Abraham Father of Our Faith - Romans: Book of Revolution

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

Well, today we're we're talking about Abraham, and we're in Romans 4, but don't turn there.

Don't turn to Romans 4 yet.

We've been talking about justification by faith.

We've been talking about the fact that in the Roman church at that time you had Jews and you also had Greeks.

And he's trying to move through an understanding of how we get saved.

And among the Jews, there was this idea that if you followed the Mosaic law, that's how you got saved.

And then among the Gentiles, they don't know anything about the law, but they have other versions of it through the Roman pantheon.

And we've been talking about that for the first three chapters.

What Paul is trying to communicate, though, is that salvation in Christ is not an act of righteous deeds, no matter how righteous they might be.

They're never gonna reform your flesh.

How many of you know you can't reform your flesh?

You can't, you can take your flesh to reform school and it's still the flesh, okay?

But that but that the righteousness of God is imparted into us from the outside in.

You're up to no good from the inside out, but you're up to great possibilities if God's righteousness is imparted into you.

That comes through faith.

And that's what the first three chapters have been about.

Well, because of that, and because of a misunderstanding of that, many of us have grown up in churches where the impression is you gotta be just more moral, or you gotta be more religious, or you gotta follow these rituals of whatever church you come out of.

And Paul is now saying, look, among those that call themselves believers today, as well as who would call themselves even Jews today, we have a father.

We have a father, and his name is Abraham.

And then now he's gonna go in chapter four into Abraham and begin to explain the life of Abraham.

And what's interesting about Abraham is that Abraham doesn't fit the bill even at that time.

So you guys know that I geek out on this kind of stuff from time to time.

My wife's worse than me on some of it.

And so the information that I began to ask Liz about because of her Genesis study that she's done is the history behind the Ur of the Chaldeans, the Chaldees.

That's where Abraham was from.

Now, I don't know, I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands, but if you're like me, you grew up in the church, you might have this idea that Abraham was sort of like this pre-tent dweller, this Bedouin, kind of a Bedouin sheep herder, they kind of wandered around in this area which is present-day southern Iraq, and then God called them and seemed like a pretty good deal.

He believed in God, and then he worked his way to Canaan and set up tents and had a bunch of cattle and sheep.

Well, nothing could be further from the truth.

Actually, Abram, which is his earlier name, from the Ear of Chaldees, was from one of the wealthiest and actually most modern cities of ancient time.

3,800 years ago, this is all, I got this all from my wife Liz.

This is from the Metro, some studies that we did.

Assyrians invented timekeeping, paved rows, door keys, libraries, magnifying glasses, aqueducts, flushing toilets, and even guitars.

They also were the pioneers of our present-day modern calendar.

As Haddon, which is in the Bible twice, founded a 30,000-plus volume library, this is in Ur, that included astronomy, observation of the northern lights, and solar activity.

Their mining among the Chaldeans was as modern as ours is today.

They were mining crystal, gold, and silver that was making the most sophisticated pottery and tools that rivals even modern times.

The earliest heart came from Ur.

They even had the working early forms of a telescope.

In Austin Laird's book, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, he writes, with the glass bowls, discovered a rock crystal with opposite convex and plane faces.

Its properties could scarcely have been unknown to the Assyrians.

And we have consequently the earliest specimen of a magnifying glass, a burning glass from ancient Assyria.

It gives a tolerably distinct focus.

So this is stuff they found in archaeology.

Its plane surface must be greatly inclined to the axis of the hexagonal prism of quartz from which it must have been taken, intended to be used as a lens, like a photography lens, either for magnifying or concentrating the rays of the sun.

Ur had the first law writings and even ruled with a constitution and a leadership and congressional structure not altogether different than ours today.

Ur had adopted Inanna, a moon goddess, as their patron god.

Abraham's father was an idol worshiper.

I think we could probably say Abram was an idol worshiper at one point too.

Abram was born in this city a few generations after Babel.

The most likely site of Ur is present-day Telmagyar in southern Mesopotamia, about 140 miles south of ancient Babylon.

So the reason I say that, why are you saying all that?

See, that's that's really interesting.

We're having an archaeology study in Romans right now.

No, the reason I'm doing this is because I want you to understand that Abram, who was who was a wealthy man at that time, had everything.

He had everything that the ancients could have had, in some ways rivaling the civilizations that we have today.

And yet God called him out.

God saw something in him called faith that he recognized was here was a man that I can bring forth a new kingdom through.

Remember Babel.

Remember what Tower of Babel was about.

The Tower of Babel were the were the men and the women of that time coming together to build this ziggurat up to God that they might be like God.

And God confused the language, confused them, which caused them to have kind of a diaspora, a dissipation of different cultures and stuff of that time.

But God never forgot his original vision for the earth, and that was a kingdom of God that was going to come through his son named Jesus Christ.

And he found through Abram this faith.

So turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

So before we join to Romans 4, I wanted to give you a little background on Genesis 12.

So in Genesis 11, 31, Moses writes that Abram had a wife named Sarai.

They went out from Ur of the Chaldeans to the land of Canaan.

They came to Haran and they dwelt there.

And so that the days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.

So that's his father.

His father was an idolater.

Now, remember, Abram's got it all, beautiful city.

All the historians agree that when Abram was in Ur, it was at the height of its power, at the height of the inventions and the merchants and the routes of merchants coming through that area were at their height.

Now God comes to him and it says, if you look at verse 1, now the Lord had said to Abram, so sometime before that, in the midst of that, God speaks to Abram and he calls him to Canaan.

I mean, this desert people, this tribal group, he leaves the metropolis of Ur to go there.

Here's what he says: get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you.

I'll make you a great nation.

I'll bless you.

I'll make your name great.

And you shall be a blessing.

And I will bless those who bless you.

I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

So not only is Abram the father of Judaism, not only is Abram the father of Christianity, Abram's the father of a kingdom of God revolution.

I mean, we're here today, some 3,800 years later, because Abram believed in God.

He believed God when he was in the midst of a massive metropolis of idolatry, only about 150 miles from where Babel had been.

So all of that group, they didn't go very far back then.

I mean, nobody was getting on a jet and hanging out somewhere else.

Everybody was migrating.

They didn't migrate very far.

So that's the world he's been in.

There's something in him that God noticed.

Now, turn to chapter 15 of Genesis.

So there's a lot in 13 and 14 of Genesis.

I won't go into it.

I would say that probably if you're a wife and you're reading it, you might go, what a schmo about Abram.

But in chapter 15, there's this dialogue with God, which also has bearing on what we're going to read in Romans 4.

After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not be afraid, Abram.

I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.

But Abram said, Lord God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus.

So evidently it had a son, either with another wife or with a concubine.

Then Abram said, Look, you have given me no offspring.

So he's looking at his offspring as coming from Sarai.

Indeed, one born in my house is my heir.

So that's going to be my heir.

That's the only one I've got, is what he's saying.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.

And then he brought him outside and said, Look now toward heaven and count the stars if you're able to number them.

If you're able to number them.

And he said to him, So shall your descendants be.

And he believed in the Lord and he accounted to him righteousness.

That's really interesting.

So Abram's having some doubts about this whole transaction and this covenant.

And then God takes him out and says, Look at the stars.

He sees the stars.

He says, That's what your descendants will be.

I'm still gonna work my work in you.

And but he doesn't show him how he's gonna do it.

He doesn't explain when he's gonna do it.

Because here's the thing: when you talk to people about faith in Christ, a lot of times what you hear, and it's a typical response, is I would believe if.

And it's like something that someone has to see, right?

They have to see that.

I can't tell you how many times when I'm on college campuses and I'm in a debate with somebody or something like that, they say, well, if an angel came to me, or if God came to me, or something like that, and you're like, dude, do you know what angels are like in the Bible?

I mean, you really want to meet an angel?

When people meet angels, they drop over dead, okay?

These guys have flaming swords and stuff, and you've just got me.

I think you better rethink your faith a little bit, you know?

So, but but for Abram, who later is going to become Abraham, he put his faith in God without any sight except for a metaphor of the stars.

He believed God.

Now that's pretty amazing.

So when he believed God, what the scriptures say is there was this transaction by which the righteousness of God, because of his faith, was then imparted.

That was imparted in to Abram.

Well, God still does that today, folks.

When we put our faith in Christ, he imparts to you righteousness that you don't have.

You don't have what it takes.

You can't reform you.

You're you're a mess, okay?

God, though, then supernaturally in this transaction with your heart, imparts faith.

He takes the wrath that we deserve upon himself, but then he imparts into you faith.

That's what Paul's point is for the first three chapters.

So now, swing over to Romans chapter 4.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

So let's pick it up, where he begins to talk about Abraham.

Now, I want to talk about Isaiah 9 first.

Isaiah 9.

Now, this is one of those Christmassy verses.

So everybody likes Isaiah.

You only read Isaiah 9, 6 and 7 at Christmas time.

I want to look at it from a little different angle.

Isaiah 9.

Don't turn there, it's going to come up on the screen.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.

And the government will call up, will be upon his shoulders.

The government, the government of God is what he means here.

And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Now, verse 7 is my point.

Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end.

Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice.

From that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord will perform this.

God was looking for a person who had the faith that he could build a kingdom through.

This is before Christ.

It's not the time for Christ yet.

God is building into, and he's looking for, and the scriptures talk about in 2 Chronicles, that the eyes of the Lord look to and fro for those whose hearts are completely his, that he might strongly support them.

And so Babel had been the people on the earth trying to build a kingdom.

It gets destroyed.

Now he wants to build this kingdom through faith.

Faith people, people who will trust him.

And Abram, now, chapter 4, Abraham, which he was renamed, father of all nations.

Instead of exalted father, Abram means exalted father, Abraham means father of all nations.

That God's got this kingdom that he's going to work, that he's going to build through the church that had not been seen yet.

But somehow Abraham saw that, guys.

He saw that.

He saw that there was a city.

That's what Hebrews 11:6 says.

Hebrews 11:6

That he saw a city whose foundations was God, that God was going to build through his faith and in his heart.

So we pick it up in Romans 4.

What then shall we say that Abraham, our father, has found according to the flesh?

So is this according to the flesh?

Is this righteousness of God according to the flesh?

Well, to a Jew, the most godly, righteous, patriarch is definitely Abraham.

I mean, we can skip a little bit about Abimelech and some stuff like that.

But by and large, that's the guy.

That's Abraham.

He's the father of our faith.

Even Islam says Abraham is the father of their faith.

We as Christians should, we should feel confidently say the father of our faith is also Abraham.

Well then, if he's the father of our faith, if he's the father of the works of God, then he should be the shining example that works can do it, that works will make it happen, that works will get you salvation, that works is the way to go.

So it's a question mark.

Verse 2.

For if Abraham was justified by works, then he has something to boast about, but not before God.

Now, what's he saying?

He's saying that if works, if being a good person, if being a righteous person, if being a righteous person, if being a part of the ritual of a religion is what's going to get you in, then Abraham should have been the first to figure this out.

But what he's going to tell us in the rest of the chapter, which we won't cover all of it today, is that even before there was a circumcision, even before there was a Mosaic law, even before the Ten Commandments, before he went up on the mountain and Mount Sinai, all the thunder and lightning and the law twice given, he believed in God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

Does that make sense?

It wasn't those things that were gonna, that was gonna come later.

But for our knowledge of the faith of how God comes, it came through Abraham, and that's what he says in verse 3.

This for what does the scripture say?

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

This is one of the most profound passages in the Bible.

You should memorize it.

This is a reminder, Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness.

It's a mathematical calculation.

It's uh it's accounting, 101.

He's saying that when he believed, then there was this impartation.

Not believed in God, Satan believes in God.

Demons believe in God.

It says he believed God.

That's huge, man.

So it's like me going to my bank.

I go into my bank, I know I've got zero in my account.

Matter of fact, I'm negative because of all the all the penalties and everything.

And I come in and there's a sudden a million bucks.

They go, well, Mr.

Holt, you got a million dollars in your account.

And I'm like, what?

Yeah, there's a million dollars here.

Well, I don't know where that came from.

So you see, you see, it's it's from the outside.

It's our faith.

God deposits his righteousness.

You're bankrupt.

Steve Holt is bankrupt.

Liz Holt, who's way better than me, she's bankrupt without Christ.

As a freshman in college, I'm bankrupt, man.

And then I put my faith in Christ.

I believed not in God.

I always believed in God.

Probably most of you in this room, your whole life, you believed in God.

But have you believed God?

Have you truly put your trust in him?

Because when that happens, there's this there's this transaction by which where you and I are empty, he pours his righteousness into you.

So I was reading Luther's um commentary on Romans last night before I went to bed.

I couldn't get it out of my head all night, but I'm not going to do that tonight.

I was reading it, and um obviously it's a translation from German, but he made a really good point.

I thought this was good.

He said, hypocrites tend to be people who look at themselves as righteous, and their justification is their righteousness.

They wouldn't say it that way, but that's that was Luther's analysis.

True believers are those who look at themselves as sinners, who are bankrupt, have nothing, but now we have all the righteousness of God and we're justified in Christ.

Beautiful example.

I think that's so true.

That's where self-righteousness comes in.

Because we if we can boast about our righteousness, then that's that's a total definition of hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

But when we come to Christ, we're like, I don't have anything, I don't have anything to offer.

I may be talented, I may be wealthy, I may be gifted, I may be blessed with great friends, I have a great education, whatever it is that you're so proud of about yourself, it's nothing before Christ.

But we put our faith into Christ and his life and his death and his resurrection that broke the power of Satan, that broke the power.

Of demons that broke the power of darkness that comes in and says to our sin, though it be scarlet, it can be white as snow.

If you'll trust me, that's the transaction he's speaking of.

Abraham believed God, and there was an accounting.

Folks, when you believe God, there's an accounting.

But it's more than that.

This is why Romans gets really fun from now on.

Because for the rest of Romans, it's how we do that in everything, not just our salvation.

But how do we believe God in our finances?

How do we believe God in our moral life?

How do we believe God in our vocation?

How do we believe God in our marriage?

How do we believe God in our singleness?

Because that transaction still works.

But it's our choice.

It's our choice of faith.

We make that choice of faith to say, Lord, I have not trusted you in this area.

I'm bankrupt.

I've tried all the devices that man has to give me.

And I love you and I trust you with my life, but in this area, I'm not doing that.

Lord, I believe you to bring victory, to make me an overcomer in this area.

Folks, there's a transaction that occurs.

His righteousness comes into that area.

And he begins to change.

That's what Romans 6, 7, and 8 is all about.

And we get to that.

In a few weeks, we're getting Romans 6, 7, and 8.

It's the battle.

I call it the internal civil war of the heart.

So this word accounting in verse 3, accounted to him, is logosomi in Greek, 41 times in the New Testament, 19 times in Romans, 11 times in Romans chapter 4 alone.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

It's an imputation of God where we believe in him.

Now to him who works, verse 4, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt.

So is it a gift or is it a debt?

It's according to how you look at it.

So Thomas Bradbury put together eight passages from the Bible which show the various aspects of justification by faith.

Let me quickly roll through these.

Eight essential truths about our justification in Christ.

Number one, we're justified by the sovereignty of God.

Romans 8, 33.

Who shall bring a charge against God's elect?

It is God who justifies.

Listen, guys, whatever we think about predestination, those types of different issues, we have to believe in the sovereignty of God, don't you?

What do you do if you don't believe in the sovereignty of God?

You go crazy.

You have to believe that even with all the evil out there and all the stuff that's going on, God is working out his plan.

He is working out a revolution of his kingdom of God on earth.

Number two, we're justified without a cause in us by his grace.

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Romans 3.24.

Number three, we're justified by the virtue of the blood of Christ, Romans 5.9.

Much more than, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

Number four, we're justified by the obedience of Christ, Romans 5.19.

For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience many will be made righteous.

Number five, we're justified by the resurrection of Christ.

Romans 4.25, who has delivered us up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification.

Number six, we are justified by the power of the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 6 11.

And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of God.

Number seven, we're justified by faith in Christ.

Galatians 2.16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.

And then number eight, and finally, the evidence of our justification is to be found in our works, our changed life.

James 2.24, you say that a man is justified by works and not by faith only.

So I've shared this before.

Martin Luther said, who is the one who really rediscovered faith alone?

He said, We're justified, we're saved by faith alone, but not faith that is alone.

In other words, works don't save us, but works are the result of a saved life.

So if you're with someone and they, you know, claim to be a Christian, and they just continually are allowing sin to rule their life in areas of their life, you have justification to challenge that person and say, dude, you say you're saved, but your life is no different than anybody else's.

I'm not sure you're saved.

I mean, you're on good ground to say that.

You're not saying that if they change their life, they'll get saved.

What you're saying is they need to get saved so God can change their life.

Now, everybody in this room's got stuff.

Raise your hand if you've got some stuff that you're working on, okay.

And the rest of you are liars, but okay.

But we've all got stuff, right?

I'm not talking about that the occasional sin.

I'm not talking about where we're making mistakes because we're human.

I'm talking about where you have a lifestyle of living in sin, a lifestyle of hurting others, a lifestyle of hurting yourself.

There's reason to believe you've never really had the complete gospel preached to you.

You don't understand who Christ is and letting him live in your heart.

Verse 5, but to him who does not work, but believes on him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

Now, what he's saying in verse 5 is not, don't work, or don't work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

He's saying, don't depend on works to save you.

Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works.

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.

So the salvation that we begin to live out that produces righteousness in our lives is a new law.

There's a new law, folks.

And when you go through Romans, I would encourage you to do this.

I did that this, I did that this week.

Liz and I took a little break.

We were up in the mountains, hiking around, doing some fun stuff, and I spent one of the mornings just reading the whole book of Romans, just reading the whole book of Romans.

And what you see is this transition.

I'll just give you a quick summation.

I've done this before, I'll just say it again.

But Romans 1 through 4 is really about justification by faith alone.

Then 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, it's kind of how we work it out.

How do we get victory in our life?

Then the last part is talking about this law, this new law of love in our lives.

And in 2 Corinthians 5.14, Paul says the love of Christ compels us.

And so, church, we're under a new law.

And it's the law of love for God.

It's love in God, it's intimacy with Him, it's that relationship with Him where we're excited to walk with Him.

I mean, not every day.

I mean, maybe some of you, it's every day, but it's not for me every day.

But on a regular basis, we're falling in love with Christ, we're opening the Word, we can't wait to read the Word.

We read the Word.

God begins to build up our faith as we read the Word, and we're excited for the next day and the adventure that God has for us.

That's the law of love.

That compels us.

The Mosaic law, as we've talked about before, shows us what it is that hurts God's heart.

It shows us right and wrong.

The law of love is the proactive, intentional work of the Spirit in our life of loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves.

We don't have that.

I mean, there's some really great people out there.

I mean, there's some really, really wonderful people out there.

I mean, they're amazing.

That just seems like they're so loving and they're so kind, but that's not gonna save them.

And there's some really mean people out there that are saved by grace.

Amen.

That's not my deal.

That's God's way.

But I pray at the road we can be a loving people.

We can be a kind people.

We cannot compromise on truth.

But we can also outlove, outwork, and outpray the rest of this world.

So verse 7 and 8 says, Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

This is David speaking.

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.

Blessed is the idea of happy.

Happy is the person who knows they're forgiven.

Church, do you know you're forgiven?

Do you know that all the scarlet, red, bloody sins you've committed are covered by the blood, the red blood of Jesus.

And your sins, past, present, and future, are gone, man.

You can walk in the righteousness of Christ.

And that righteousness is where the love of God compels us to love our neighbors.

No boasting.

No boasting in ourselves, but boast in him.

Boast in what he's done.

Not what you've done, but what he's done.

Thank you for listening to the Foreign for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.

God bless