Jesus Paid It All | Dylan Anderson

Well, good morning, Englewood. How are you?

Good, not bad. This is an exciting Sunday,

getting to celebrate our graduates this morning.

Some of you, I know maybe guests with us, some of your guests,

because of one of these graduates, you came to be here

for them and support them this morning, I've gotten to meet

some of you. For those of you I didn't get

the opportunity to meet, my name is Dylan Anderson.

I'm a student pastor here at Inglewood.

It's been my pleasure to be able to work with these students over

the last number of years. And man, just super proud of

this praise band, too, leading us in worship.

All of these students are 9th through 12th graders.

Yeah, Drew, who many of you know is the only one that was on the

stage. That's not a 9th through 12th

grader, I feel. I feel that's obvious, and I'll

leave it at that. Love you Drew.

But it is an exciting day for us to be able to celebrate our

seniors. But to be honest with you,

that's not the primary reason why we're here.

And maybe you're a guest with us and you had no idea that we were

celebrating our seniors this morning.

You didn't know that. It's senior celebration Sunday.

And we do. We did celebrate our seniors.

We want to Commission them excited about this transition

time. We want to be there for them and

for their families during this season.

Many of you families went through this last year and so

maybe you can help out with some of the feelings and the emotions

that go along with sending a kid out.

Some of them are sending their first, some of them are sending

their only, some of them are sending their last, and some of

them it's somewhere in between. And so we got parents all over

the board, but it's a big transition point in their lives.

But this morning, we are here for one purpose.

And that's to worship. We talked about 7 essentials of

of a disciple here at Inglewood. And one of those essentials is

to respond in worship with all and surrender.

And that's what we're here to do.

We've been singing songs of praise to God, and we're going

to open his word up and look at His word together here in just a

moment. And if you haven't been here

with us in a little while, we're in the middle of a series that

Pastor John began a number of weeks ago entitled Justified

Walking Step by Step Through the Book of Romans.

And so if you have your Bible, go ahead and open it up to

Romans chapter 4. Pastor John finished up Romans

Romans 4 · chapter mention Romans 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 last week. And so we're going to we're

going to be in Romans chapter 4 together this morning.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

And there's a great word in here for our seniors and for their

families, but really for all of us.

And because we're talking about school, let's go back to

elementary school for just a second.

Some of you, that's been a long time ago, but I'm going to help

you. Whenever your teacher asked you

a question. When you were in school, what

were you supposed to do before you answered?

Most of the time. Some of you remember that,

whether you did it or not. So we're going to practice that

a little bit this morning. I'm going to ask you a series of

questions and if you are want to answer affirmatively or if the

answer is yes, if the answer to that question applies to you.

Then I want you to raise your hand.

Let's see if it works. How many of you are alive this

morning? Great.

Want to start at a baseline and just make sure you're you're

tracking OK? Now, how many of you have ever

been broke before? How many of you have ever

desired to live a good or a blessed life?

How many of you have ever wanted to belong somewhere before?

How many of you ever have ever wished that you had really rich

relatives that would leave you a massive.

Inheritance at some point in your life.

Well, I think even if you couldn't identify with all of

those things that at least you've identified with a few of

them. And these are things that Paul

is addressing here with us in Romans chapter 4.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 4 a lot of times gets a lot of Flack because it

Romans 4 · chapter mention

can be really deep. Pastor John and I were talking

about it before the 1st service man.

To try to cover a whole chapter of Romans in one sermon is hard

because every one of these verses by itself could be a

whole chapter. And so, but the main theme of

the whole book is justification. It's that we can be justified.

We have a need to be justified, and we can be justified in

Jesus. As Pastor John was finishing up

Romans chapter 3 last week, we were Paul was talking about how

Romans 3 · chapter mention

nobody has any room for boasting.

No one group has an advantage over another when it comes to

justification and when it comes to salvation because

justification is available to all But Paul throughout his

ministry. Paul's the one who wrote the

book of Romans, the letter to the church at Rome.

And he was fighting all throughout his ministry with a

group that we refer to as the Judaizers.

And this was a group of people who were mad that all of these

people were coming to Jesus. And they were trying to add

things on to the gospel to get these new Gentile believers, the

ones that were not Jewish background, to try to to try to

look like Jews, to try to fit in with the Jews, to try to abide

by some of the the Jewish law and to say in order to really be

a child of God, in order to really belong, in order to

really be a son of Abraham, you have to be circumcised.

You have to abide by the dietary restrictions.

You got to do all of these other things instead of just believe

in Jesus. But in chapter 4, Paul is going

to show he's going to clarify the good news of the gospel of

Jesus Christ for all people. And he presses back against

these arguments of the Judaizers.

So let's look at Romans chapter 4 together this morning in a

Romans 4 · chapter mention

message entitled Jesus Paid it All.

But before we jump in, some of you may have those ESV scripture

journals that Pastor John was talking about that we had at the

bookstore before we started this series.

Pastor John usually preaches out of the English Standard version.

I'll be preaching out of the Christian Standard Bible this

morning. And so if it's a little bit

different than what you've got in front of you, that's why one

of the biggest differences. That you'll notice in this

chapter if you've got the ESV in related instead of the CSB.

Is there's a word that comes up often that we'll talk about that

the CSB translates to credit or credited, that the ESV

translates to count or counted. The words mean the same thing to

similar words. It's just two different

translation choices. So I just want to bring your

attention to that before we start reading the passage

together, but I'm going. To pray for us, and then we're

going to jump right into Romans chapter 4, starting in verse 1.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

So let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so

much for your word. God, thank you for revealing

yourself to us so that we don't have to worry or wonder about

why, why we were created, why we're here, what we're supposed

to be doing, or what's next. Lord, Your word outlines all of

those things, and thank you so much that you have made.

Justification available to anyone who would call upon the

name of Jesus. Lord, there's so many people

here that are justified, that have believed and trusted in

Jesus and that are followers of Him.

And so I pray that this morning as we look at your word

together, that those believers will be challenged, that they

would be encouraged, they would be edified, that they would be

built up. But then also, Lord, if there's

some here and in a crowd this size or even watching online, I

know there's got to be an individual who hears the sound

of my voice who does not yet know you.

Maybe they've heard the name of Jesus, or maybe they've been to

church before. Maybe they've been in church a

lot of their life. Maybe they've read Your word

before, but they don't truly believe in God.

So this morning Lord, would today be the day of salvation

for them. Lord, would you do what only you

can do by the power of Your word?

And Lord, would you remove distractions and by the power of

Your Holy Spirit, help us to focus and help us to learn what

it is that You would have us to learn from Your word in Romans

Romans 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4. This morning in Jesus name,

Amen. So Paul here in Romans chapter 4

Romans 4 · chapter mention

is going to go all the way back to the Old Testament, and he's

going to argue from the Old Testament that justification is

available to not just the Jews, but to everyone.

And the first argument that Paul's going to address is that

if justification is not by the law and the Jews really have no

reason to boast, then why is Abraham significant?

You'll see on the back of your a worship guy that you got this

morning or if you're following along in the app, they're going

to be 5 questions that we're going to look at together that

Paul addresses. And there's going to, I'm going

to give you the question and then I'm going to give you the

answer to that question. And the first question that Paul

asks is what about Abraham? What is the significance of

Abraham if the Jews really have no advantage or no reason to

boast, and if justification is available to all?

And so let's look at Romans chapter 4, starting in verse

Romans 4 · chapter mention

one. What then will we say that

Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, is

found? If Abraham was justified by

works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was

credited to him for righteousness.

Now to the one who works, pay is not credited as a gift, but it's

something owed. But to the one who does not

work, but believes on him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith

is credited for righteousness. Now, Abraham is one of the

patriarchs of the Jewish faith. It's held synonymous that if

you're a child of God, that you're a, you're a son of

Abraham. And so Abraham held a high place

in the Jewish religion in the nation of Israel because all of

Israel would come from the line of Abraham.

And so Paul says, you want to talk about justification.

Let's go all the way back to Abraham.

Let's go all the way back and let's see how was Abraham

actually justified? Well, I don't want to assume

that you've been here and you've been following us for the last

number of weeks. And so as we think about this

word justification, it's not one that we use very often in our

daily vocabulary, at least I don't.

But justification is just the act of being declared right or

righteous or in good standing. Just imagine for a moment,

because I know this would not happen to any of you, that

you've gotten pulled over for speeding.

You've been driving a little bit too fast and you see blue lights

in the rearview mirror. You pull over, you roll your

window down, and here walks Gary Wester up beside your driver's

window. Gary says.

Son, you know how? Fast you were going and you,

because you're a follower of Jesus, you're honest and you

tell the truth. Yes, I know how fast I was

going. Here's how fast I was going.

And then the next question he's going to ask is, why were you

going so fast? And then immediately, we're

going to start trying to justify the fact that we just broke the

law. We're going to try to find a

good reason for Gary to just drive off and pretend like this

never happened. And so we might say I just

wouldn't paying attention. Yeah, I just didn't notice I was

going that fast. Or we might say, man, I was, you

know, I was in a hurry. Like, I really had to get

somewhere. I'm running late.

Or, hey, I was just going with the flow of traffic.

Everybody else was doing it. So I just decided just to break

the law. Right, on with them.

Or maybe you're like, man, I really had to go to the bathroom

super fast and I already decided to get there and I was rolling

and you're keeping me from that. So let's get this moving.

But you're immediately going to begin to try to start justifying

your actions. But you cannot change the fact

that you broke the law and that you need to be justified.

You stand in a place where you are guilty, but you need to be

justified for breaking the law. And last week, if you were here,

we looked at Romans chapter 3. Towards the end of it in Romans

Romans 3 · chapter mention

chapter 323 tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of

the glory of God. So the reality is that every one

of us is in need of justification because right now

we stand guilty before God, deserving of His wrath, and no

amount of explanations or excuses or perceived good deeds

can change that. We need justification.

The Bible says that Abraham was justified, but how?

Paul goes all the way back to quote Genesis chapter 15 verse 6

Genesis 15:6

where God tells us that Abram believed the Lord and he

credited to him is righteousness. 3 crucial words

in this passage, Belief, credit and righteousness.

We'll talk about belief towards the end, but let's talk about

righteousness first. A couple of weeks ago, at the

beginning of Romans chapter 3, starting in verse nine, look at

Romans 3 · chapter mention

what Paul says about our own righteousness.

Romans 3, starting in verse 9. What then?

Are we any better off? Not at all, for we have already

charged that both the Jews and the Greeks are all under sin.

As it is written, there is no one righteous, not even 1.

There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away. All alike have become worthless.

There is no one who does what is good, not even one.

Their throat is an open grave. They deceive with their tongues.

Vipers venom is under their lips.

Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood.

Ruin and wretchedness are in their paths and the path of

peace they have not known. There is No Fear of God before

their. Eyes.

You may say, man, that's not me. I'm not, I'm not that bad, I'm

not like that. I hear all the time from people

that don't know Jesus, that have a hard time believing that Jesus

is the only way to salvation, that man.

How could God punish all of these good people in the world?

Our culture wants us to think that every person is inherently

or innately good. They want us to see the best in

everyone, but the Bible paints a very different picture for us.

The Bible doesn't tell us that everyone is good.

The Bible tells us that there is no one righteous.

None. Not one.

The prophet of Isaiah uses very strong imagery to get us to see

just how unclean we are. Isaiah chapter 64 verse 6.

Isaiah 64:6

All of us have become like something unclean, and all of

our righteousness, our righteous acts are like a polluted

garment. So what Isaiah is saying here is

if you think that you've got your own righteousness, if you

think that you're doing well, man, you're going to church,

you're praying the Lord's Prayer, man, you're doing all of

the things. You're being nice, you're

volunteering in the community, you're kind, you're honest to

the police officer when he pulls you over and you tell him how

fast you're going. You're doing all the things.

Isaiah says. Let me tell you what that's

like. It's like a polluted garment.

The word that he uses here is actually for a garment stained

by a woman's menstrual discharge.

That's how graphic Isaiah is getting to try to get his point

across. He wants to shock his readers

into understanding that you want to do this on your own.

This is what you've got to show to the Lord.

This is what your good works are.

As the old King James says, it's filthy rags.

That's all you have to offer. We are not good according to

God's Word. We need righteousness that is

not our own righteousness. In line with justification is

the state of being right or just or in line with the law.

And in this. Case the law of God you see,

we've all got a debt that we. Cannot pay unless someone puts a

credit on our account. Every time we get to this point

in the year and I'm thinking about graduations, I reflect on

my own time in school and and graduation.

And I graduated and went off to a big state school.

But I grew up really rural, middle of nowhere.

And part of graduation is you have graduation parties and

celebrations. You invite friends, family, you

invite church members to come over.

And a lot of people, they write cards and give you gifts, right?

So for me, when I went off to college, man, I had more money

in my bank account than I'd ever seen before in my life because

of gifts from friends and family members and church members that

had given money. Because back then gift cards

wouldn't weren't as popular as they are now.

And so I went off to college, I had all this money in the bank

and I thought, man, what can I do with this?

And so I started buying stuff for my truck.

I bought an iPod. Some of y'all don't even know

what that is. It's bad whenever I'm so old

that there are people that don't know because I'm still young,

right John? But I partied a lot of that

money away. But where the majority of my

money went is right across from my dorm was a Taco Bell right

across the street. And so man, multiple times a

week we were going across the street back and forth and

getting Taco Bell. Even though we all had money at

the cafeteria, we're spending our own money at the Taco Bell

across the street. And before too long, I logged

into my online banking account and I checked and there's a

there's a dollar amount in there, but there's a little dash

in front of that dollar amount. I'm like, man, what does that

mean? So I go to Taco Bell one night,

go to scan my card, and it doesn't work.

Like what happened? Insufficient funds.

I learned what it meant to overdraft my bank account, but

here I am and freshman in college away from home and I

don't have a job. I'm not working and so I have no

source of income. All that I had was the what was

in the bank and now I have no way to replenish that amount of

money that is now gone that I now owe.

That is a debt. I needed somebody to credit my

account. Paul in Romans chapter 4 verse 4

Romans 4:4

says now to the one who works, pay is not credited as a gift,

but it's something owed. Those of us who work, who are

employed, who have a job, we work for an agreed amount of

money. And so when payday comes around,

we are owed that money because we have worked for it by our

job. Does that make sense?

Well, where I was, I was not working and in fact I had blown

that money on really dumb things that I didn't have to spend that

money on. And so here I was, in debt, no

way to make income. I needed somebody to credit me

with a gift. So I did what any good freshman

in college would do. I called my mommy.

And it may not be good parenting, but it makes for a

good analogy. My mom and dad loved me so much

that they credited my account and got me out of the negative,

and then very quickly taught me a little bit about money

management. But if my parents hadn't bailed

me out, there was no hope for me getting out of that debt.

But what we learn about Abraham is that the righteousness that

he had was credited to him as a gift because of his belief in

God. He trusted in the Lord, and the

Lord put righteousness on his account that was not his.

He had a debt that needed to be paid that he couldn't pay on his

own. He needed somebody to gift it to

him. He didn't do anything to earn it

or deserve it. It was a credit.

And if you want to talk about what's fair or what we are owed

in this life or what we deserve, just wait a couple of weeks till

we get to Romans chapter 6. Because Romans 623 says that the

Romans 6 · chapter mention

wages or the payment or what you are owed is death.

And not just physical death, but what revelation refers to as the

second death, eternal punishment, God's wrath against

your. Sin and mine.

You want life to be fair. That's fair because that's what

we deserve. I for one, am glad that life is

not fair. And that God has credited

righteous righteousness to my account, not because of anything

that I've done other than believe and trust in Jesus.

So true righteousness, Paul answers, only comes by credit.

True righteousness only comes by credit.

Abraham was gifted or credited with righteousness because he

believed in God. After addressing Abraham's

justification by credit Paul, then he brings up David.

Here's David, this other patriarch of the faith.

He was the man after God's own heart.

He was the king through whom which the Messiah, the promised

Savior of God's people, would come.

This Messiah from the Davidic line would sit on the throne of

David for all of eternity. Paul is going back to the

patriarchs of Jewish faith, and it's like, hey, guys.

Let's look at what David has to say now about those who are

credited with righteousness. And so first there's what about

Abraham? And now he says, what about

David? Let's continue in verse 6.

Likewise, David also speaks of the blessing of the person to

whom God credits righteousness apart from works.

Blessed are those whose lawless acts are forgiven and whose sins

are covered. Blessed is the person the Lord

will never charge with sin. You see, I asked you earlier how

many of you wanted to live the good or the blessed life.

I think every one of us would say that, and especially

parents. You say that of your kids, like

I want my kid to live up and have a good, blessed life.

But the problem is I think many of us might have different

definitions of what the good or the blessed life is.

Pew Research did a poll of parents within the United States

back in 2023 and I asked them, what do you envision the good

life? What do you want for your kids?

For your kids that you're raising?

What do you want for the? What is the highest thing that

you want for them 80? 8% of those polled said that

what I want for my kids is financial security.

So it's safe to say that for most of our country, the good

life is financial security. Well, we're one of the

wealthiest nations in all of the world, but we're also one of the

most unhappy. And for a whole bunch of wealthy

people, we sure are a bunch of unhappy people. the United

States has one of the highest rates of suicide among any

developed nation. It's one of the leading causes

of death in the United States, with one person dying by suicide

every 10 minutes. And it reported 12.8 million

people contemplated suicide in 2023 in our country.

If financial security is the key to living the blessed life, then

why are so many people so unhappy?

I'm afraid that we as believers have allowed our culture to

determine what the good and blessed life is and not looked

at Scripture to see what God's Word actually has to say about

what the good and blessed life actually is.

And we look around at the world around us, and we look around at

the people that live in our neighborhood and that we work

with, and we want to fit in with them.

We want to belong with them. We want what they have, and

before too long we find ourselves focused more on what

the world has to say about what the good life is than we do

about what God has to say about what the good life is.

And when we will read the word blessing in Scripture, we

immediately go to earthly blessings and things that we can

see that are tangible. We think of things like the

approval of other people or the balance in our 5O1K or 4 O1 Ki

don't have one of those. I have a four O 3B A4O1K or man.

Maybe it's our car or house or our family or the clubs that

were a part of the sports that we play.

We begin to look at all of these external things as blessings,

but then we turn around and we're living a pretty Dang and

happy life. And So what does God's Word have

to say about what it means to be blessed?

Next week we'll look at Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

In the 1st 2 verses of Romans chapter 5, Paul writes,

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Therefore, since we've been justified by faith, we have

peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We've also obtained access through him by faith into this

grace in which we stand and we boast in the hope of the glory

of God. You see, what all these people

that are searching for the good life really need is Jesus.

And for those of us that believe and trust in Jesus, we have

available to us because of our justification, a peace that

surpasses all understanding and a hope for a future beyond this

place. If you want to talk about what

the good and the blessed life is, it's having peace and hope

because that's what everybody's looking for.

And the financial security is what they think is going to

bring that. They think, man, if I just get

my money in order, if I just get things in order, if my kid just

has a good education and a good job and their finances there are

in order, then they'll be at peace and they'll have hope for

a future because they got a nest egg.

But what happens if Iran starts dropping bombs on us?

What happens when the stock market crashes?

What happens when you lose your job?

What happens when you don't have that income anymore?

Then what is the good and blessed life?

We've got to ask man, where are we looking for peace and where

are we looking for hope? Because God's Word teaches us

where it comes from. True blessedness is not earned,

it only comes by credit. When we believe and trust in

Jesus and God credits righteousness to us and we are

justified, we also get the blessings that come along with

that. And so you want to know what the

true good life actually is? It's believing and trusting in

Jesus and living your life in the way that you were created

and called. To and then the peace and hope

that you've so desperately been searching for is there.

True blessedness only comes by credit.

It only comes to the one who the Lord will not charge with sin,

as David says, and it comes with peace and hope.

True blessedness is not found in the approval of others or in

financial security or anything else that this world has to

offer. It's only found in the

righteousness that comes through Jesus.

That blessedness only becomes by credit.

It can't be earned. But then you've got these

Judaizers, these people that are trying to convince these Gentile

believers that they have to do all of these other things.

You see, the Gentiles just wanted to belong, man.

They wanted to be a child of God.

They wanted to be a part of the Kingdom.

They wanted a piece of the pie. They wanted to believe in Jesus

and to be called a child of God and a child of Abraham.

And the Judaizers are trying to build the wall high and they're

trying to Add all these things onto the gospel.

They're trying to Add all of these barriers to belonging.

They're trying to tell them, hey, you got to be circumcised,

you got to live by the dietary restrictions.

You got to come worship at the synagogue.

They're adding all of these other things, you see, every one

of us have. Has an innate desire within us

to belong somewhere. And the Gentiles just wanted to

belong, man. They wanted to be a part of the

Kingdom. Paul hits this argument head on,

says, man, you want to talk about barriers?

Let's go back and look at Abraham.

Let's go back and look at him again and look at his

justification. And so the third question is,

what about circumcision starting in verse 9?

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or is it also

for the uncircumcised? For we say faith was credited to

Abraham for righteousness. In what way then was it credited

while he was circumcised or uncircumcised?

It was not while he was circumcised, but uncircumcised.

And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the

righteousness that he had by faith while he was still

uncircumcised. This was to make him the father

of all who believe but are not circumcised, so that the

righteousness may be credited to them also.

And he became the father of the circumcised who are not only

circumcised, but also following the footsteps of the faith of

our father Abraham had while he was still uncircumcised.

You see, we've all got that innate desire to belong, but for

so many of us, that desire is misplaced and we begin to look

for belonging in communities we should never desire to belong

into in the first place. I tell our students all the

time, when you go off to college, some of the first

people that you meet and start interacting with are the ones

that are going to set the trajectory for the rest of your

time in college most of the time.

Statistically, that's true because the first people you

meet when you're in a new place, what do you want?

You want approval. You want to belong.

You want those people to like you.

You want friends and so the first people that you meet and

you start trying to find that community with.

You start trying to find that belonging with.

When I went off to college, I got.

Put in the athletes dorm and all the guys that were right around

me, we're all part of the football team and so I

immediately wanted to start fitting in with the football

players. Well then, down the hall, we're

all the frat. Guys and so between the football

guys and the frat guys, I wanted to belong.

I didn't want to be the odd man out.

I didn't want to be the only guy on the hallway that wasn't going

to parties and doing all the things that they were doing.

I wanted to fit in. Had a misplaced.

Desire for longing that caused me to compromise my integrity.

But you see, this isn't just a problem for our teenagers.

Parents, grandparents, if we'll be honest, every one of us have

desired to be accepted and belong in the communities that

we don't have any business being in or that are not the most

important. You see, I'm so.

Afraid that there are believers that care way more about fitting

in with the travel ball parents or the Dance Moms then they do

about fitting in and belonging in the body of Christ.

And so it changes the way that we make decisions.

These things are not inherently bad things, but when we got too

much of a bad thing or we are a good thing, it becomes a bad

thing. Austin Smith gave me a cookout

hat right before the service for my birthday.

I love cookout, but if I eat too many cookout milkshakes, it's

going to be a problem. Too much of a good thing is a

bad thing. And so if we begin to place our

desire for belonging in these external communities above the

body of Christ, then we're going to begin to suffer.

The church is going to begin to suffer.

You see, I long for the day that we care more about whether our

nursery is fully staffed then we do about the roster on our

child's softball team. Because we got a bunch of people

around here that are working in four or five different

ministries killing themselves when there are other members of

the body of Christ that are not fully fulfilling what God has

called them to. And so many people are searching

for belonging outside of here when God would say if you.

Believe and trust in me. You already belong in the only

community that's going to last. Eternal you're.

Already a part. Of the body of Christ, you're

already been grafted in, you're already a child of God, you're

already a child of Abraham. He says, hey, you want to talk

about Abraham? You want to say that

circumcision, that you've got to be circumcised in order to be a

part of this community. When Abraham was justified, it

was over 10 years before his circumcision.

And so stop trying to put these external barriers on to the

gospel. Have the faith of Abraham,

believe God and it will be credited to you as

righteousness. All of these other things are

just noise. In Genesis chapter 17 verse 11,

Genesis 17:11

Paul and back in the book of Genesis referred to circumcision

as a sign or a seal. Circumcision was not required to

gain the credit of righteousness.

Abraham. Believed God and it was credited

to him as righteousness. Not Abraham was circumcised then

it was credited to him as righteousness, Circumcision.

Circumcision was an outward sign of the righteousness that

Abraham already had. But throughout the Scriptures it

points forward to a time where there would be an internal sign

and seal. And instead of an external sign

and seal for faith, in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 6,

Deuteronomy 30:6

it says the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the

hearts of your descendants, and you will love him with all of

your heart and with all of your soul so that you will live.

The circumcision of the heart or the inward sign and seal of the

righteousness credited by God to those who believe was fulfilled

at the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Paul writes to the Ephesians in Ephesians chapter one, verse 13

in him that's in Jesus. You were sealed with the

promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the

gospel of your salvation, and when you believed.

The presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer is the

sign and seal that your account has been credited with

righteousness. Now, but the Holy Spirit is an

inward sign and seal, but it's an inward sign and seal that

should have external realities. If we truly believe in God, if

we truly believe the gospel and we have His Holy Spirit living

inside of us, then there should be evidences, there should be

fruit of that bore out in our lives.

Now those evidences, those fruits, those works, they don't

add anything to the righteousness because it's not

our righteousness to begin with. It's Jesus that was given to us.

And so it's not the works that somehow add something on to the

righteousness. It's an outworking of the belief

that brings the righteousness. And so true belonging is

something that comes by credit. It's something that's given to

us. It's not something that can be

earned. You may be here and you may not

be a follower of Jesus. You may have been coming and

thinking, man, this place is weird.

These people are weird. It feels uncomfortable.

Every time I come here, it's because you don't belong yet.

It's because you've not placed your faith and your hope and

your trust in Jesus yet for your salvation.

You're not a part of the family yet, but that can change today.

If you put your faith in Jesus, if you believe God in the way

that Abraham did, he will credit righteousness to your account.

And you won't just receive the righteousness, but you'll

receive the blessings that come along with it, and you'll also

receive belonging. You'll be a part of the family

and you can quit searching for belonging and all of the other

places that you're trying to find it in your life right now.

And if you're here and you believe in trust in Jesus, and

you've been looking for love and all the wrong places, come.

Back because you belong to God, you belong as a part of his

family. You're a part of the body and

the body needs you way more than those other communities

externally do. And if you'd place the belonging

in the in the community of Christ first, then you can

utilize those other communities for the gospel and the Lord can

use you as a light in these other places that he's sending

you to. So the presence of the Holy

Spirit in the life of a believer is the sign and the seal of New

Testament faith in Christ. I want to know when are we going

to decide that enough is enough and we're not going to care

about the external pressures. We're not going to care what the

parents down the street are doing, but we're going to decide

As for me and my house, we serve the Lord and we're going to care

more about belonging as a part of the body of Christ than we do

about any external pressures that we're getting in the world

around us. I don't care what any of these

other communities are saying or doing.

I belong to Jesus and that's going to impact and influence

the way that I interact with all of these other communities.

And so along with the gift, the sign, and the seal of the Holy

Spirit that's given to us when we believe in trust in Jesus.

The Holy Spirit, Paul says in Ephesians 114, actually

functions also as the down payment of our inheritance.

So what is an inheritance? Traditionally your parents, all

of their assets, all of their resources would be passed down

to their children. That would be the inheritance.

And traditionally there wouldn't be any kind of qualifications or

anything that you would need to receive that inheritance other

than just being a child of your parents.

Now I've realized that there's, there things can work

differently today. There can be stipulation.

Just parents can decide they want to bestow their their

inheritance somewhere else. But traditionally you just got

to be a child. There's nothing that you have to

do to earn it. You just got to be a child.

And what Paul is saying is he's going back and he's looking at

all of these Old Testament evidences and specifically this

time at the promise to Abraham. And he says, hey, all of those

who have been justified, who believe and trust in Jesus,

there's actually a promised inheritance for you that's

coming. And so #4 what about the

promise? Let's keep reading in verse 13.

For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would

inherit the world was not through the law, but through the

righteousness that comes by faith.

If those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made empty and

the promise nullified because the law produces wrath.

And where there is no law, there is no transgression.

This is why the promise is by faith, so that it may be

according to grace to guarantee it to all the descendants, not

only those of the law, but also the one who is of Abraham's

faith. He is the Father of us all, as

it is written. I've made you the father of many

nations in the presence of the God in whom he believed, the One

who gives the God who gives life to the dead and calls things

into existence that do not exist.

And so Paul says here that the descendants of Abraham have an

inheritance coming to them, and that inheritance through the

promise is the whole. World Don't matter how rich your

parents are, I promise you, you aren't inheriting the whole

world. There are three aspects of the

promise that God made to Abraham in the Old Testament that are

passed down through his descendants.

First, God promised Abraham that he would make him the father of

many nations. This is fulfilled kind of in

two, in two ways. First of all, he made a great

nation come out of him by ethnic Israel, Abraham.

Israel came from Abraham. A few 100 years later, they're

in captivity and Egypt. And 400 years after that, all of

a sudden this nation that was once just of one family is now

millions and millions and millions of people.

So God made a great nation through Abraham out of one man.

But God doesn't just promise Abraham that he's going to make

him the father of a nation, that he's going to make him a great

nation. He says he's going to make them

the father of many nations. And so if if you go all the way

to the New Testament and go to the book of Matthew and you

track backwards the genealogy of Jesus in the book of Matthew,

Matthew strategically tracks it all the way back to who Abraham

you see by faith. Abraham becomes the father of

many nations because anyone who would choose to believe and

trust in the same God that Abraham believed in now becomes

a child of Abraham because of faith.

And so he's not just the father of the nation of Israel, but

he's the father of all. Who would believe, not just the

father of a great nation, but the father of many nations.

Secondly, God promised Abraham's descendants a promised land.

In Genesis chapter 17, verse 8, he said, God says, and to you

Genesis 17:8

and your future offspring, I will give the land where you are

residing, all the land of Canaan as a permanent possession, and I

will be their God. And so we know throughout

history that Abraham, after Abraham and then the nation of

Israel started to grow. They went into captivity in

Egypt after they came out of Egypt.

God says I'm going to bring you to that promised land.

That I promised to your forefathers to Abraham all of

those number of years ago. They disobey him.

They have to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

But then after 40 years they're able to enter into the promised

land and take control of the land that God had promised to

Abraham. And so they take the land.

But the the New Testament paints a much bigger picture for us,

way bigger than a small strip of land in the Middle East.

Because you remember what we read from Paul, what was the

inheritance? The whole world.

In Matthew chapter 5 verse 5, when Jesus is preaching the

Matthew 5:5

sermon on the mountain, he's talking about believers.

He says blessed are the humble for they will inherit the earth.

The the New Testament, the Book of Revelation specifically

paints a beautiful picture of us, of Jesus recreating the

whole world of the old passing away in the new coming, a new

inheritance for his people and a new holy city.

In Revelation chapter 21 verses one through 3, we've been

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

talking about this on Wednesday nights.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the 1st heaven and

the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

And I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down

from heaven, from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her

husband. Then I heard a.

Loud voice from the throne. Look, God's dwelling is with

humanity and he lives with them. They will be his peoples and God

himself will be with them and will be their God.

We have a promise if we are a child of Abraham by faith that

there's an inheritance coming for us in the future.

That one day all of this is going to pass away, that Jesus

is going to come back, He's going to make all things new and

we get to rule and reign beside of him and his Kingdom over the

whole world for all of eternity. I don't care how good your

inheritance is. God promised Abraham Canaan, and

he promises to all of us the cosmos.

It's not just the strip of land in the Middle East, but it's the

whole world. This is the inheritance that

only comes by credit. It's not something we can earn.

It's not something we can work towards.

But if we have the faith of Abraham and we believe in the

God that Abraham believed in, then we're gifted righteousness

and we're gifted blessedness, and we're gifted belonging and

we're gifted an inheritance, a hope for a future beyond this

place, way better than any financial security that you can

give your descendants. And so there's a promised land,

but then third, there's a promised that all of the

families of the world would be blessed through Abraham.

Genesis chapter 12, Three, God tells Abraham, I will bless

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

those who bless you. I'll curse anyone who treats you

with condemned, and all the peoples of the earth will be

blessed through you. You see, God from the very

beginning has always had his eyes on the nation's.

We articulate God's mission here as God bringing great glory to

Himself, but us joining Him in redeeming the nation's.

God has always had the desire from the very beginning to

redeem the nation's. We see this through His promise

to Abraham here where God says Abraham.

Through you, one day there's going to be a Messiah that's

going to come, there's going to be a savior that's going to come

for my people. And one day, anyone who believes

and trusts in the same God that you believe and trust in is

going to be blessed and have access to the same inheritance.

That your descendants have, through Jesus, a descendant of

Abraham. All of the families of the earth

can be blessed. But true inheritance only comes

by credit. And so righteousness and thereby

justification, blessedness, belonging, and this promised

inheritance are all only accessible by credit.

So the question becomes. How can I get this credit

applied to my account? I can't call my mommy like I did

in college. She has the same righteousness

that I do. She's holding the same filthy

rags, polluted garments that I am.

And so how do we receive this credit?

Romans chapter 4, starting in 22.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

Therefore it was credited to him for righteousness.

Now it was credited to him, was not written for Abraham alone,

but also for us. It will be credited to us who

believe in Him, who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our.

Justification. And So what about the credit?

The application of this credit only comes through belief in

God. You see, Abraham believed God

and it was credited to him as righteousness.

We too can receive this credit like Abraham if we believe God.

God tells us in His Word through Jesus, that Jesus is the way,

the truth, and the life, that no one comes to the Father except

through Him and John 14/6. Pastor John on Friday night was

talking to our high school seniors and was telling them,

hey, this is a season of your life where when you go off away

from home, you're often personalizing or finally taking

ownership of your faith because you're not up under your parents

anymore. You're not riding the coattails

of their faith anymore. And so for me, I get to watch

seniors graduate and move on to all kinds of things.

And some of them we don't ever see again.

Some of them never step foot in church again because the rubber

met the road and they were now responsible for their own faith.

And sometimes they realize I didn't have true faith.

I was just going along with what my parents wanted me to do or

what my peers wanted me to do, or I was just I was looking for

belonging and I found a false sense of it around this

community. I didn't truly belong, but I

felt like I did. But what about the faith, The

belief that Abram had in Romans chapter 4, starting in verse 18,

Romans 4 · chapter mention

The verses we skipped, says he believed hoping against hope so

that he became the father of many nations according to what

had been spoken. So will your descendants be.

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body to be

already dead since he was about 100 years old.

And also the deadness of Sarah's womb.

He didn't waver and unbelief at God's promise, but was

strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God because he was

fully convinced that what God had promised he was able to do.

Therefore it was credited to him is righteousness.

True, faith changes things. God told Abraham that he was

going to make him a great nation, but the problem was that

he and his wife were almost 100 years old.

What say his wife had been barren, not able to have a kid?

But Abraham trusted that if God said it, it was going to happen.

That God could do the impossible in his life is.

That the kind of faith that you have, do you trust?

That God can do the impossible? Do you trust that He's actually

in control of your family? Do you realize that you have a

debt that you cannot pay? That you desperately need

righteousness credited to your account?

There was a lady. In 1865, at Monument Street

Baptist Church in Baltimore, MD, her name was Alvina Hall.

She was a member of the choir there at that church.

And on one Sunday morning, she had a hymnal much like the one

that I'm holding in my hand as she was sitting in the choir.

And she was thinking about this debt that had been paid for her

by Christ, and she was captivated by it.

And the Lord began to impress on our heart, on her heart.

Some words that she bent, she began to scribble in the margins

of her hymnal, and she pinned these words that morning.

I hear the Savior say, Thy strength in deed is small child

of weakness. Watch and pray find in me thine

All in all, Lord, now indeed I find thy blood, and thine alone

can change the leper spots and melt the heart of stone.

For nothing good have I whereby Thy grace to claim.

I'll wash my garments white in the blood of Calvary's lamb.

When from my dying bed my ransom soul shall rise.

Then Jesus paid it all shall rend the vaulted skies.

When and when before the throne I stand in him complete, I'll

lay my trophies down all down at Jesus feet.

Miss Hall, after the service was over, kind of partially

embarrassed, walked up to the pastor and said, pastor, I'm

sorry, I wasn't paying attention to your sermon at all.

And he's like, yeah, I'm used to that.

Everybody falls asleep, don't worry about it.

She says, no, I was captivated by what Jesus has done for me.

And I wrote, these words are worth this poem I want you to

take a look at. And she handed him to him.

What Miss Hall didn't know is that earlier in the week the

choir director of the same church had written a musical

refrain that he had entitled All to Christ IO, but he didn't have

words for it yet. And so the pastor took the poem

of the hymnal, He took the the musical score that was sitting

on his desk, and he put the two things together and to his

surprise, they fit perfectly. He called Miss Hall and he

called the choir director and he brought them in that week after

that Sunday service. And he showed them, and as they

were amazed, and as they sit there playing and singing

through those words, they decided that there needed to be

a refrain written. And so that week the three of

them sat down and they wrote the refrain of one of the most

famous and most well sung, well known hymns over the last 100.

Years, Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe sin had left a Crimson

stain. He washed it light as snow.

You see, in just a few moments, we're going to sing the words to

this song. And it's my prayer in my bones

that you can sing Jesus paid it all and that it would be true

for you. Because the reality is every

single one of us have a debt and we're all have to stand before

Jesus one day, holding our polluted garment of our own

righteousness. And some of us, without belief

in God, are going to have to take that polluted garment, and

we're not going to be justified. The only justification is for us

to be able to pay for our sins by bearing the wrath of God

against our sin for the rest of eternity.

But for some of us, not because of anything that we have done,

not because we deserve it, not because we've earned it, but

because we believed in God and it was credited to us as

righteousness, we'll be able to answer.

Jesus paid it all, all to him. Sin had left a Crimson stain,

but Jesus, he washed it white as snow.

If you're here this morning and that's not your refrain of your

life, it can be today. You have a debt that needs to be

paid and all you have to do is believe in God, trust that His

word is true and that Jesus's sacrifice was enough for you.

And then righteousness will be credited to your account.

Those blessings that come along with that will be credited to

your account. That belonging and that and that

inheritance, all of those things will be credited to your

account. And for those of you that are

believers in the room, we need to start living like we have

those things, like we have the righteousness of God in our

life, like we know because God's Word tells us what the good life

actually is. Like we belong to a community

that is eternal. And so however you need to

respond to Jesus this morning, it's my prayer that as we sing

these words that you'll do that. There'll be pastors down front,

there'll be volunteers in our Next Steps room that would love

to be able to have a conversation with you.

You can take the Next Steps card out of the the worship folder.

And you can write, hey, I need to talk to somebody about the

debt that I owe. That Jesus paid, and we'd love

to reach out to you and have a conversation with you about what

it looks like to believe in Jesus.

Let me pray for you. And then we're going to stand

and sing this song together and you respond how you need to.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your love for us.

Thank you for this time that we've got to spend together.

Help us not to rush past this moment because no response to

Your Word is a response to Your word.

Help us to respond in the way that we need to, in the way that

You're calling us to. For those in the room that have

a debt that needs to be paid that's not been paid yet, Lord,

would they believe and trust in Jesus this morning for their

salvation? Would they trust that You will

credit them with righteousness and they'll find blessing and

belonging and inheritance that comes with that?

And then for those of us that are followers of Jesus, some of

us have gotten distracted. Some of us have let the world

tell us what the good life, the blessed life is.

Some of us are looking for belonging in communities.

We have no business searching for belonging.

In and we need to refocus this morning.

We need to be reminded that Jesus paid it All in all to him.

Aye, oh so Lord, as we respond in worship this morning, help us

to respond the way that we need to.

In Jesus name, Amen, we stand.