But we're working through in our evening service what articles of our faith and what we believe together. And tonight we'll be looking at Romans chapter, the end of chapter 3 and 4 to consider this great example for us that Paul uses to encourage us in the truth of justification by grace through faith alone. We're going to look at Lord's Day 23. That's found on page 224 in those Forms and Prayers book. We'll start there. There's three question and answers, and I'm going to ask, we looked at last time, the life everlasting, and now we're moving to how we are righteous before God. And so I invite you to turn to 224. There's three question and answers. I'll ask the question. Please respond with the answer, and then we'll read the passage from Romans chapter three and four. Lord's Day 23. But how does it help you now that you believe all this, that I am righteous in Christ before God and an heir to life everlasting? How are you righteous before God? Only by true faith in Jesus Christ, even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments, and never having kept any of them, and of still being inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without any merit of my own, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned or been a sinner, as if I had been perfectly obedient, as Christ was obedient for me. If only I accept this gift with a believing heart. Why do you say that through faith alone you are righteous? Not because I please God by the worthiness of my faith. For only Christ's satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness are my righteousness before God, and that I can receive this righteousness and make it mine in no other way than by faith alone. And now we'll be reading Romans chapter 3 at verse 27, and we'll read through verse 8 of chapter 4. This is the word of the Lord. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works, 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. And there we'll stop the reading of God's word. Well, tonight we come to the great article I titled the message tonight, The Article Upon Which the Church Stands or Falls. That was a statement made by a well-known theologian to help us understand the importance of this great truth of justification by grace through faith alone. Something that we easily can assume that we understand and forget how marvelous this truth really is. Marvelous in every way for who we are as God's people and to understand our status and our position before God, how it has fundamentally changed, having been justified, and that we have peace with God, as will be said in the next chapter of Romans, having been justified by faith, we have peace. What a beautiful truth, isn't it? Peace with God. Think of all of the hostility, think of all the war, think of all the problems in our world, think of everyone trying to find peace, and the one with whom it matters in this great truth we have peace with. The one who can kill us, the one who can put us to death, the one who can put an end to our lives in a minute. Now having peace with him, we have an assurance that we are loved by God, and that he cares for us, and he will always watch over us. To live in light of this great truth is the most helpful truth for the Christian life and the Christian faith, and that's what I want to explore a bit with you tonight. Think of all the blessings that we talked about this morning, the works of the Lord. It's good, that statement by Spurgeon that I quoted, it's good to think about those works. It's good to think about all the works of the Lord. Think of his calling and his election before time began and him choosing you for salvation. That is a marvel. isn't it? That is a wonderful truth that we celebrate, thinking then that God, when in the fullness of time, would send his son, that he would do exactly everything that was necessary for us. Knowing every last sin we would commit, knowing everything we would do where we are positionally, past, present, and future, knowing all of that, thinking about that, he didn't have to discover and say, oh, oh wow, I don't think they deserve it. They don't deserve it. And still loving us because he would give his son and he would give us a perfect righteousness by which we can stand. He would say, I will cover you. I will cover you. I will send my son for you. And the council of redemption, this is my beloved son. Whom shall I send? I will, said the son. I'll go. And he came here, and he lived a perfect life. Keeping the law, every bit of the way, knowing every last sin you would commit, and bearing your sorrows, and carrying those sorrows, and fulfilling the all-righteousness for you, and then going to the cross, and giving himself, offering himself up, so that as we studied just a few months ago in John, when he said it's finished, all your sins were put on him and that he would freely impute to you, give to you Jesus's righteousness. That the father who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all could ask the question, who could ever bring a charge against my elect? Who could? Do you still bring a charge? The father says, who can bring a charge against my elect? That's what I did for you. I gave you my son. And think of this beautiful truth here in question and answer 60, that I may have a real difficult time with this. My conscience may accuse me of having grievously sinned against all my commandments. Well, you know what you do. you know that conscience rises up against you. You know you feel condemned at times. You know you haven't kept any of the law of God. And you know that you are inclined toward evil. And yet, without you doing any work of your own, without you meriting any of this, without you deserving any of this, out of sheer grace we study, unmerited favor in every way, God credited to you, to your account, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Jesus. He put a giant robe of many colors over you. And he said to you, you are forgiven. My son has taken all your guilt, all your shame, and paid for it. He laid down his life for you. He loved you. He paid the debt. He stood in your place. It was an atonement that he stood in, a substitutionary atonement for you, so that you, think about this, as if you had never been a sinner nor sinned, ever. As if you had been perfectly obedient in the course of your life. As Christ was obedient for you. What does he call you to do? receive this gift with a believing heart and even the faith that you have to receive this gift he gave to you as a free gift. Now you understand when we go through this doctrine and you understand the basic truth of it tonight, while Paul's really concerned about boasting, that's Romans 3, he's really concerned about boasting. Who in the world would come along and try to insert themselves into of this. Because that would be a real big offense with God. To come along and then to try to say, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. There's got to be a little bit that we do to be right with God. There's got to be something. You can't run around teaching this because it's going to cause all kinds of problems in the church if you do that. And you'll notice here that Paul's really concerned about this. By what becomes a boasting, he says it's entirely excluded, which proves the doctrine of justification by faith alone, because nobody could ever come to God and say, I did enough. That's not the testimony and record of Scripture. It's actually an affront to God that he says so much so, and he'll come in Romans chapter 11, and so much say this that he will say, listen, it's either, there's no middle ground between this. You have a choice to make. You're either going to relate to God on the basis of your working, or you're going to relate to God on the basis of grace. And there's no middle ground. It's either all of work or all of grace. And if you want to work, well, he says here in this very section, that if you want to work, it depends. Why, it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest upon grace. He says later on. And then he goes on in verse 4. Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but is due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. So this is the great truth tonight that we're wrestling with. And the beauty of the Christian gospel is a very simple message, boys and girls, that when you believe in Jesus and you've trusted in Jesus, you're declared righteous. You will never be more righteous before God. Whatever you do in the Christian life will never make you more righteous. It's a legal, forensic, what we call declaration. You are right with God. I love you, says the Father. And that status can't change. That can't change. Well, Paul knew tonight that throughout history this would cause a lot of problems. Paul understood that a lot of people would struggle with this doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone. In fact, much of the New Testament is combating and trying to help us through what people would come along and say, these are fallacies, and this will create this, and this will create antinomian behavior. You can't run around saying this, Paul. In fact, the New Testament is constantly showing us that when Paul went and preached this message, the Jews were coming along and saying, this is a strange doctrine, this is a strange idea, foreign to the Scriptures, and so this is why the New Testament is coming and laying a foundation and showing us that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is not some New Testament idea. It's something that's grounded and rooted throughout the entire Scripture, and that's why tonight I want to look with you briefly at this figure that was so important for the Apostle Paul to make this great case where he says something so important, verse 28, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. It's that statement that he's working with. That the way you're right with God is through faith alone. There's no other way. And that kind of answers the whole question tonight that we wrestled with last time about life everlasting, and will you be judged based upon your works, and will they be raised on the last day? And the real question is, is were your sins put on Jesus? Because the message is, having been justified by faith, you have peace, and the conclusion of the matter is no one that we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. So why in a legal way would they be raised again on the last day. This is what Paul's working from. So notice here that Paul now interacts with and shows us this great figure Abraham to help us with this great problem. This great problem that he knew about boasting and he knew would cause issues with people. How would he preach this gospel of free grace and justification by grace through faith alone? Is it something that's rooted throughout history and in Scripture? And that's what Paul's working with. In fact, what he's essentially doing now is taking the two greatest figures of the Old Testament. What do they believe? Do they believe this? That's the effect of this. Do they believe this? And this is why Abraham is so important tonight. If you look at verse 1 of chapter 4, what shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. Paul is really posing an important question here with regard to Abraham. We could paraphrase the question. What did Abraham, our forefather, really discover about his life? What did he think himself about this great truth? Did Abraham come to any conclusion on this matter himself? Because I know you're attacking me that I'm bringing some novel idea here that you can be justified and right with God apart from anything that you do. I know that threatens your system. But let's ask the question, how did Abraham handle this? What did he think about himself? How did Abraham think? What did Abraham receive? And this is the important question here, that Abraham was held out as the greatest figure in the Old Testament. Abraham was held out as the greatest figure in the Old Testament. There are a lot of great figures in the Old Testament, of course. You could go through and pick all of them, but you could think of somebody like Moses. You could think of Elijah. You could think of Daniel. You could think of David as mentioned here, and we'll come back to him at the end. But I want you to notice here that when Jesus constantly was confronting the Jews of the day, it was always Abraham and then Moses, of course, secondarily. But it was Abraham who was raised as their greatest trust. You remember in John 8 when he was pressing them with their unbelief. Remember what they said to him? What do you mean? We have Abraham as our father. And what essentially they were saying there is we're Abraham's descendants. We think like Abraham. We were never in bondage to anyone like Abraham. Now that's a striking thing to say. We were never in bondage to anyone like Abraham was not in bondage. And Paul's laughing at this point as he's thinking about that. Oh, really? How can you say we'll be made free? Abraham was the freest man in the world. Are you saying, Jesus, we're in that same bondage? We belong to Abraham. We're the blood of Abraham. So this is an important point, that the Jews thought fundamentally, and this is why you understand in John's gospel, that when he talks about life and salvation, that it's not of blood nor of birth, but of the will of God, that this was their trust in this figure. He was the father of them all. And the Jewish writings were not silent about this. They taught that the one who brought back the Shekinah glory cloud to the nation of Israel was Abraham. Weird that they would say that. But at the age of three, they say, he believed and began to serve God. And all of his righteousness, they said, was made totally complete by his circumcision. I understand why in the next section, circumcision becomes this big question for Paul, is that he would go on and say, well, when was he circumcised? You know, Paul engages that very question and issue. But Rabbi Akita was known at this time as saying, all Israelites are kings since they descended directly from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The prayer of Manasseh. Can you imagine that that would be said in Israel? You've not appointed repentance for the righteous, for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who did not sin against thee. But thou has appointed repentance for me, who am a sinner, which is an interesting inclusion. They didn't think Abraham was the sinner. He was their righteousness in some ways. the book of Jubilees, 2nd century BC. Abraham was perfect in all his deeds before the Lord and well-pleasing in righteousness all the day of his life. You see why Paul's going after this now? You see why this would become such a crucial moment to address justification by grace through faith alone when you have this big problem of the key figure of the Old Testament? The Jews did have a doctrine of justification, and you have to come to the conclusion it was sort of a doctrine of justification by Abraham being a descendant. Justification by blood. Justification by family. You see, as long as you were a Jew in that line and you followed the Torah, you were okay. The Jews saw their blessedness as coming through him. Strange, isn't it? Abraham, they thought, was a moral man and had inward goodness, and when God came to him with these promises, he delighted listening to God, and he believed in God, and was naturally inclined to obey God, and God justified him based on that, that God justified him based on his own righteousness. Now, you can appreciate what Paul's doing here tonight in Romans chapter 4, where he says, what did Abraham discover about himself? This is why I love boys and girls to study the Old Testament. We look at these great giants in the faith, and we think they're such great pillars and great examples to us, and in many ways they are. And we can take great example from them and in the works that they've done, but we have to look at the overarching message of the record that's given of them, and at times it's absolutely surprising in what we find about these figures. They're not quite as righteous as we thought. Paul draws a great conclusion here, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. Everything he accomplished in life was from God. It was a gift of God, something God gave him. Let's imagine for a minute that God was searching when he had planned to, say, raise up this figure through him, be the blessing to all the nations and who the seed would come, who's Jesus. And he was looking for somebody. Who did he pick? Who did he find? And you know, he comes to the land of Ur of the Chaldeans and says, I've looked down from heaven on Ur of the Chaldeans and I have seen one individual in all the world who's good enough for me to make this promise to and who will be all the promise to the ends of the earth, to all the nations will be blessed. Who did he find? Well, that's not the record of scripture. Back in Genesis, the Lord said to Israel, your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham, the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the river, Eber, in old times and served other gods. His family in Jewish history was said to have been a general and many of the generals that came out, but all the way descending back to Nimrod, you remember. The worst of all, Terah and his family worshipped Ur of the Chaldeans. And this was an important city on the mighty Euphrates River that Abraham came from, one of the most well-known centers of wickedness of the period. History has told us there was a massive stage tower there, a ziggurat like the Tower of Babel, dedicated to the moon god Nana. In recent years, they uncovered the royal cemetery there showing the horrors of the ritualistic burial and human sacrifice in Abraham's time. This was Abraham. This was Father Abraham. He was as pagan as could be. He was worshiping other gods. He was involved in ritualistic sacrifice. Abraham married a gal named Sarai whose name meant queen. That was the name of the wife of the moon god. That doesn't prove much until we actually see the man in action. And then it's a wow story, isn't it? It's not G-rated. Abraham was a mess. I love looking at the lives of people in the Old Testament. I don't know that I'd want all my life story recorded. But you could start with Noah, drunk in the tent. Why would God record something like that? Drunk in the tent, right after the great deliverance. Jacob's deceiving life of nothing but thievery. He was a schemer in name. He was the worst of all. He was worse than Esau, I'm convinced. Samson was in a web of lies and sexual immorality. Solomon had how many wives and ruined how much? David walks out on his roof and gets caught in pornography. Has the kingdom? Has everything given to him? and he steals a man's wife? Are you kidding me? And then has the husband murdered? You can't tell me that these are God's people, you see. Well then, you see, and this is God coming to us and tearing down the nice, neat, pious lives that we all show and think that this is exactly what will get us into heaven. Now notice I'm not talking about sanctification here. I think it's important to say that. There's a righteousness that's important and there's a righteous character of a man and woman that's important. But I am not talking about that at all when it comes to our standing with God. This is what I'm talking about. The truth of the matter about the human heart how desperately wicked it is what we're prone to do let me introduce you to abraham a moon god worshiper called out by god who still had the problem in the course of that study in genesis with sex lies and deceit it was a bad hollywood movie i look at certain people in life and they're far more righteous than me i look at their speech and it's far more controlled than mine and we tend to think that God justifies the pious. And that's all countered right here. Paul is calling us, calling us out to not think like the Jews when it comes to the great article upon which the church stands or falls. Paul in Romans combats this everywhere. He wants us to ask the question, what did Abraham discover about himself? There was nothing different about Abraham than any other sinner in the Bible. That's really important tonight. There was nothing different about Abraham. Every propensity to sin, everything that you struggle with, every departure you've ever made, everything that you have been ashamed of, that was the character of Abraham when God called him out of Ur of the Chaldeans. if you ever have hard weeks of struggle and sin, what do you feel like? You feel wretched? I want you to know that you're not alone. You know what Abraham learned according to the flesh? You know what he learned about himself? The same thing. If you ever open up Romans 7 and struggle with that inward struggle of sin, Abraham would look back and say, I know exactly what I was before I was called. There's none righteous. No, not one. There's none who understands. There's none who seeks after God. All have sinned. All have turned aside. The poison of acid is on their lips. There is no fear of God in their life. That's God's assessment of the human life and the human heart. And that's what Abraham learned about himself. That's what Paul's saying here. This is certainly pastoral that God didn't look down and say, oh, this would change the whole record of Scripture if God looked down and said, oh, there's somebody who's finally worthy of this. Unless it's Jesus. Unless it's Jesus. And that's the point. How was Abraham saved? Well, that's verse 3. What does Scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him. It was counted to him as righteousness. Maybe one of the most important verses in all the Bible, beloved. Paul is saying, you know, there was a great moment Abraham was declared righteous. There is a moment in life when you are declared righteous. Heidelberg is so beautiful. Again, when it says, how are you righteous before God? only by true faith in Jesus Christ. That when in true faith I receive this, notice here, not because of the worthiness of my faith, but because Christ's satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness are my righteousness before God. That's it. When you believe the gospel, that's what he does for you. your status changes. A great exchange is made. If you think about the moment Abraham believed and was justified, it's such a wonderful moment in Genesis where God came down to him. And if you turn there, if you have your Bibles in Genesis 15, after these things, The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram. I am your shield and your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, O Lord, what will you give me? For I continue childless in the air of my house as he lies there of Damascus. And Abram said, Behold, you've given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him. This man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars if you're able to number them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. Now there was a great promise the Lord made. This is the gospel promise. I'm going to send a seed and salvation is going to come through him. And to the ends of the earth, there's going to be great salvation. And I will be your reward, Abram. I will be your shield. I will care for you. There was nothing to this point that showed Abram's worthiness. And in the next verse, Genesis 15, 6, and he believed the Lord and it was counted to him for righteousness. Paul's grabbing that. Paul's saying right there, God justified him. Apart from all works of the law, right then and there was the basis upon everything he received was because it was looking to Jesus. Abraham believed the gospel right then and there. And the Bible shows us this everywhere. This is the important verse of the Bible where right there he was declared righteous before God. You know, you think of all this imagery in the Bible that the Lord used in the Old Testament to show this to us. You can think of Zachariah the high priest standing there with the great accuser Satan right there and he's covered in filth and dirt and he's a filthy man because he's full of sin and Satan's saying, see, you can't do anything with somebody like this. And the Lord rebuked him. And the Lord says, you want to know what I can do? I can put new robes on him. You have this imagery everywhere in the Bible from the prodigal son coming out saying, what have I been doing? I come home and the Father throws the robe over him and covers his sin. This is what the Lord wants us to understand he does. This is what Jesus does. He covers us in the righteousness of Jesus. You know, I didn't understand this truth for 21 years of having it preached to me. I didn't understand it until 21 years old, until the light bulb finally went on. And the light bulb finally went on from Romans 3, you know, 21. But now, a righteousness of God is revealed apart from the law, being witnessed by all the law and the prophets. The righteousness of God that comes by what? Faith. He gives you a righteousness. He gives you what you need. He covers you in it. So much so that with the Heidelberg, we can say that when God looks at us, this is so beautiful, as if I had never sinned or been a sinner, as if I'd been perfectly obedient, as Christ was obedient for me. And I think that's what's the beauty of this great truth tonight. Maybe the most startling verse here in this section is what follows in verse 4. Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as is due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, His faith is counted as righteousness. Don't pass that up too quickly. Maybe we need to translate that better. To the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the wicked. I think that gives a stronger sense. God justifies the wicked. And guess who that is? Us. And he freely clothes you in Christ's righteousness. He takes away all your shame, all your guilt, all your condemnation. And he says, I'm putting that all on my son for you so that your whole life you can live in the joy of that knowledge and comfort. You understand why the Christian faith is meant to be a joyful one? The Jews' religion was one of duty, burden, and grumpy people. You know why? Because they had no understanding of this, and they didn't know God. You of all people to understand, you know, we beat our chest. We say, God, be merciful to us sinners. And God says, that's the one who goes down to the house justified tonight. Not the one up at the front of the church. Not that the front of the church is bad. I always say that when I say that, but the Pharisees when they're at the front of the church say, God, I thank you that I'm not like this. I fast twice a week. I give all my stuff to the poor. I pray. I do all my acts of righteousness so that everyone can see. But the one who comes to the Lord with that broken and contrite heart, believing the gospel. The Lord says, see him? That's what I'm after. That's the one right before me, simply receiving this by faith alone. This is the beautiful truth tonight of justification by grace through faith alone. It's the most wonderful truth in the world, and I think it requires the kind of praise that we talked about this morning. Praise to the Lord for such wonderful works. Praise to the Lord for the work of his son. Praise to the Lord who would give his son to come down here and to fulfill righteousness so that we could live in peace and in joy with the one to whom it matters. Do you have that confidence tonight? See, I think sometimes what we do to people to close this tonight, as we say to young people who aren't living it right, We say to people who aren't doing what they should do right, you just need to get your life more in order. And we get really mad, frustrated. I remember somebody saying not so long ago, what we need to start talking about more with people who just aren't living it is whether they're right with God. When you're declared righteous before God, justification by grace through faith alone, it doesn't create the kind of life that follows in sanctification of one who lives any way they want to live. You're in the fight now. We're going to look at sanctification coming up. But it first has to come with a confidence in God's love, a confidence that he's for you, a confidence that he delights to justify the wicked. Do you know that's who you are? He says, believe me tonight. Receive with the outstretched hand of faith. That's what the Christian life is. It's receiving from the outstretched hands of faith this free gift that is given to you at the perfect righteousness of Jesus. That's the gospel. That's the gospel that was announced to the ends of the earth. That's what changes things. May we be thankful tonight that even though our conscience accuses us of grievously sinned against all of God's commandments, and even though you've never kept one of them, and even though you're still inclined toward all evil. God justifies the wicked by granting and crediting to you the righteousness of Jesus so that on that day in the Lamb's book of life that name is written and you are covered in that rich robe forever. Let's thank him together tonight in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for the great truth of justification by grace through faith alone. Thank you for encouraging our hearts with this great truth thank you lord for showing us throughout scripture and history that all of your people believe this great truth this is what they found about themselves this is what david found about himself and you've been good you have loved us and covered us and all of our sin and shame has been put on Jesus. May we live in this comfort, and having been justified by faith, may we know that we have peace with you. And may then, O Lord, we lead lives that are thankful for so great a salvation. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.