would take these laws that they have learned, that they have hidden in their heart, that they live by, and that would be the way that they knew God.

And Paul is saying, no, it's it's not that way anymore.

And he's going to use the life of Abraham, and we'll begin to pick up speed, and we'll begin to see how all this works.

Because here's what Paul does is he uh he brings he brings what I call a game-changing statement to the table, and a game-changing idea for Jew and for Gentile and for the entire world that will shake everything.

And here's what we mean by game changer.

Um we I think I shared some of this before.

We moved around a lot when I was a young kid.

Um my dad was in the oil business and it was in the 80s, and all that stuff was going on, and we hopped from here to here to here.

One of the places we lived is uh with a lot of other people was outside of Denver in Aurora, Colorado.

That was a big oil town in the 80s, and we lived out there, and uh that was where we got to experience snow.

Now, for those of you who grew up around here, snow, it's this white stuff.

Um, it's real cold.

Uh and so uh I have an older brother, he's seven years older than I am.

We lived on a cul-de-sac, and my brother kind of ran the show on that street.

He was uh one of the older ones, uh strongest one, kind of toughest, meanest one, and we got to live in a house with him, imagine that.

Uh and uh he just kind of ran things, and that also uh was applicable to when it snowed.

He was kind of in charge of what we would do with that snow.

Not just me, it's his younger brother, but the entire street would kind of wait and see, okay, Matt's gonna walk outside, what shall we do with this snow?

And so we were gonna have a snowball fight.

But it's not like the kind of snowball fight where you just run around, you just kind of make a snowball and lob it at somebody.

No, it was planned out, okay?

You get four hours to make your fort.

These people are gonna be on this team, these people are gonna be on this team.

He would normally put me on the other team so he could legally abuse me.

But I remember one time in particular, he put he allowed me to be on his team.

And so you had the morning to assemble your fort in one yard, and then we're gonna break for lunch, and we're gonna come back out, and we're gonna we're gonna have World War VIII right here on Naples Way Boulevard in Aurora, Colorado.

And we had made the fort, and I was like, let's go eat lunch, and he's like, no, no, no.

We still we got we gotta make we gotta make snowballs.

And so it wasn't like we're just gonna make them a throne.

He wanted our he just wanted like artillery holds like all over the place.

And so there I am, and remember the Christmas story, the Ralphie's little brother in the snowsuit, and I'm waddling around in that thing.

My brother's got like the cool clothes on, I got the snowsuit and the moon boots trying to make my way and make snowballs and keep falling down.

Um and then I remember we we go we eat lunch, we come back, and uh he has dug a hole inside of our fort, and he comes outside with a grocery bag, a plastic bag, and he reaches in there and he pulls out what looks like a baseball, but it but it's an ice ball.

And he had gathered out some slush uh from our driveway the night before and had shaped it into an ice ball and then put it in the freezer.

And then this thing was a rock.

And I was like, what is that?

And he's like, Well, sorry, I got tickled.

Uh he said, Well, if this thing gets out of hand, this is the game changer.

I thought, even in kindergarten, I was like, no, that's homicide, dude.

That's what that is.

Uh but I thought about that.

I mean, that was the game.

I mean, if someone had just, you know, had gone way out of bounds and he brought that thing out, and it'd have been over.

Uh and that's exactly what Paul does, is it's over for the argument of, well, no, we've worked the law and we've hidden that in our heart.

He's gonna say, no, everything, including the law, which also falls under God's creation, all of that points back to God.

Um and he says this he says, uh, you Jews who've been under the law and think so highly of the law, you can't keep it perfectly.

This is what he's telling us this morning.

He says, Um, no human being is justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

And what that means is, and what Paul is saying, is you you try to keep the law perfectly, but you can't.

Because you're not a perfect person.

Now, this is Paul, who was a Jew who knew the law.

He even said Jew amongst Jews, right?

And so he knew the law, he had it hidden in his heart, he lived by it, he believed in it so much that he persecuted and even killed Christians for it.

And he says, I can't keep it perfectly.

You as a Jew who was raised up memorizing the Torah, you can't keep it perfectly.

And then us Gentiles here, we don't get off the hook because he says, Well, if the Jews can't do it, then we definitely can't do it.

And he and he completely changes the game.

And he brings up out, he brings about level ground, and he says, This is where we start.

That none of us are perfect.

None of us can be responsible for our own salvation, none of us can bring about righteousness or a right relationship with God on our own.

And he begins to lay it out for us by saying that our inability to perfectly keep the law and justify ourselves reveals to us that the only way that we're to be justified, the only way that we are to be right with God is through Christ.

Which brings us back to our first three verses of Romans 4, which we can now read with a little more context and a little more understanding as we move on.

It says, For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir to the world did not come through the law.

Does that make sense now?

It did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

For it is the it is for if it is, the I did that the whole first service.

I can't get that one out.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?

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

For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression.

This means that the law can't be mistaken, uh the means of the law can't be mistaken for the end.

Um what I mean by that, I mentioned that before, is some of us feel much more comfortable in the law than we do living by faith.

Um I remember when I was in high school, my senior year of high school, I went to work for a man named Richard Tate.

How many of you grew up in Houston?

I was making fun of the Houston Nights for not knowing snow.

Now, some of you, um, I won't make you raise your hands because this might implicate you if you say you know what this place was.

There used to be a place a long time ago in Houston called Cat Baloo's.

Um, it was an old honky tonk over on the north side.

Some of you were nodding and going, oh, bad night, so I won't call you out.

Uh there was a honky tonk called Cat Baloo's.

It was tried to try to rival Gillies, it didn't last long.

Richard Tate was the one who owned Cat Balloo's.

Cat Baloo's wind under.

Richard decided to go into the roller skating business.

And he opened roller ranks all over Texas.

When I was in high school, he uh he bought some property and he built one, and I got a job working on the crew building it.

And he and I just kind of struck up a friendship and he said, What do you think about coming to work for me?

Um he said, I know you're playing sports, you can only work in the evenings, but that's that that's a perfect is a perfect job for you.

And I said, Yes, sir, and I took it and I was the DJ.

I spun the hits.

That's right.

I uh and Richard Tate was old school.

There were CDs, this was 96, there was there were CDs back then, but no CDs in Richard Tate's DJ.

We were we were we were spending 12-inch vinyl at that bad boy.

And so we would do that.

And um a few months into that job, I had a truck that I was uh trying to be James Dean and was racing it all the time and uh and blew the transmission in it.

And uh I had no money.

Zero.

I was my my dad was was gracious to us, but he was gracious enough to say, you're gonna pay your own way and you're gonna figure out what it is to work hard.

And I blew the transmission, my dad said, Well, there you go.

So I rode my bike to work one day, and that was a hall from where I live to work, and I showed up to work all sweaty, and Richard said, What's going on?

And I said, My truck is done, and I don't know, I don't have the I think it was$2,700 to fix it.

I don't have that.

And he just kind of shook his head.

So I went to work and I came back out of work and he said, Hey, hang around here for a second.

And I said, Yes, sir.

And he said, Here's what I'm gonna do.

He said, I need you to work.

He said, You're one of the hardest working guys I have here, and I can't have you peddling to work and not showing up, so uh, I'm gonna give you an advance.

And I called this guy, I want you to go over to this Chevy dealership, he's gonna replace your transmission.

I'm gonna pay for it, but I've given you advance on your paycheck.

And uh, and which was an incredible gift, an incredible gift.

But uh I came back from that and went to work, and payday came around and no paycheck for me.

And another payday, no paycheck for me.

And when I began to do every day that I worked, I began to think about okay, how far is my minimum wage gonna get me towards that$2,700 today?

Minimum wage being about$375 back then, right?

How far is that gonna get me towards the debt I owe?

And that was the way I worked.

I loved the job, it was good, but man, I would pick up extra hours, it was a wooden floor, and so I'd work on the weekends when it was closed and uh and wax the floor for extra hours, clean bathrooms, do whatever I have to do.

But in my mind, there was always this running tally of how can I get back even with the house.

Now, here's what I submit, here's what I mean by we we like the loss, so we like to worship the means instead of the end, is we feel most comfortable when we approach our faith that way.

Because if we sin, if we do so are we okay in here?

Everybody, there's a big deep inhale and exhale there.

Are we okay?

When we sin, when we do something against what we know God has called us to do, then we would rather be able to work our way back into his grace.

But here's what God says.

If you're a son and daughter of God, you're already there.

Let me say that again.

We want to work our way into God's grace.

But if we're his son and his daughter, God says we're already there.

So we're steal the the phrase of my friend Neil, who's normally up here on Sunday mornings, I want to meddle a little bit.

Because we we we get convinced of that on Sundays.

And I and I really think and I really believe that we believe that.

But the question is, is if we were to be good Christian biologists, right, and dissect the things that are going on in our lives, some of us have a lot of junk.

It looks like the kingdom in here.

A lot of people with a lot of issues.

That's real life.

And there's a lot of stuff going on.

And if you were to dissect the energy that you're putting towards whatever's going on in your life, whether that's what the next five or twenty years of your life's gonna look like, what the next five minutes of your life is gonna look like, what's going on with your kids, what's going on with your finances, what's going on with the with the person at work.

I almost use a term that there might be little ears in here, but that person at work we don't like very much.

If you were to dissect all that energy, how much of that has God's name on it?

How much of that has your name on it?

Because when when we're under pressure, when things aren't going the way that we would like for them to go, that's a good sample to say, how much how much of me is in my life and how much of God is in my life?

Which brings us uh to our next point that I think Paul points out to us in God's word in verse 16 and 17.

Life in Christ over tradition.

Life in Christ over tradition.

Read verse 16 and 17 again.

It says this.

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all of his offspring, not only to the inherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

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

Paul in these two I really believe, Paul in these two verses of his ministry has accomplished more than I can look back on fifteen years of the ministry I've been in that I could call success.

He accomplishes two things here that are just monumental.

Um and if I'm gonna be honest with you, which I want to be, um I've missed it.

I've read this, uh I've read this this chapter, I've read this section several times, either for my own personal study, writing papers for conversations, teaching classes, whatever, and I've missed it.

And even in preparing for this sermon and knowing since April this was coming up, because we outlined Romans back in April as a pastoral staff, I knew I was going to be preaching this, and I continued to miss it, and it took a man much smarter than me, and I want to give him credit.

His name is David Bartlett, he's from Columbia Seminary, and he really brought this into focus for me in my study for this.

And he points these things out is that what Paul manages to do is he cites the whole working of creation from Adam in Genesis to the second Adam being Jesus.

And here's what I mean by that is when you read, it says, He who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

Remember all the way back in Genesis with the creation narrative.

And Jesus begins to speak things that have never been before.

It says the earth was void and formless before God spoke things into creation.

And he spoke light into creation, and remember it said water covered the earth, and God created land to separate the bodies of water, and he created animals, and he made creation.

And then he takes something that never had life and he gives it life.

It never was, and he makes it something, and he makes it life.

And it says that he takes the ground and he breathes life into it, and he creates man.

He creates Adam.

He reaches in, he takes a bone from Adam, he makes Eve, he creates things that have never been.

And so he covers from the very beginning, but he also covers to the very end with the second Adam, with Jesus, because think about it.

Jesus on the cross, crucified, he died.

It says he breathed his last.

Jesus said, it is finished.

He was put in a tomb, he was buried for three days, and then God brought new life through the resurrection.

And so when Paul says, who gives life to the dead and calls existence and things that do not exist, from created into life to resurrected in life, Paul covers all of that in one verse.

But here's what else he does is he answers the question of what makes God God?

What makes God God?

Now, if you're in a place where you're doubting, you're in conversations with people that doubt, you ask yourself, man, why do I have to do the things that God has called me to do?

You're in conversation with people that might ask that same question.

What makes God God in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gave life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist?

You would not exist if not for God.

Hope in your life would not exist if not for God.

Salvation would not exist if not for God.

Eternal life would not exist.

If not for God.

Why is God God?

Because God is the only thing that can breathe life.

God is the only thing that can bring resurrection.

That God has done and can do two things: create a world out of nothing, bring life out of death.

And if God is able to do the first, who can deny that God is able to do the second too?

Paul repeats his humbling goodness in 1 Corinthians 28 and 29, and I share this with you for a reason.

Let me read it first.

1 Corinthians 1, 28 and 29, it'll be on the screen.

It says, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not.

So things that are low and despised and worthless and can't do anything on their own.

He brought that to life.

And things that are not, things that have never been, he brought that to life.

I would submit that's all of us, both of those, to bring nothing to things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

The other day I was at the gym that Sally and I uh go to, or members of them type kids too, and stuff, and um ran into one of uh you, uh a person from the church, and I was having a conversation.

He said, Um, man, I was uh this this man is uh uh uh a vendor for an oil company, and he ran into a guy that I went to high school with who's a purchasing agent for an oil company.

And he said, Well, I tell you what, man, I had a conversation with this guy, and uh he had some stories on you.

And I was like, Well, most of them are probably not true.

Tell me his name, and I'll tell you how true they were not.

Uh and he told me his name, and I thought, well, most of those are probably true.

Uh but he said, I and then he got real serious.

He's like, I got a serious question for you.

And I was like, Well, I got a serious answer.

And he's like, no, quit messing around.

I got really got a serious question.

I was like, ask, man, open book.

And he said, Now, I mean, is it like a prerequisite that you gotta have like a Johnny Cash past to work at that church?

At first I was like, I just got compared to Johnny Cash, the greatest nigga of my life for getting marriage and kids.

I just got compared to Johnny Cash.

And I said, What do you mean?

I said, I think I know what you mean.

What do you mean by Johnny Cash past?

He's like, you know what?

He's like, I've heard Neil, you know, from behind the pulpit, he's talked about stuff before he knew Jesus, and you've referenced some stuff, and man, after talking to this guy yesterday, he's like, Man, the stuff that he talked about before you knew Jesus.

I'm just thinking, I mean, is you is there like a you gotta fill out a paragraph and write an essay on your life before Jesus for you work there, so you got good stories?

And I was like, man, if you think I'm bad, you need to search the public records on our spiritual formation pastor, Lance Williams, and you'll find out.

I was nothing but a choir boy.

No, I'm just joking.

I didn't say that.

What I did say it was, man, it is uh it's 1 Corinthians 1, 28 and 29.

That's really, and that's honestly, that was my answer, and that's what came up is God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

And I was like, man, I I have nothing to do with that.

Uh the past, that's past.

And the fact that I'm 17 years down the road from all those stories you heard, and I had nothing to do with what's brought me from there to here.

God's grace has brought me from there to here.

I was nothing in low, and God brought me to here.

And the gospel's big enough.

And the gospel was big enough for me.

And the gospel's big enough for Neil, and it's big enough for Lance, and it was big enough for every one of you in this room.

And this happened in the first service, and I just I think this is the Holy Spirit thing, and so I want to speak to it.

Um, this came up in a class I was teaching um uh on Wednesday nights two weeks ago, and we were talking about our stories.

And um, I I I believed this to be true, and then it was confirmed uh in this class, and that's why I want to speak to it is if you don't have a Johnny Cash story, you have probably been a fed, you've probably been fed a lie over a lifetime that your story is not as consequential.

And that it's not a testimony and it's not a story worth sharing.

That is a lie.

Here's how great God is.

Here's how great he is at bringing righteousness, a right relationship with him, is he has an individual story he's working in every one of your lives.

And it's consistent.

And here's how it's consistent, it consistently points back to him.

But each one is specific, and it doesn't have to be the sexy Johnny Cash story.

I'm reminded of, um and I think I shared this with my class, maybe I can't remember, but I'm reminded of uh I got I got two friends that were pivotal in me becoming a Christian.

Um in the words of life they spoke to me, um the example they set up before me, and the way they love me, like the Bible says, these are the guys that would uh pick me up after a night of bad decisions and drive me home.

Um these are guys that would love me and not look at me look at me with judgment the next day.

Um they're the ones that uh relentlessly uh showed up at my house and would invite me and beg me to come to church.

Um these are the guys that both of them became Christians when they were seven years old and lived uh lives of faith.

And uh don't have a Johnny Cash story.

Um these are the guys that uh that I call when I have questions about my faith.

These are the guys that I call when I need advice on how to be a better father and a better husband.

Um and and those are incredible stories that they have to share, and not one of them spent a night in jail.

Um not one of them shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, right?

They've lived um incredible lives and stories worth telling.

And and and so have you.

Does that make sense?

Um that conversation, um being a part of that conversation in the class, being the conversation in the gym, preparing uh this sermon for this morning, reminding me of uh my favorite obscure Martin Lloyd joins Martin Lloyd Jones quote.

It's gonna be on the screen, so I don't butcher it.

I decided to read it instead of trying to do it myself.

Um but it says this this is the great and wonderful promise.

It does not apply to Jews alone.

Remember, leveling the ground.

This is what Paul, this is what God through Paul rather does.

It does not apply to Jews alone or only in the land of Palestine.

It applies to all the true spiritual children, the children of faith.

We must no longer think of these matters in terms of Jews and Gentiles, circumcision or uncircumcision, being under the law or outside the law.

In Christ Jesus, there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, male nor female, bond nor free.

Thank God, justification is by faith only, and it is not determined by these other considerations.

You are not more of a Christian because you go to Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

You are not more a child of God because you're a Gentile and not a Jew.

Jews are not more children of God because they're Jews and we're Gentiles.

Thank God, justification is by faith only, and it's not determined by these other considerations.

This is why we find our hope and salvation in life in Christ over tradition.

Which brings us to a place where we start to land this plane.

And point number three righteousness comes from faith.

Righteousness comes from faith.

Um before I read this, previously I said, you know, Paul did this incredible thing.

He hit the shot, heard round the world with the two verses of 15 and 17.

Um, what he's done in the verses that we're going to finish out this sermon and finish out this chapter with is he has created and um generated conversational argument and fodder for coffeehouse theologians the worldwide from the beginning of time until the end of time by words like justification and uh the things that we're about to read.

But uh we we are not to be afraid of the Bible.

Can I say that?

There are things that um that we that we that we veer away from because we're afraid of the conversations that are going to happen, because somebody might fall into one category that's different than the category you fall under, or you're very adamant that you have to be this way and they're not that way, or vice versa.

God has created and set the theme of a level ground for us to come to him with and come to him on, and to come to his word with as well.

Um that is why faith was counted to him as righteousness, 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 trespasses and raised for our justification.

That word justification.

Um people smarter than I can ever hope to be for years and years have um tried to figure out where Paul got justification from this story that he's referencing back in Genesis 15.

Um, Neil did a little this last week, and so I don't want to spend too much time here as we um begin to close, but I do want us to look at Genesis 15 and see what Paul is talking about.

Um, it'll be on the screens behind me.

Genesis 15, 5 and 6.

It says this.

And he brought him outside, and he said this look toward heaven and number the stars if you're able to number them.

And then he said to him, So shall your offspring be.

And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

Abraham believed God, and because of that, we got rain.

Because of that, God counted his faith as righteousness.

And so what Paul has done is from that we have this word justification.

Now, Paul wasn't the first person to ever say it, but Paul is probably the most famous person to say it, and he's who wrote what we're reading today.

But I think what Paul was doing, and what God was wanting to do with Paul, is to show us that we're justified by faith.

Now, um, Neil made reference to this the other day.

Um the Jews, especially in this time, were quick to reference Abraham.

Well, we're sons of Abraham.

Remember, Neil talked about this last week when John the Baptist was baptized.

He says, Don't you dare say, sons of Abraham.

God can make sons of Abraham out of these stones right here.

What Jews would also do is they would reference Moses, that we had the law, and that we are part of the people of God that came out and we did 40 years and God delivered us.

Paul makes a really interesting choice here to point us towards justification.

He doesn't talk about Moses.

He talks about Abraham.

And here's why he talks about Abraham is Abraham, all the stuff that God did with him, watch this, 432 years before God ever gave the law to Moses.

432 years between when God had this conversation with Abraham and when God gave the law to Moses.

Level ground.

He's saying, hey, here's a guy without the law who had faith in God.

Here's a guy who was 100 years old, didn't have the law, and trusted that 100 years old and his wife's womb is barren, will have kids and will be the father of many nations.

Many nations, and nation upon nation upon nation, and because of that faith, it was credited to him as righteousness.

And so God justified.

God brought him into a just relationship.

Justified a just relationship.

He says, Because of your faith, I bring you to me.

And it was credited to him as righteousness.

Abraham didn't have the law.

Abraham had faith in God.

Verse 6.

He believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness.

So it was Abraham's faith that allowed him to have a right relationship with God.

I think in understanding this, I think in reading this, I want to read the last four verses of Romans 4 again.

That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.

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

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 trespasses and raised for our justification.

It says that because Jesus, who was raised from the dead, Jesus who died on the cross, we talked about this earlier, Jesus who died on the cross, who was put in a grave, who it is finished, he said, he breathed his last, the Bible said he is dead for three days.

God then brings about resurrection.

And in that resurrection, we have new life.

By believing and trusting in that resurrection, we have new life.

The Bible says that the same power that raised Jesus from the grave is alive in us.

We have that.

Not by the law, but by the power of Jesus Christ.

By the power of God, we are justified.

By the power of God, we have a just relationship with God.

Not by effort, but by God justifying us.

And with God making the central theme of our relationship with Him, the center of the universe, being the resurrection of Jesus Christ, He makes it not only possible, but He makes our justification, our just relationship with God certain.

Not only possible, because remember, living by the law, being perfect to the law, impossible.

Having a relationship with Jesus Christ?

Possible.

Salvation by having a relationship with Jesus Christ?

Certain.

Not only possible, but certain.

He made it possible while making it certain by the same power that was used to raise Christ from the dead.

This is the power of God that makes your salvation possible, certain, and look at me.

Secure.

It is time.

It is time for us to stop living like our salvation is uncertain.

And you're like, well, I don't believe in that feel.

I'm not talking about that.

Here's what I'm talking about.

Is your does your life look like you believe your salvation is certain?

And it's secure.

If your friends at work were asked that same question, do they live in such a way that it looks like their salvation is certain and secure?

Because here's here's something that I want to be your pastor and tell you that we're in danger of.

What do your kids see in you as it pertains to your faith?

Do they see a certain faith?

They see a possible faith?

Or do they see a whole lot of effort?

Man, you love God and you are really worn out about it.

God's not mad at you.

He just wants to remind you this morning that it's possible, it's certain, and it's secure.

Do me a favor and stand to your feet.

I was reminded when we were in India two weeks ago of something we've talked about here before.

Um, when Lance and the team went two years ago to India, um, Lance spoke a blessing over them.

And he said, Putting your hands out like this is just a sign to God, not to the person speaking, but a sign to God of, I'm ready to receive.

And so let's do that this morning.

Put our hands out.

God has made salvation possible.

He has made it certain, and he has made it secure for you.

Live like it.

Live like it.

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, you're dismissed.