Lent: Abraham and the Righteousness of Faith | Guest Speaker: David Russ

Good morning.

Thanks for the kind introduction, Russ.

As Russ said, my name is David Russ.

I'm an elder here at Christ the Redeemer.

And Russ uh asks us elders sometimes to stand in from him from time to time.

Today we're continuing our series for Lent.

This is the second Sunday in Lent.

And we have a lectionary that we follow.

And this passage is taken from the lectionary for the second Sunday in Lent.

And when thinking of today's passage, I was reminded of a story.

Okay, there's a man named I'm not actually sure how to pronounce his last name, Frank Abagnali or something like that.

Frank Abagnali is a financial security consultant for the FBI.

He's been a security consultant for many years now.

And his early life was the subject of a movie, Catch Me If You Can, which is actually based on his book by the same name.

As a very young man, if you've seen the movie, you know it's a fascinating plot, and it's a true story.

As a young man, he posed as an airline pilot and flew all over the world and did all kinds of uh wild stuff and made a living forging checks the whole time.

That's kind of how he became a financial security consultant.

And uh his stunts were just were crazy, just borderline unbelievable.

And my favorite story is actually in the book, it's not in the movie.

Uh one day he dressed up as a bank security guard, put an out-of-order sign on the not deposit night depository at a shopping mall, and then collected all the checks and cash that the mall had collected that day.

He just collected it all.

In fact, he he has this big, these these literally these bags and boxes of loot he's carrying out to his car, and a policeman stops him and he thinks, oh no, it's it's you know, now I'm up.

And the policeman says, Can I help you with those bags?

And helps him load all that stuff into his car.

Now, now we like to we like to think that we have status because we're something, because we've achieved something or accomplished something.

And it just kind of rubs us the wrong way when somebody gets status just because of how they're dressed.

That really just kind of rubs us the wrong way.

But as we're gonna see today, there's actually some unbelievably deep and refreshing truth in that.

So this morning we're looking at Romans 4, the second half of Romans chapter 4.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

It's printed there in your bulletin.

And so what I'm gonna do is take a step back and look at the point that Paul is trying to make in Romans.

Then we're gonna look at today at how this passage illustrates the point that Paul's trying to make, and then we're gonna see how it how it applies to our lives.

So, what's the point Paul's trying to make in Romans, just to kind of set the context.

The book of Romans is Paul's longest uh epistle that we have in the Bible.

And the letter was written to a congregation in Rome, some of whom were Jews and some of whom were not Jews, some of whom were Gentiles.

And uh he begins the letter on pretty much a bummer of a note.

Okay, the first uh three chapters are all about how Gentiles, there's no way they can ever be uh justified by the law.

And then he goes on how the Jews, there's no way the Jews can be justified by the law.

And pretty much by the time you get halfway through chapter three, everybody's going to hell.

Okay, it's it's just not a happy, happy message at all.

And in chapter three, verse twenty, he comes out and says, For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

I mean, that's that's pretty clear, right?

That's that's pretty that's pretty uh absolute.

But then he goes on in verse 21.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

Okay.

Righteousness is a loaded word, and it's one of these words you actually don't have to look up to know what it means.

Righteousness means rightness, it means doing the right thing, okay?

And true righteousness would mean uh doing the right thing all the time, and so it's a little bit like justice.

Righteousness is a little bit like justice.

So this this phrase, righteousness apart from law, really should sound like an oxymoron.

That there's this rightness that's apart from a standard of right and wrong.

And and Paul says that this oxymoron appears in the Old Testament, in the law and the prophets, and and he says that this righteousness is of God, through faith, for all who believe.

Of God, through faith, for all who believe.

It's like all of a sudden righteousness is a liquid that you can pour from one place to another, okay?

And that's a that's a shocking claim.

That's a shocking claim for anyone to make.

It's especially a shocking claim for a Jewish uh person trained in the law to make.

And can he back it up?

And that's the second point.

Today, in the past we're looking at today, Paul is taking the life of Abraham to show this principle, to show that even in the Old Testament, this principle of the righteousness of faith was there.

Abraham is Father Abraham.

The Abe part of his name means father, father of nations.

And um he um, if anyone in the Bible, if anyone in the Old Testament was considered righteous or justified in God's sight, it was Abraham.

There's no doubt about it.

He's in the all-time you know spiritual hall of fame, okay.

Um and how do we know that?

Because God made some some wild promises to Abraham.

He made a series of promises to Abraham, and and the craziest was that he would be the father of many nations, that he would have all these descendants and would and would bless the world.

Okay, in order to have descendants, you have to have children, right?

And and Abraham and Sarah didn't have any children, and they were pushing a hundred years old.

So that's kind of like kind of a kind of a wild promise, okay?

So how did Abraham get into this statement, this, excuse me, this state of blessedness and righteousness?

Did Abraham get this state of righteousness because of Abraham, because of his keeping the law, because of his doing the right things?

Or did Abraham get this state of righteousness because of God's grace?

Uh Paul makes it very clear to us in the in the text we looked at today.

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.

It didn't come through the law, it couldn't have come through the law.

For one thing, Mount Sinai was like 400 years in the future.

And the other thing, at this point in his life, Abraham was uncircumcised, which would have been a symbol, you know, to the Jews.

Well, he wasn't circumcised at that point.

Um, and Paul goes on to say, for if it's if it is adherents of the law who are to be heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

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

The law cannot do anything to help you achieve the obedience that it demands.

Okay?

All the law can do is condemn.

So this promise could not have come through law.

And in fact, he goes on to say, that is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all of his offspring.

That is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace.

Now that phrase sounds a little confusing.

It depends on faith, rests on grace.

You know, let's let's just unpack that for a second.

The Greek word for faith is a very strong word.

It's a much stronger word than the English word for faith, okay?

It's it's a strong conviction, but it's a strong conviction that results in you living your life differently, okay?

Um think of think of it as relying on something else or transferring your trust, okay, or or letting go.

One reference I consulted said that one sense of the word is surrender, okay?

Um in English, you can have faith.

I can have faith that that chair, I can stand here and have faith that that chair is gonna hold me up, right?

In Greek, you have faith that a chair is gonna hold you up when you're sitting in it, when you're depending on it, when you're relying on it.

Grace means God's favor or blessing.

Something you didn't earn, it's a gift, it's something you didn't earn, something you don't deserve.

So this phrase depends on faith, the promise may rest on grace, means something like this.

The promise depends on Abraham transferring his trust to God, so that the promise is coming from God and his power and not from Abraham.

Okay?

The promise has to rely on Abraham giving up, letting go, and trusting God.

And that way, the promise is based on God's power and not on Abraham's strength.

And that's why it's guaranteed to his offspring.

And God is the power source.

And the God in whom Abraham believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

God gives life to the dead.

Sarah's womb was dead, and God is giving life to that so that she can have children.

And God is calling Abraham's descendants into existence, effectively.

Abraham doesn't have any descendants, and God is effectively calling them to existence, even though they don't currently exist.

Now, don't get me wrong, Abraham had an incredible life.

He lived an amazing life of faith.

He did some amazing acts that I think we in his shoes most of us would be hard-pressed to do.

But that's not what made him righteous in God's eyes.

Okay?

Instead, Paul emphasizes Abraham's transfer of trust to God.

Look at verses 20 and 21 and listen to the emphasis on Abraham's transfer of trust.

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 promised.

And because his faith was in God's performance and not his own, his faith was counted to him as righteousness.

Now, does any of this apply to us?

It's great that Abraham found it.

What about us?

Well, for once, me as a preacher, I don't have to, I don't have to like make make any analogy or anything like that.

Paul just comes out and says it.

But the words that 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 Jesus, raised from the dead, Jesus our Lord.

It, that is faith, will be counted to us as righteousness who believe in God, who raised the dead, Jesus from the Lord from the dead, Jesus our Lord.

So what does that look like?

What does it mean for faith to be counted as righteousness?

So I asked for this whiteboard to be put up here because uh I want to just draw a picture of what it looks like for faith to be counted as righteousness.

Okay.

Here on the uh left-hand side, I'm gonna write Jesus.

You you come to church, guy's got a whiteboard, first thing he's gonna write on the whiteboard is Jesus, right?

Okay, fine.

Yeah, okay, cool.

Jesus is the God man, Jesus is the first Adam, Jesus is in effect who who humanity ought to be.

He's he's he in some ways he's our model uh of humanity ought to be.

On the right-hand side, I'm gonna write another role model for us, not a model of perfection.

I'm gonna write a model sinner, okay?

Brian Robinson has graciously volunteered, and I did I did talk to him.

I'm not just springing this on Brian.

Brian is our model sinner.

Okay.

Thank you, Brian.

It could be anybody.

Brian, this will this will have a happy ending, I promise.

This will have a happy ending, I promise.

Okay.

How did Jesus perform with respect to the law?

Okay?

Jesus obeyed the law, right?

Remember, the it's a it's a central doctrine of Christianity.

Jesus was sinless.

He obeyed the law.

He obeyed the law in his actions.

Okay?

He obeyed the law in his words.

He obeyed the law in his thoughts, okay?

Remember the Sermon on the Mount.

Uh, if you if you break the law by by your thoughts, it's just as bad as breaking your actions.

Break the law by words, just as bad as actions.

So he kept the law in his thoughts, in his words, and his actions.

Okay?

There's two ways you can break the law.

You can break the law by doing something that God says you shouldn't do.

That's committing a sin or a sin of commission.

Okay?

Jesus didn't do that.

Okay.

You can also break the law by not doing something God commands.

You can omit some spiritual service, and that's also breaking the law.

Jesus didn't do that.

Okay?

So Jesus had a perfect record of righteousness.

Now, now I think it's a it's a tremendous miracle.

It blows my mind that God can become a human being.

I mean, that's that's pretty mind-blowing, right?

I think it's even bigger that God can become a human being and be sinless for 30 years.

That I feel like, can God become a man, maybe?

Can a man be sinless for 30 years?

Wow, that's uh that's really something, huh?

Okay, so it's just an amazing record of righteousness.

Now, let's talk about Brian.

Okay?

Brian, I love you, brother.

I do.

I love you, brother.

Okay.

Uh has Brian uh obeyed the law all the time perfectly.

No, Brian has not.

Has Brian occasionally uh broken the law in his actions, occasionally doing something that he shouldn't do.

Occasionally, yeah, yeah, okay.

Has Brian occasionally said something he shouldn't have said?

Has he broken the law that way?

Yeah, yeah.

Every once in a while, you know.

Has Brian broken the law in what he's thinking?

Well, I can tell you right now, yeah, yeah, I can tell you right now, what he's thinking right now is is probably breaking God's law.

This is kind of gonna limb here.

What he's thinking right now, okay.

Has Brian uh occasionally done something that God said he shouldn't do?

Yes.

Has Brian occasionally failed to do something that God said he ought to do?

Yes.

Okay.

So that's where we are.

Poor Brian.

Now, in all fairness, we could have put anybody's name up here.

We we pretty much would have gotten the gotten the same result.

Okay, so what does this mean?

Um one thing I want to point out is uh suppose um somebody was really good.

I mean, like like for me, okay, if I when I when I did this, when I did this exercise, just I'll I'll talk about me.

I probably break the law of God dozens and dozens of times a day, maybe even hundreds of times a day.

I don't even know how many times I break God's law each day.

But suppose somebody was a saint, suppose somebody only broke God's law three times a day.

I mean, they would be like, it would be amazing being around someone like that.

Well, that person who breaks God's law three times a day is breaking the law a thousand times in a year.

And in a lifetime, they'll have broken the law 70,000 times, okay?

You might you might show up before a judge with a parking ticket and feel like you're gonna not have to go to jail.

But what happens if you show up before a judge with 70,000 parking tickets, okay?

You got a problem.

And I think that's where most of us are.

Most of us think like, I haven't committed genocide, okay.

Well, that's that's a good thing, right?

But most of us have got the 70,000 parking tickets, whether we know it or not.

And how we stand in front of the law, when you really look at the holy law, it's not a not a good thing at all.

Now, Brian has transferred his trust to God.

Brian has placed his faith in Jesus as his only hope of heaven.

That I do know about Brian, okay?

And he would be the first to tell you.

And and when we do that, when we transfer our trust uh to God, something amazing happens, okay?

Something amazing happens.

God gets out his whiteboard eraser, okay?

And God takes all this record of rack and ruin and erases Brian's name, and God writes Jesus up here, okay?

God takes all of the sin that Brian has committed in his life and says, I'm not counting that against Brian anymore.

Now I'm putting it on Jesus' record.

I'm gonna I've gotta have a paperwork snafu.

I'm gonna take all those parking tickets, I'm gonna put Jesus' name on all of them.

And when Jesus died on the cross, he paid the penalty for every single one of these.

Our sins are not forgotten, they are paid for.

Okay?

God's justice is satisfied.

It's just that it's his wrath is poured out on someone else other than Jesus.

In uh Romans 3, Paul quotes David 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.

I think most of us as Christians have heard about this, and at this point, um Brian has all of his sins forgiven.

Okay, Brian is effectively sinless, okay?

But look, this this podium is sinless.

Sam's guitar over there is sinless, okay?

That's that's great, but that's not the whole story.

That can't be the whole story.

It's like it's like Brian went from owing God billions of dollars in fines to having that all wiped out and now he's at zero, but he's still broke, okay?

But but that's not the end of the story.

That is not the end of the story, okay?

God keeps going.

God still has his whiteboard eraser in his hands.

He erases Jesus' name over this perfect life of righteousness, and now he writes Brian's name.

Okay?

The faith, the uh righteousness of Jesus is counted to Brian.

Brian is considered as having Jesus' righteousness.

This is a second imputation to use the big theological buzzword.

This is the righteousness.

We talked about the righteousness of God through faith for all who believe.

That's what this is.

This is the righteousness of faith.

We're declared righteous by God.

God declares us and counts us as righteous long before we're made righteous, in any meaningful sense of the word made righteous.

And remember what we said about God.

God gives life to the dead, okay?

God gives life to Brian in his spiritual deadness.

And God calls into existence the things that do not exist.

God calls Brian's righteousness into existence, even though it doesn't currently exist.

Once we know what to look for, we see it all over the Old Testament, okay?

We do.

We see it all over the Old Testament.

Um, there was this guy named Isaac, actually Abraham's son, Isaac, and Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau.

And Isaac loved Esau because Esau liked to hunt, but he didn't like Jacob.

Jacob liked to stay inside and read books, okay?

Um, and so Jacob was a schemer, and Jacob says, I want the blessing.

I want Esau's blessing.

So Jacob dresses up in Esau's clothes and goes to Isaac.

Isaac is blind.

And Isaac smells the smell of Esau's clothes and treats Jacob as if he were Esau and gives him the blessing.

Okay?

Brian is not, God's favorite son is Jesus, the only begotten son.

Brian is dressed in Jesus' robes of righteousness.

And when Brian comes before the Father, God smells Jesus' robe of righteousness and gives Brian the blessing as if he were Jesus.

Queen Esther, the the penalty before you you couldn't show up before the king of Persia unless you were invited.

And Queen Esther wanted to make a request.

And so she dresses up in her royal robes and stands before the king.

And the king sees her in her royal robes and extends mercy to her, unless her come forward and make her request.

And Brian, dressed in Jesus' royal robes, can come before God.

The prophet Jeremiah, twice in his prophecy, gives God the name Jehovah Sidkunu, which means the Lord, our righteousness.

Not the Lord is righteous, not the Lord is righteousness, but the Lord is our righteousness.

Christ is our righteousness.

Now I could have put anybody's name up here.

What's true of Brian is true of anyone who's connected to Jesus by faith.

Okay?

You are perfectly loved and accepted by God.

When God looks at you, he sees you through Jesus' perfect life.

There is no bad thing you can do to make God love you less.

Okay?

Because all the bad things you've done or ever will do are put on Jesus and they're all gone.

There's no good thing you can do to make God love you more.

He already loves you as much as he loves Jesus.

How could he possibly love you more?

And now you know why that's true.

And all of this is done by God.

None of this was done by us.

And so we can have faith that it doesn't depend on our actions, it depends on God and His grace.

Okay.

So what do we do based on this?

What's the application point?

Trick question.

There is none.

There's nothing you need to do.

It's already been done, okay?

There's nothing you need to do.

I I find this truth that I am clothed in Christ's righteousness, I find this to be something I have to remind myself of every day.

This is so different from our experience in life.

This is so, I don't know, mind-blowing that I have to preach this to myself every day.

And I think that it's it's something that if if you try to do something, if you try to think about an application point or a checklist, you're just going to turn your back on this when this is the truth in and of itself.

Now, Abraham went on to live an incredible life of faith, and I think you will too.

But you won't grow until you stop caring if you're growing, okay?

You won't get any better until you stop checking for signs of progress.

You have to take your focus off of yourself and look squarely at Jesus and his finished work on the cross, and that is how you make spiritual progress.

And when you do that, well, I'm sure God's going to fulfill the crazy promises he's made for your life, just as he fulfilled the crazy promises in Abraham's life.

So when Frank Albagnali put on a Pilate's uniform and flew around the world and put on a bank guard's uniform and took all the loot, he actually was tapping into a powerful, powerful spiritual principle.

Rest on Christ's finished work, wrap yourself up in his righteousness like a bathrobe.

Put up your feet and enjoy your Sabbath rest.

Let's pray.

Father God, we thank you that from eternity past, your plan was to send your son to live a righteous life and die on the cross.

Your plan from eternity past was for your children to be united to him in faith and to have his righteousness imputed.

We pray that this truth, that our sins have been put on Jesus, and his righteous life has been put on us, that this would animate our spiritual lives, that we would find rest and comfort in it.

And we pray for your Holy Spirit to draw us closer and closer to you, that we would realize this truth in our lives and that this truth would change our lives.

In your Son, Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.