Speaker 1: 1st Baptist, baptist El Dorado, will you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week, romans, chapter 4, and let's pray together.
Speaker 1: Lord Jesus, we thank you for a time to open your word, thank you for the worship, thank you for the team, the choir, that has led us so well this morning to your throne, and I just pray that now you would speak, that you would reveal yourself, that you would transform our hearts through your word.
Speaker 1: We ask this in Christ's name, amen, amen.
Speaker 1: I love hearing about family history.
Speaker 1: I love thinking of just amazing stories from my own family that maybe everyone else in the room wouldn't think much of, but in my family we laugh about them and tell the same stories over and over.
Speaker 1: You have those stories as well.
Speaker 1: I love hearing family history from many.
Speaker 1: Sadly, as a pastor, oftentimes when I get to hear so many of those family stories, it's maybe when preparing for a funeral for a family.
Speaker 1: But we get to sit down and chat about various stories through the years and we all have them and stories of crazy aunts and uncles and cousins, and you're probably in the room right now thinking of the people in your family that fit that description If you're not thinking of any of those people.
Speaker 1: I've got news for you.
Speaker 1: You are that individual in your family and that's okay.
Speaker 1: We need people like you and that's why you're here.
Speaker 1: I love family history and Paul does as well.
Speaker 1: In Romans, chapter 4, he gives some family history To many of the Jewish individuals in the audience.
Speaker 1: He takes it all the way back to Abraham Through the first three chapters of Romans.
Speaker 1: He has wanted the group there, both Jews and Gentiles, to understand that, first of all, you are sinful beyond belief, that however sinful and broken you are, it's probably even worse than you thought.
Speaker 1: That's the bad news.
Speaker 1: But halfway through chapter three he then turns the page to tell you the greatest news you could ever hear that, as sinful as you were, there is a Savior who has come to justify sin.
Speaker 1: And now he turns to chapter 4 and says if you want a case study of this, if you want to see how this has happened, let's go to an ancestor, let's go down the road of some family history.
Speaker 1: And so he looks at the life of Abraham and what he wants to see with Abraham is Abraham's faith, abraham's faith in God, the faith in God who counted Abraham as righteous, and wants to see that Abraham's faith, as he's counted righteous, is the ultimate picture of God's grace.
Speaker 1: The first thing I want to see this morning is simply this that if we could work for it, it wouldn't be grace.
Speaker 1: If we could work for it, it wouldn't be grace.
Speaker 1: Look with me Romans 4, verse 1.
Speaker 1: What, then, shall we say, was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?
Speaker 1: For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
Speaker 1: For what does scripture say?
Speaker 1: Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Speaker 1: Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.
Speaker 1: Let's stop there for a moment.
Speaker 1: As a gift, but as his due.
Speaker 1: Let's stop there for a moment.
Speaker 1: First of all, the question is this does Abraham have something to boast about?
Speaker 1: Does Abraham have a reason where he can look up to God and say this haven't I done great?
Speaker 1: Haven't I lived out these works so well?
Speaker 1: And therefore you owe me something?
Speaker 1: In verse 3, excuse me, verse 4, paul says this that if the one who works, if he works, then the wages he received, they are simply his due.
Speaker 1: He has done something for him and now he has received.
Speaker 1: Is that how this relationship with the Lord works?
Speaker 1: You may remember your first job Maybe as a teenager, the first job you have.
Speaker 1: You certainly may remember that first paycheck you got from the first job, just the excitement of holding that paycheck in your hand.
Speaker 1: I know this wasn't my first job, but I remember in college I was an intern at a church in Arkadelphia and, like every other week, they'd write me a check for, I think, $150.
Speaker 1: And I'd take it over to the bank and I'd cash that $150.
Speaker 1: And you couldn't have told me that I wasn't the king of Arkadelphia.
Speaker 1: You couldn't have told me that because I just felt like everything was at my fingertips.
Speaker 1: I had $150 in my hand and those first jobs with those first paychecks.
Speaker 1: It also taught you a lot of lessons about the value of a dollar.
Speaker 1: You remember being a teenager and getting that paycheck.
Speaker 1: And maybe even today, for the teenagers in the room you may go have dinner with your friends.
Speaker 1: You're down at Slim's and you say I've gotten the paycheck, go ahead and upsize the combo and they tell you that'll be $14.
Speaker 1: But already in your mind and you remember having these same thoughts it's really not $14.
Speaker 1: What does this cost?
Speaker 1: Well, according to my hourly wage.
Speaker 1: It costs me an hour and 25 minutes of work.
Speaker 1: You remember those thoughts.
Speaker 1: You start thinking about money differently, and that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: It's a good thing that when we work hard at our place of employment, an employer looks at us every two weeks and gives us what we deserve.
Speaker 1: We've worked and therefore he owes us or she owes us something because of our work.
Speaker 1: But the question Paul wants us to ask is simply this is this how salvation works?
Speaker 1: Is the relationship with the Lord some kind of employer-employee transactional relationship where, if I just do what I need to do, if I hold up my end of this bargain, then I can look to the Lord and say haven't I done well?
Speaker 1: Now, god, please give me what I need to do.
Speaker 1: If I hold up my end of this bargain, then I can look to the Lord and say haven't I done well?
Speaker 1: Now, god, please give me what I deserve.
Speaker 1: Please give me the salvation that is due to me.
Speaker 1: But verse 5, to the one who does not work but look at this, not works but believes in him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
Speaker 1: In this shift from verse 4 to verse 5, paul wants us to see that we're moving from the level of what is owed to us to the level of what is graciously given that none of this process, as Paul explains it, has anything to do with our works, but all based on belief that, as Abraham is counted righteous before God, that happens only because he believed in God, that his faith was, in the word of God, what God said he would do, and it was God who counted him as righteous, not because of works, not because of what he had earned, but simply because of grace.
Speaker 1: Paul wants to continue and in verse 6 and 7, he brings another forefather, david, into the equation and recites his own words from Psalm 32.
Speaker 1: Blessed is the one that lawless deeds are forgiven, sins covered.
Speaker 1: Verse 8, the man whom the Lord will not count sin.
Speaker 1: He just wants to remind us that any right standing before God is right standing based on what God has done, based on God's announcement of the forgiveness of sin.
Speaker 1: Notice, david said he didn't say blessed is the man who worked his way out of debt.
Speaker 1: Blessed is the man who finally impressed God enough to get some of this sin forgiven.
Speaker 1: No, no, blessed is the one whom God has forgiven that sin.
Speaker 1: Then, verse 9 through 12,.
Speaker 1: We won't read them, but just to summarize, there may have been some Jewish individuals in the crowd as they hear this letter saying but Abraham had some works.
Speaker 1: Actually, abraham had a lot of good works.
Speaker 1: I mean, you read the book of Genesis.
Speaker 1: All you see is the incredible things that Abraham did, and they could even bring this.
Speaker 1: And this is what Paul brings up.
Speaker 1: Well, how about the sign of circumcision?
Speaker 1: Paul brings up this outward sign that God gave his covenant members, this outward sign that they are part of the family of God.
Speaker 1: Well, what about that?
Speaker 1: Abraham partook in circumcision himself.
Speaker 1: Didn't that earn him something?
Speaker 1: And Paul just wants to remind him that.
Speaker 1: When did that covenant action happen?
Speaker 1: Because it's Genesis chapter 12 that God called Abraham out in his graciousness.
Speaker 1: It's Genesis chapter 15 that God, through nothing that Abraham had earned, desired to make a covenant with Abraham.
Speaker 1: It's Genesis chapter 17, in the early parts, that God says I'm going to make you the father of many nations.
Speaker 1: And then later in 17, finally, god presents the idea of this sign of the covenant.
Speaker 1: Abraham wasn't doing good works to earn anything.
Speaker 1: Abraham's good works and they were good, they were amazing were based on what God has already done, based on the fact that God, in his graciousness, has already brought Abraham into this relationship.
Speaker 1: If we could work for it, if we could earn it, if there was any way to be good enough for it, it wouldn't be grace.
Speaker 1: We could earn it.
Speaker 1: If there was any way to be good enough for it, it wouldn't be grace.
Speaker 1: It couldn't be grace.
Speaker 1: But number two, I want to see this If it made perfect sense, it wouldn't be grace.
Speaker 1: If it made perfect sense, it wouldn't be grace.
Speaker 1: Now, what do I not mean by that?
Speaker 1: What I don't mean is this that there's things in this book that don't make perfect sense.
Speaker 1: I know sometimes there are things that we've got to study deeply and we don't quite get it first.
Speaker 1: That happens to me all the time.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, I don't mean there's any kind of things that doesn't add up.
Speaker 1: There's contradictions, there's things that just aren't right in this.
Speaker 1: Of course, this is God's word.
Speaker 1: What I mean is this from a humanly standpoint, from a human standpoint, there's so much about God's grace that just makes no sense In my human mind.
Speaker 1: It makes no sense.
Speaker 1: It is so contrary to everything in our world, to how everything operates in this world.
Speaker 1: I mean the ultimate example that the God of the universe, who is sovereign, who is just, who is good, would look upon my sinful condition and your sinful condition and, at the cost of his own son, come to make redemption, provide redemption for us, right In the human understanding.
Speaker 1: That makes no sense, god.
Speaker 1: How could you be so good to do this?
Speaker 1: And if you want an example of things that just don't make sense in the human mind, I want you to jump with me down to verse 18.
Speaker 1: Paul wants to talk more and more about the story of Abraham, provide some more family history, and it says this verse 18, in hope he believed against hope.
Speaker 1: Mainly this, I'll paraphrase my translation Because of hope in God, he had something greater than the hope of man.
Speaker 1: In hope, he believed, against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told.
Speaker 1: So shall your offspring be.
Speaker 1: He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead, since he was about 100 years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.
Speaker 1: No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, sarah's womb.
Speaker 1: No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what doesn't make sense in the eyes of the world that in Genesis 17, when God tells Abraham so shall your offspring be, abraham's sitting at 99 years old, sarah's sitting at 89 years old.
Speaker 1: And if all that weren't enough and it's more than enough, but if all that weren't enough, sarah is barren, has always been unable to have children.
Speaker 1: And yet God looks to them and says in a year's time, when I come back to you, you're going to have a son.
Speaker 1: You're going to be the father of many nations.
Speaker 1: Many nations will be blessed through you.
Speaker 1: All of this has been promised again to a 99-year-old and 89-year-old who is also barren.
Speaker 1: None of this makes sense in the eyes of the world.
Speaker 1: Year old, who is also barren.
Speaker 1: None of this makes sense in the eyes of the world.
Speaker 1: None of this adds up to a redemption plan that our human mind would consider to be a good one.
Speaker 1: Nothing here we would set out and say that's how this should go.
Speaker 1: Quite the opposite.
Speaker 1: But as you call the role all throughout scripture and time again, exodus, chapter three, there's moses.
Speaker 1: He finds a burning bush in the wilderness, god tells him in that moment I want you to go to egypt and let them know that they are to let my people go.
Speaker 1: Here's the problem with this.
Speaker 1: Number one is that the only reason moses was out in the desert was simply because of the fact that he had to flee because he had murdered an Egyptian.
Speaker 1: Number two Moses himself says God, I'm not the guy for this.
Speaker 1: I'm not a good public speaker.
Speaker 1: I don't have a way with words.
Speaker 1: You should probably send anyone else.
Speaker 1: And what does God say?
Speaker 1: I'll be with you.
Speaker 1: That's all you need.
Speaker 1: And so God sends Moses to set the people free.
Speaker 1: It makes no sense in our human eyes, but he delighted to use Moses.
Speaker 1: First, samuel, chapter 16.
Speaker 1: Saul is out.
Speaker 1: Samuel is looking for God's new king to come upon the throne.
Speaker 1: He goes to Jesse's house and Jesse lines up seven of his sons, seven in a row.
Speaker 1: Each one of them looks the throne.
Speaker 1: He goes to Jesse's house and Jesse lines up seven of his sons, seven in a row.
Speaker 1: Each one of them looks the part.
Speaker 1: Each one of them looks like a king, thinks like a king, acts like a king.
Speaker 1: They should be king.
Speaker 1: And Samuel goes down the line and, one by one, says he's not it.
Speaker 1: He's not it Seven times over, looks to Jesse and says do you have any more sons?
Speaker 1: And Jesse says this there's one other, but don't waste your time, there's one other, but he's out in the field just tending the things to the field.
Speaker 1: I didn't even bring him in for a reason.
Speaker 1: I can just promise you go to the next house.
Speaker 1: He's not the one.
Speaker 1: Samuel says I'm not leaving until I see him.
Speaker 1: That son comes in.
Speaker 1: His name is David.
Speaker 1: Samuel looks at him and says this is God's man.
Speaker 1: Anoint the king of Israel.
Speaker 1: It makes no sense.
Speaker 1: Jeremiah, chapter 1.
Speaker 1: God wants to speak a word to the people of God, a word of judgment and a word of hope.
Speaker 1: He calls this young man named Jeremiah.
Speaker 1: We've got two problems here.
Speaker 1: Jeremiah says number one in chapter 1, I'm way too young for this.
Speaker 1: Who in the world is going to listen to a young person who comes and speaks some word of judgment?
Speaker 1: They don't want to hear from me.
Speaker 1: Number two is this I'm just like Moses.
Speaker 1: I haven't had a lot of public speaking.
Speaker 1: I'm not real good talking in front of a crowd.
Speaker 1: There's no way I'm the guy.
Speaker 1: God says you're it Time and time again.
Speaker 1: We've talked about it before.
Speaker 1: It's almost as if God desires to stack the deck against himself.
Speaker 1: It's almost as if God says how many obstacles can I put in my way, how hard can I make this upon myself so that when I come through, as I always come through, the people of God will only be able to look one direction when this goal is accomplished, and the only way where they can look is upward.
Speaker 1: To me, time and time again, god uses circumstances for his grace and his gracious activity that the world couldn't come up with, so only he can get the favor, the glory for it.
Speaker 1: And I just wonder this morning is there a circumstance, even now in your life that just makes no sense to you, just makes no sense to you?
Speaker 1: Are you walking through a season and the math doesn't seem to add up?
Speaker 1: Are there any situations in your life that you've been praying, you've been asking, you've been seeking God and it just feels as if either God doesn't hear you, god's just silent.
Speaker 1: If you don't know what God's up to in this moment, I just want to encourage you that, even in the midst of the confusing things of life, when we don't know how God is working.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is open the Bible to almost any page and you're going to see a story of someone who is in that same season of life.
Speaker 1: And yet God was faithful.
Speaker 1: And we talked Wednesday night about the Soren Kierkegaard quote that life is lived forward but understood backwards.
Speaker 1: Life is lived forward but understood backwards.
Speaker 1: You've seen those seasons in your life where, in that moment, it made no sense.
Speaker 1: In that moment you couldn't see how God was moving.
Speaker 1: And yet when you look back a year later, five years later, for some things, when we look back on the other side in eternity, god will show us that all across the way he was faithful and every step of the way he was working things out for his glory and for our good.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't make sense in the moment, but God's still moving, still moving.
Speaker 1: If it made perfect sense, it wouldn't be grace.
Speaker 1: And Abraham believed and Abraham trusted and it was counted to him as righteous, as righteousness, righteousness.
Speaker 1: Now here's my question Was that righteousness counted to Abraham because of the strength and the clarity of his faith?
Speaker 1: Was Abraham counted righteous because, all throughout this, he was so strong in his faith?
Speaker 1: Well, abraham was strong in his faith.
Speaker 1: But we may be tempted to say here well, god surely won't do gracious things in and through my life because I don't have the faith of Abraham.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a man that when God asked him to even climb a mountain to sacrifice his son, he said yes, sir, this was a man that left his hometown and went to a land he didn't know.
Speaker 1: This was a man again that, at 100 years old, when God said you're going to be the father of many nations, trusted God.
Speaker 1: In that moment, god, I've got a little faith, but I can promise you it's not the faith of Abraham.
Speaker 1: I looked at the clock and it told me we've got time.
Speaker 1: So Adie Carson, in a sermon, says this I love this illustration.
Speaker 1: He gives A fictional illustration about two Hebrew men.
Speaker 1: It's the night of the Passover in Egypt.
Speaker 1: The angel of death is going to pass through town.
Speaker 1: We remember in Exodus there's an announcement of ten plagues.
Speaker 1: The tenth one, the angel of death, will pass through town.
Speaker 1: The firstborn son of every home will pass away unless the blood of the lamb is over the door.
Speaker 1: Pass away unless the blood of the lamb is over the door.
Speaker 1: And these two fictional Hebrew men are talking to each other earlier in that day and one says to the other are you a little nervous about tonight?
Speaker 1: I mean this angel of death.
Speaker 1: It sounds a little intimidating.
Speaker 1: It's a little cause for concern.
Speaker 1: There's a little anxiety involved here.
Speaker 1: Are you a little nervous about what's to come this evening?
Speaker 1: And the other man looks back and said I'm not nervous one bit, I trust God.
Speaker 1: I put the blood of the lamb over the door and I know my family is protected.
Speaker 1: I did exactly what God says, because I trust God's word perfectly and nothing can make me waver.
Speaker 1: The blood's on the door.
Speaker 1: I'm not worried one bit.
Speaker 1: The other guy says it's okay.
Speaker 1: Well, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1: I also put the blood over the door.
Speaker 1: I'm not silly.
Speaker 1: I put the blood over the door.
Speaker 1: But, buddy, you've got three sons, amazing sons.
Speaker 1: I've just got little Charlie, and that's all I've got.
Speaker 1: And the blood's over the door, but still the angel of death is passing through.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make you a little nervous about it, even though, yeah, the blood's there.
Speaker 1: The other guy says bring it on, I trust the promises of God.
Speaker 1: And then DA Carson asks this that night, when the angel of death passed through, which man lost his firstborn son?
Speaker 1: And the answer is this neither.
Speaker 1: Because the answer was not found in the strength and the clarity and the impressive nature of the faith of the individual.
Speaker 1: It was found in the strength of the individual.
Speaker 1: It was found in the object of faith.
Speaker 1: It was found in the blood of the lamb.
Speaker 1: If you're ever nervous, that is my faith, like Abraham's or David's or Moses or anybody else.
Speaker 1: Listen, I am too.
Speaker 1: But the reality is, at the end of the day, we are saved and we are kept because of the object of our faith.
Speaker 1: We don't have faith in faith.
Speaker 1: We have faith in God, who is able to do what only he can do, and the object of our faith is able to sustain us.
Speaker 1: And throughout our life, I pray that our faith increases more and more.
Speaker 1: I'm not calling for just elementary faith throughout our lives, but I'm just telling you we are saved by an object of our faith and as we come into that relationship more and more, let us let faith increase all the days of our lives.
Speaker 1: If it all made perfect sense, it wouldn't be grace.
Speaker 1: If we could work for it, it wouldn't be grace.
Speaker 1: But I want to end on this If it weren't for Christ, there couldn't be grace.
Speaker 1: Want to end on this.
Speaker 1: If it weren't for Christ, there couldn't be grace, verse 22,.
Speaker 1: But the words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also.
Speaker 1: It will be counted 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.
Speaker 1: Paul looks towards a room of believers at the church of Rome and says guess what?
Speaker 1: These words that were written for Abraham?
Speaker 1: It was counted to him as righteous because of his faith and belief in who, in the object, in God.
Speaker 1: Those weren't just written for Abraham, those are written for you as well.
Speaker 1: Abraham's story can be your story.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Because God has sent his son verse 25 again who was delivered up for our trespasses, took our sin upon himself and raised for our justification Justification, a word we looked at a few weeks back, that point in time where we are counted righteous before God.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because of the finished work of Christ.
Speaker 1: This is what Christ has done and therefore the words to Abraham that in faith, through grace, you can be counted righteous, are the same words that God speaks over us if we have that same faith in the object of our faith, jesus Christ the righteous.
Speaker 1: I love reading biographies, hearing about the lives of incredible individuals.
Speaker 1: I love at times, whether it's a documentary or something about history.
Speaker 1: I just want to hear the story about certain individuals.
Speaker 1: You can read all kinds of biographies about impressive individuals.
Speaker 1: It could be ancient individuals, it could be Martin Luther, it could be Winston Churchill, it could be a president, it could be this, that or the other.
Speaker 1: But hearing the stories it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Even reading fiction, these stories they're just fascinating, even if they're not true.
Speaker 1: The mental pictures in our minds, the way we create the story in our heads, the way we have every character figured out in our mind, I love that.
Speaker 1: But here's the hard part.
Speaker 1: There always comes a last page Every biography.
Speaker 1: If I want to know about Winston Churchill, there's a moment where I read the final page, where the book closes and at the end of the day, as great as he is, I've got nothing to do with Winston Churchill.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know me, I don't know him.
Speaker 1: He's not in my family tree, not my family line.
Speaker 1: This maybe a fictional book.
Speaker 1: We read a beautiful world we fill our heads with over the course of multiple books.
Speaker 1: I love them greatly, but at some point the book closes the story's over and I can't get to that fictional place.
Speaker 1: I really don't have anything to do with those characters and those people.
Speaker 1: There's a disconnect here.
Speaker 1: But here's what I love about the Word of God that, as I read this and experience this and experience this, if it's true and I believe it is, because this says it is that if you are in Christ Jesus that you are adopted into the family of God, that if you are in Christ Jesus, you are adopted into the family of God, then this isn't ancient history, this is your history.
Speaker 1: That if you are adopted into the family of faith, then this story is your story.
Speaker 1: Then, when you read about the patriarchs and the forefathers and New Testament believers, that this is your story, that this doesn't have to end, but there is a connection there.
Speaker 1: And if you're adopted into the family of God, then when you type in your information to your spiritualancestrycom and press enter, this is what comes up.
Speaker 1: This is your story, and so this is true of you.
Speaker 1: As Paul said the same thing to the believers in the church at Rome, that if they said it of Abraham, they say it of you that, if it's true that Abraham was justified not by his works, not by his earning or merit or actions, but simply by grace, through faith.
Speaker 1: If that was said of Abraham, it can be said of you that now this story is your story, this life is your life, and you can be one who is counted righteous before a holy God, not based on works or effort, but based on the son, not based on your faith in your own faith, making it as impressive as it can be, so you can believe enough and trust enough, and then you will have arrived, no, no, no, your faith in the object of our faith, jesus Christ the righteous.
Speaker 1: I want to encourage you this morning, If you've been a believer for decades or you're going to become a believer in about one minute, that this story is your story, this life is your life, this faith is your faith, or can be your faith.
Speaker 1: And when the next time some little child sings Father Abraham had many sons and then they say I'm one of them and so are you, you look at them and you say you're right about that, because, just like Abraham, I'm counted righteous.
Speaker 1: Let's pray, lord Jesus, thank you for your word, thank you for the fact that we can be counted righteous before a holy God.
Speaker 1: Not by works, god if it were works, we couldn't get there but by grace.
Speaker 1: I thank you, lord.
Speaker 1: I pray even now.
Speaker 1: If there's one that wants to come down front and talk with me about coming to know Jesus for the first time, I pray they would.
Speaker 1: I'd love to introduce them.
Speaker 1: If there's one that just needs to come pray at this altar, maybe on their own, maybe they need to bring someone with them, maybe they need a pastor to pray over them, I pray that they would.
Speaker 1: If there's one, if there's a family that needs to join this church, I pray they would come be part of this faith family.
Speaker 1: But, lord, however, we need to respond.
Speaker 1: Let us do it now as we continue in worship In Christ's name, amen.
Speaker 1: Would you stand now and I'll be down front if you'd like to come.