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The Seventh Sermon
Romans 4
Justification by Faith Alone

Some of you don't particularly like them, but one of God's extremely interesting creatures is the spider.  At certain seasons, you can hardly turn a corner anywhere without becoming immediately aware of their presence and activities - as you try to brush a strand of web off your face or out of your hair!

Those webs they build are extremely efficient, though, and you can't help admiring the way in which God has equipped the spider for living.  A fly comes along, all unsuspecting, and flies headlong into one or more strands of web.  He struggles and squirms.  But with each movement, the fly contacts more strands of web, and he becomes more and more hopelessly tangled - the spider won't go hungry!

We are too much like that fly.  We become aware of our sins because of resulting discomfort, and we struggle and squirm, each movement resulting in more sin, and the result is that we become hopelessly entangled - without hope of escape.  Every attempt to cover our sin leads to more sin. Of course the great difference is that we're not caught in a web of God's making, but of our own making, and there seems to be no way out of our guilt and sin - we need outside help or we'll be hopelessly caught and condemned.

Enter Jesus Christ.  He says to us, "Do you want to be freed from that awful web?"  As He asks, we notice that He has attached a strand of our web to Himself and that if He turns, it winds more and more tightly around Him and unwinds from us.  If we don't struggle against Him, if we remain still, we'll be permanently freed.  If we struggle against His efforts, the strand may break, and we will remain caught.  Of course one of the things we need to do is to admit that it's our web – that we made it ourselves, and we also need to admit that if our Savior unwinds it from us, He will at the same time wind it more and more tightly about Himself - so that He must die.

There's a name for this action of winding and unwinding.  It's called faith, and without it we have no hope at all.  Let's look at Romans chapter four now to see what we can learn about this all-important faith relationship.

First of all, we need to notice that Paul was a Jew.  We also should notice that some of the people to whom he wrote this letter were also Jews, but that some of them were Gentiles.  Paul wrote this chapter In keeping with one of the overall purposes of the letter - to help the church at Roman to avoid problems between the two groups. It was in that context that  he gave us an accurate and useable description of that all-important item called faith.

He began by addressing the Jewish people.  He wanted them to think a bit, so he asked them about Abraham's faith relationship to God.  He tells them that Abraham was a great man and that he of all people might have some righteousness to boast about if anyone did.  In fact, as far as people in Abraham's time were concerned, his life would undoubtedly have been thought of as exemplary.  They'd certainly say he was a righteous man.  Paul says, "For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about."  The Jews had a high esteem for Abraham.  They would have thought God would be pleased with him if He was pleased with anybody at all!

But it's important for us to see that Abraham himself didn't agree with them.  He DIDN'T boast of his righteousness before God.  Instead, Paul says, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness."  His belief was the important thing.

So what was it that Abraham believed?  Well, at the very least, he believed God's promise.  What do I mean?  I mean that He believed God's promise that he, Abraham, even though he was close to a hundred years old, was going to be the "father of many nations," that in him and in his seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed.  In other words, put very simply, he believed that God was indeed going to bring a Savior into the world – and that through his own personal descendants! 

He could see the desperate need the world had of that Messiah-Savior, and He believed God's Savior was really going to come through his own progeny - that God was able to fulfill His promise, even though Sarah and Abraham were well past childbearing years. It was just because of that belief that Abraham became not only the father of all the Jews (particularly of the Messianic line), but he became as it were, the father of all who might ever have a faith like his in that coming Messiah as well.  The result is that he is OUR father if we believe as he did, if we believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and that He's come to meet our needs!

Abraham didn't rest in his own righteous living, but instead he trusted God and God's salvation through the coming Messiah.  And, says Paul, "his faith was accounted for righteousness."  And that's exactly how God saves every one of His people.  Very simply, every one of them makes a confession of  their need, and of God's provision for that need in Jesus Christ. That's what faith is, and it's counted as though it actually were righteousness.  If you and I have that faith, then, though we're still sinners, yet those sins are covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  As David says, "Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin."

Now, you say, that's fine for Abraham's family and the rest of the Jews, but how about us Gentiles, people who have no relationship to Abraham whatever?  Paul makes sure he answers that question here, and in answering it he bridges the gap between Jew and Gentile.

In thinking about his answer, we need to see that the Jews were indeed the special people of God.  God made a covenant with them and commanded them to carry a sign, a badge as it were, of that covenant, that "badge" marked them out as covenant people.  They were set apart as people who were waiting for Messiah, a people who submitted to God's government and Covenant because they recognized that Messiah was indeed going to issue from the covenant people.  That badge, that sign, was circumcision.

The thing we need to remember is that Abraham's circumcision was only a sign of the faith he already had.  In fact, he had that faith for many years before the sign was commanded.  And he also had the righteousness that came by means of that faith.  He was declared righteous - he was justified - when he believed that God was going to send Messiah to be his Savior.  So, since he was justified before being given the sign, he became as it were the father of all who were to have the same kind of faith, whether circumcised or not, whether Jew or Gentile.

Paul therefore speaks to all who have that faith when he writes in his Ephesian letter, "For by grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."  The statement is true for believing Jews, and it's true for believing Gentiles as well.

Paul tells us another very important thing. He tells us why God did things this way.  He says, "therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all."  God saves through faith in Christ's work so that neither Jew nor Gentile would be dependent upon their own works.

Finally, Paul carefully and completely describes this faith, this means by which we can be freed from the web of sin.  Those with such faith, he says, are like Abraham "who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, 'so shall your descendants be.'  And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb.  He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform."

The key is the phrase, " . . . being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform."  That's the kind of faith God honors.  It's total conviction, against all ordinary human reasoning, that God can and will do what He promises, that He will save those who believe.

But please be very, very clear about one thing: faith is not merely believing that God keeps any and every promise, but it's believing, from our own deep sense of need, that He has kept a very specific promise, the promise of a Messiah Who is both adequate and willing to save.

There are many in our day who define faith, even Christian faith as simply a kind of "groping in the dark" for something we want, a kind of reaching for it, even though it seems contrary to reason.  Strong faith, they think, believes that it absolutely has the thing reached for.  That's not the kind of faith Abraham had, and it's not what we need either.

The kind of faith we need comes from a revelation, the Biblical  revelation concerning God's holiness and our lostness, God's good news and our own rebellion.  Starting there, the faith we need then believes that God has sent the Savior we need, that that Savior is willing to receive us, and that of all who trust Him none will be denied.

Do you believe these things?  If you do, you are truly a son or daughter of Abraham.  If you confess to God your utter helplessness and extreme need, and if you believe He's willing to accept you and change you for time and eternity, then you're a member of the Israel of God and you will be saved forever!

Thanks, AL ...

QuoteSo, now, how does your account statement read?  Are you still charged with the awful debt of treason and rebellion against the holy God, or does it list as a credit the entire righteousness of Jesus Christ, so that all debits are forever removed?  Have you come before Him and admitted your guilt and surrendered yourself to His entire lordship?  Do you trust Him to receive you?  If so, then you are justified by faith!

I am so gratefull that my debts were forgiven long ago and I am now fully justified IN Christ!

Amen and amen!

Aye! Amen..

http://s89015200.onlinehome.us/hymn/page40.html

There's an old hymn that goes,

"I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me;
It was not I that found, O Savor true;
No, I was found of Thee!

Thou didst reach forth Thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the stom-vexed sea;
Twas not so much that I on Thee took hold,
As Thou, dear Lord, on me.

I find, I walk, I love, but O the whole
Of love is but my answer, Lord to Thee!
For Thou wert long beforehand with my soul;
Always, Thou lovedst me.