Tonight we turn in our Bibles to Romans chapter 3, the end of Romans chapter 3, verses 27 through 4, actually 5. And we'll come back next week as we will consider in the morning a few sermons before Christmas, the birth of Christ. We'll come back Sunday night and look together at Psalm 32 and what David believed concerning the righteousness of God. So, that will be next Sunday night. Tonight we consider really what Abraham believed. So, Romans 3, 27-4, verse 5. Let's give our attention to 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 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. We'll 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 accounted 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. May the Lord bless the hearing of His Word. Well, I certainly get wearied over all of the disputes and bickering that happens among Christians. That is something that I guess I just never expected in the ministry to the degree that I have seen it. And at times it has been shocking and at times I've gotten into it myself, lo and behold. There are times I feel as I listen to all the things that are said and the things that people fight over, they're fighting over things that they shouldn't be fighting over and they fall into the realm, I suppose, of Christian charity and that we need to show charity with our brothers and sisters in how we together strive to walk in the spirit of unity and the bond of peace. But then there are times when I feel that Christians are not fighting for what they should be fighting for. And tonight we've come to one of those. As a matter of fact, we've come to the greatest one of those. This is an absolute major, if you will. Tonight we come, and we see it all over Romans 3 and 4 again, to the issue of justification by faith alone. And Paul has stated this doctrine for us. It's a very pastoral doctrine. It's a doctrine that's supposed to really be a comfort to you and help to you. And he wants to make sure tonight, as this was given so many years ago, he's really developing this argument, but he's also showing us just what was believed throughout history about this great truth because he knew people would continue to struggle with this. In fact, I would say that tonight we're really wrestling with the theology of the little bit. The little bit that's left we want to hold on to. And he's dealing with that. He's addressing that. I mean, if you heard the message properly last Sunday night and you listened to that message, I assure you to some degree in your own flesh It didn't quite set right. You struggled. Did you hear it? Did you hear exactly what it said? Let me just summarize again Romans 3, what we considered last week, that God has supplied a righteousness. God has announced a righteousness. And this righteousness has absolutely nothing to do with you. And God of His own sovereign, powerful will decided before the foundation of the world by the good counsel of that will, decided to announce this perfect righteousness of His Son and account it to those who believe. To reckon it to their account. But just so that you don't think that that belief that you have is something that you worked up and did yourself, He wants you to know that too was a gift from God. As we're told in Ephesians, that faith itself is a gift. So, God supplies the righteousness outside of you of His own Son. God brings it to you in the preaching of the Gospel. You didn't go get it. You couldn't do anything to get it. He gives you the faith to receive it, which is nothing more than like a baby resting in its mother's arms so that you don't have one bone that you raise and work to go get it. And He declared based upon the righteousness of Jesus that you are forever right with Him. Never to know His judgment. Not one work. Not one lifting of the hand. Not one single step. It's all from Him. And to Him and through Him be the glory forever and ever. what Paul's going to say. All of your working to add to that is an offense to Him. And here's where I started getting a little nervous myself last week. All of your working is an abomination to God. Stop working and receive. I just heard that. And the first thing that comes to my natural self, if I can do that, That's too good to be true. That is just way too good to be true. Second problem is, and I reacted a little bit in my own preaching, I went home Sunday night and I kind of felt like hiding last week. I said God hates your working. Can I say that? Should I have said that? It kind of makes me recoil a little bit. We all should work for God, right? So I started talking with some of you and you two struggled a little bit with that. And the question that immediately follows is, well, what about my living? What about all these calls to do? In fact, I had a very kind email come to me and the email said, I appreciate how honest you were in your last sermon, but you would agree that we need to show people what we believe by how we live. And of course I would agree. Of course I would agree. But underlining that, do you see the issue? See what we still struggle with? I've been saying the whole time, I'm not talking about sanctification. I haven't even got there. I'm not talking about what you do. We're not there yet. We'll get there. But what it exposed for me again is that it's really hard to receive this message, this good news. That it's really hard for us to be stripped of all of our efforts and merely received God's greatest gift that He could have ever announced to mankind. Fallen man. And if you struggle a little bit with that, then you probably heard it correctly. All of our doing has nothing to do with the doctrine of justification. It doesn't. The beauty of the Christian Gospel is you have everything you need in the Lord Jesus Christ Nothing's lacking there. So stay there. You'll be really satisfied there. And tonight it's as if the Apostle knew this would be really hard for people. The Apostle knew people would really struggle with this. And so he's going to now solidify his argument and proof of this doctrine by using some real examples for us. And he leads us tonight to the greatest figure, humanly speaking, that we all know and that the Jews knew. And that is great Father Abraham. Great Father Abraham. And his goal in doing this is simply to ask one simple question. Well, okay, if you struggle with this, what did Father Abraham believe? Am I really so far off in this great truth of justification by faith alone? I want you to consider that tonight. We'll get to David next time. And the goal of it is, I would love to get there soon, but the goal of it is to lead us in doxology and praise, isn't it? So let's look at this tonight with those things in mind. Paul begins where we left off in verse 27 by saying, if we understand justification by faith alone, the way that we should understand it, what does it just do to boasting? It just eliminated it completely. And pride was always the problem of the human race. It had always been a problem from the beginning. I mean, who can forget even these leaders that would come up. Nebuchadnezzar, you know. Oh, look at this kingdom that I built by my mighty power and my might. And the Lord immediately struck him down, didn't he? He's out eating grass and growing nails like a beast. Paul is showing this teaching of this doctrine of justification completely eliminates boasting before God. Now, there are many ways that we could boast. And I wish I had time tonight to go through all of the ways. But just initially you could boast in certain things, I think, that we continue to struggle with. We could boast in our morality, couldn't we? I have a strange desire to read kind of pioneer settling of the Northwest. I don't know why. Now that I'm out of there, I want to know what happened up there. And I was reading Phoebe Judson's memoirs of the pioneering of the Northwest, And I was so struck by it because she's sort of the mother of Linden. And as she was settling in Linden, she says, you wouldn't believe. The language is really interesting. But she says to her fellow mothers of Linden, she says, hey, rise up, O women. There were two strangers who've come into our midst. And they have applied for a saloon license. And then she said, rise up, O women. Let's stop this fell destroyer of mankind, this dark drink from hell, rum. And I thought it was a really interesting thing to read because it shows the natural tendency to think that just a mere morality, just a mere external righteousness like we talked about this morning with fencing the law is what really cuts it before the Lord and we remember what our Lord said that it's not what goes into the man, into the mouth that defiles, but it's what comes out of the heart. So you have morality. You could boast in knowledge itself that we know so much and we've achieved so much. Paul talking about that, that knowledge puffs up. You could boast in pious feelings tonight that all of our tears are the kind of things that please God. And we could even boast in faith itself. And we'll consider that one here in a moment. Paul is saying all of it's gone with the doctrine of justification by faith alone. All boasting is removed. And the conclusion of the matter is this. We conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. There's the conclusion of the matter. There is no working in this. There is no doing of the law. There is none of that that will ever make you right with God. Now Paul knew this would be difficult. And he had to write a whole epistle to a church that would turn from this message. And he was so agitated, you don't get a greeting from him to the epistle in Galatia. He was really agitated with them. How could they turn from this? And Paul anticipated the charges, like verse 31, that this sort of teaching would make people licentious in the way that they behave. And Paul says, no, we are upholding the law. We'll get there with that. But now he comes to the real issue tonight that I want to tackle momentarily with you. And it's the issue of what did the Old Testament saints believe? That's an important question, isn't it? Just what did those Old Testament saints believe? Are we so radically different from them? It's quite a question. Did they understand things like we do about justification by faith alone? Really, Paul? In verse 1, Paul raises the single greatest figure of the Old Testament in chapter 4. It's Abraham. What then 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's posing an important question here, isn't he? We could kind of paraphrase the question a little bit like this. Well, what did Abraham, our forefather, what did he discover about how a sinner is made right with God? How can a sinner be in a right relationship with God? Now the first thing you should notice here, which I believe is a certain touch of sarcasm here, is how Paul says, Abraham our forefather. Paul's reacting to something. Paul knew that Abraham was the greatest figure in the Old Testament, and that's quite a thing to say, because you had a lot of great men in the Old Testament. You had Moses, and you had Elijah, and you had Daniel, and you had David, but none of them was considered the father of them all. Father Abraham had many sons. Father Abraham. In fact, you'll remember how Jesus was constantly dealing with Father Abraham in front of the Jews. And remember in John 8, He said, if you know My truth, My word, you will be free. And when He pressed them with regard to their unbelief, remember what they shot back and said? We have Abraham as our father. We're Abraham's descendants. What do you mean we need to be made free? We are free. Abraham shows us that. We're Abraham's descendants. We belong to him. And you'll notice how interesting many of Jesus' teachings are with regard to Father Abraham when you have even the parable of Lazarus and the rich man and who is the centerpiece in the middle of that. Abraham. So this was a big issue. The Jews thought simply being a son of Abraham guaranteed their access to heaven. The Jewish writings are not unclear about this. In fact, it's very interesting to study this. The Jewish teachers taught that Abraham was the only truly righteous man in his generation. They taught that he was actually the one that brought back the Shekinah glory to Israel. At age three, they said, he believed. He began to serve God. And all of his righteousness, they said, was made complete by his circumcision. Rabbi Akita at this time had been quoted as saying, all Israelites are kings since they descend directly from Abraham. Listen to the prayer of Manasseh just for a moment. Therefore thou, O Lord God of the righteous, has not appointed repentance for the righteous for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who did not sin against thee. But thou hast appointed repentance for me who am a sinner. What a confusion. You know, Abraham, they said, was not even a sinner. The book of Jubilees, 2nd century B.C. Abraham was perfect. in all of his deeds before the Lord and well-pleasing in righteousness all the days of his life. You get the point? As I study this, I can't help but think the Jews had a doctrine of justification. You know what the doctrine of justification for them was? Justification by Abraham. Being a son. Abraham to them was the perfect saint. He was the perfect representation of what is upright and accepted by the Lord. And the Jews saw all their blessings as mediated right through Abraham. Abraham was a moral man. He had inward goodness. And they said when God came to give Abraham these promises, he believed in God. He delighted to listen to God. He was naturally inclined to obey God. And God justified him based on his obedience to God. And you kind of understand what Paul's doing here? This is a big issue he has to tackle. What shall we say that old Father Abraham discovered about himself? About the flesh? What did he discover about his own nature and about his works and how a sinner is right before a holy God? What did the greatest figure in the Bible in the Old Testament think? Well, Paul draws a conclusion. If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. Interesting response. If great Abraham had some good works and that was the basis of his own righteousness, he could boast, but not before God, because you see, that wasn't the truth of the matter. that wasn't the truth of the matter at all. Let's imagine for a minute that God was searching throughout the land, boys and girls, and He thought, well, He came to the land of Ur of the Chaldeans and says, I'm going to look down for just one righteous man and look from heaven and find one man who's good, who deserves all of this, who serves Me, and you know what? I'm going to go after Him and make all these promises to Him. Is that what we have in the Scriptures about Abraham? You know, I always like to think that Abraham was not always Abraham, was he? And I think in God's wonderful providence, there was a reason it started the whole thing with the name Abram. You ever wondered about that, why you have these great name changes? Remember, Jacob to Israel. Schemer to God prevails. Saul to Paul. Abram to Abraham. And the whole phenomenon is a really fascinating thing to communicate to us what the person was before God's great power of salvation and regeneration came. Abraham, at one time, was Abram. His name means the Father is exalted. The only problem is it wasn't the father of the Bible, was it? Abraham was a pagan. And you'll remember when the Lord spoke to Israel, He reminded them when they were getting caught up in idolatry, your fathers, including Terah, father of Abraham, the father of Nahor, dwelled on the other side of the river. In old times, they served other gods. Abraham's family in Jewish history was said to have been a general of the wicked king Nimrod. And worst of all, Terah and his family worshipped the moon god in Ur of the Chaldeans. This was an important city on the mighty Euphrates River, one of the most well-known centers of wickedness of the period. Whatever we really know, and I don't know how much all of that is accurate, whatever the case, history has told us they did have a three-stage tower there, just like the tower of Babel dedicated to the moon god Nana. and they've uncovered all of the ritualistic sacrifice and burial of the area, this was Abraham's setting. Abram's. Abram marries Sarah, whose name was Princess, which was the name of the wife of the moon god. This was a dysfunctional family if you studied Genesis 11 and 12. It was a really dysfunctional family. And I guess it's important to pause and say, You know, we think of these Old Testament saints as so mighty and so good, and yet I wonder, have we really ever considered just the way that the Scriptures present their lives and then in the next breath we'll say they were righteous? And you should ask, why does it do that? The Bible's not G-rated. I look into the Old Testament and I read the lives of a bunch of people and I'll be honest, I would not be real comfortable having my life put down on Scripture and read for thousands of years by everyone. Would you? I read about Noah drunk in a tent naked. I read about Jacob deceiving and doing all sorts of things. I read about Samson's web of lies and luxury and Solomon's many wives. One was enough. David's lustful rendezvous. I wish I could make this nice. But do you think God is telling us something over and over and over through the very simple lives of these great pillars? I believe He's tearing down exactly the very thing that happened with the Jews and showing us the very real, messy lives of people for a reason. Real messy. The greatest in the Old Testament did what? Well, ran down to Egypt in fear. Threw away both land and seed right after the promise was made. Pawned off his wife to Pharaoh twice. Demalek was involved in that. Twice he tried to produce the seed himself. Going into another woman named Hagar. Really? Is this a good man? No. Let me introduce you to Father Abraham. Father Abram, a moon god worshiper called out by God who still had the problem with sex, lies, and deceit. It's a good Hollywood movie. He was a mess. Now here are the Jews running around saying, oh, Father Abraham never sinned. And I say, what Bible are they reading? Paul wants us to think about great Father Abraham. And Paul's making the great point tonight that Father Abraham, what he learned about himself is not anything different than what you've learned about yourself. And what have you learned about yourself? How many of you have had a hard week last week and struggling with sin? What do you feel like when you struggle with your own sin? You feel like a bum. You feel like, I give this God scraps. I don't really love Him the way that I should. Guess what? You're not alone. Father Abraham learned the same thing according to the flesh. And He struggled just like you. And He was no better boys and girls than any of you. He found the description, there's none righteous as including Him. No, not one. And Abraham would have said to you if he were standing here tonight, Dear Jews, you've got it all wrong. I'm the chief of sinners. That meant that the greatest figure in the Old Testament discovered the very same thing, number one, with regard to his nature. And now I get to the real pastoral implication of this. God didn't look down and say, oh, wonderful, I found this creature who's just a model of piety and I'm going to save him who has no sin. No, no. Paul takes it to the very next point and he says, okay, how then was Abraham saved? One thing Father Abraham learned about salvation and verse 3 says it. And I love how it begins. What does Scripture say? What does the Bible tell us over and over about how great Father Abraham was saved? It says one thing. Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. That's Genesis 15.6. One of the most important verses in all of the Bible to show us justification by faith. Paul is saying that was the moment of Abraham's justification. God came down and made this promise to Abraham. And remember what the promise? I'm going to multiply. Actually, it started with, I am your shield and your exceeding great reward. What a wonderful thing to say, isn't it? When God Himself says that to His people. And then He says, I want you to look at the stars up there and just try to count them, Abraham. There will be your descendants. And He promised the seed who is Christ to Abraham to come. And you read this phrase. It just shines in Genesis 15. Right after God made this beautiful promise And Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Paul puts it right here. And Paul says, that was the moment. That was the moment. Now, how have some people tried to explain that? Some people have tried to say Abraham has shown that he can do no good works before me but there's one thing he could do he could believe and that's what God accepted Abraham's faith I'll justify him based on his belief that's a little bit left that's the last thing we've got here to deal with faith itself and I hear this all the time I hear this all the time in gospel presentation we present the gospel as if the basis of our justification before God is our very belief, don't we? That our choice to choose God is the reason that God accepts us. This is what we've done in Christianity today. Here's the one thing you can do. You can believe. And so faith is viewed kind of like a giant light switch that just needs to come on that's all in us, right? Does anyone believe apart from grace? I want you to look at verse 4. Verse 4 says his faith was accounted for righteousness. You say, see, it's faith itself. And I answer, that depends on how you look at things. Doesn't it? Have you ever thought about the man Bartimaeus for a moment? Remember blind Bartimaeus sitting out by Jericho? Son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus says, well, what do you want me to do for you? He says, that you would give me sight. Jesus heals him and then he says to blind Bartimaeus, go your way, your faith has made you well. Your faith has made you well. Now, did Jesus mean you have this powerful thing in you and that is the basis upon which you're made well? Let's say Bartimaeus went home to Mrs. Bartimaeus that night and she looked at her husband and he says, Honey, I can see you for the first time. You're really beautiful. And Mrs. Bartimaeus says, What in the world happened? What do you think he said? Honey, my faith made me well. Think he said that? What's he going to say? What's she going to say? Well, where was your faith these last 20 years we were married? Bartimaeus is not going to say that. Bartimaeus is going to say, I met a man and his name was Jesus and he healed me. And He had the ability to heal me. He had the power to deliver me. From Jesus' perspective, this all occurred by the means of faith. Because it was a faith given to Him by the Lord. But from Bartimaeus' perspective, it's all Christ. And you see, faith is the instrument by which something is accounted to us, isn't it? Something has to come here. Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And the natural question that should come out is, well, what's the it? There's no noun there. You need a noun for the it. What is it? And you see, Paul has been explaining this all along. What did we consider last week? Putting it all together. But now, a righteousness from God is revealed apart from the law. Verse 22 of Romans 3, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. So being justified by faith. Abraham believed God by means of faith. Ephesians says it's a gift. His faith was accounted as righteousness, but what's the it? Abraham believed God and it. This righteousness that has been revealed. This righteousness of Jesus was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. This is what Paul's been saying the whole time. It's not our righteousness. It's the righteousness over there. It's the righteousness of Jesus. And that's why our Heidelberg rightly says, when it says, listen, why do we say by faith alone that we're made right with God? And the first thing it says is it's not faith itself that makes us right with God. Faith is the gift. Faith is the instrument. Faith is the means by which we receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ that is imputed to our account. And I love this because when Abraham believed that great free gift was given and God right then and there granted and credited to Abraham's account the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Jesus as if he had never sinned or been a sinner. He took a giant robe and threw it on Abraham. And that faith that he had to receive it was a gift. And so, what is being explained here is just shocking, isn't it? And that's the conclusion tonight. That's what we leave with tonight. In verse 4, now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. Remember we talked about that last time. If you're going to try to work for your justification, you've put God in obligation to you and you don't want to do that. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, His faith is accounted as righteousness. What he believes about the Lord Jesus Christ, that instrument, receiving that righteousness of Christ is accounted to him. God, the greatest verse really in the Bible, you think how shocking it is? God justifies the ungodly. That's your verse. Don't forget it. It leaves no middle ground here. You see, when we come to the Lord and we beat our chest because of our sin, just like Father Abraham did, and boys and girls, just like all these great giants that you study in the Bible did, same thing. When you look to Jesus and you believe in Jesus and you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, you know what you can do tonight? You can insert your name here. Remember a pastor told me that years ago? I'll close with this. He said to do something very personal and I'll never forget it. You can insert your name right here. As a matter of fact, just look at the end of chapter 4. Look at verse 22. This is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness, but the words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone. You want to talk about being pastoral tonight? But for ours also, It will be accounted to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Chris Gordon believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Pete DeYoung believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. You believe God? Put your name there. That's what the Apostle Paul wants you to live in the joy of that comfort. That's how a sinner is right with God. Let's pray. O Lord our God, we praise You tonight that You have been so faithful and that this is the single great way throughout all the Scriptures a sinner is saved. We're not advancing anything new tonight. This is an old doctrine, but that needs to be always newly, freshly put in our hearts and our minds of us and our children. Fill us with that kind of joy tonight. And Lord, as we go home, going down to our house justified to all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, may we rejoice. We have everything. And that leads us tonight to praise. Praise be to our God who justifies the wicked. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.