What If Righteousness Was A Gift, Not A Goal

We trace Abraham’s faith, David’s failure, and the sweeping grace that justifies the ungodly, then apply it to our daily battles with law, guilt, and suffering. Peace with God becomes the foundation for perseverance, character, and a living hope.

• faith as trust against visible odds
• David’s sin, repentance, and real forgiveness
• righteousness imputed apart from circumcision or law
• law exposing sin versus grace granting life
• Abraham’s delays, doubts, and steady obedience
• justified by faith and at peace with God
• tribulation shaping perseverance, character, and hope
• daily walking by grace rather than performance

If you're not sure what some of this means, or if you'd like to learn more about being adopted by God, you can go to themountaincross.com where you can get a clearer understanding of what it all means for you personally
We have a tab at the top called How to Know God
Click on that and go from there
Once more, that website is themountaincross.com

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

He calls those things which do not exist as though they did, and contrary to hope, Abraham believed in hope. In hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations. According to what was spoken, so shall your descendants be. From a human standpoint, looking at all the facts and looking at all what was before him, there was no reason for him to believe that that would be true, except for what God told him.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Faith isn't built on evidence or what you can see or what's likely to happen. According to Hebrews chapter 11, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. As Pastor Carl will encourage us in today's message, we choose to believe in God and trust that his promises will come true. In a way, we become descendants of Abraham. As the father of our faith, he set an example of this in trusting that what God said was true, even when it contradicted human reason. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Until that day, when he was at the palace instead of out fighting wars like kings are supposed to in that time of year, and he saw Bathsheba taking a bath. And you know the rest of the story. He had her invited over and and they they committed adultery. She got pregnant now. He's he's in the in a bad situation here. And so he invites Uriah, his her husband, to come home, and hopefully that they would spend some time together so people would think that that's his baby, and not David's baby, uh, but Uriah being um one of the chief officers in the army for for David, you know, and an honest and in man of integrity would not go and do that. He stayed at the at the steps of the palace instead to honor the king. And so David had him killed on the on the field because that's what will cover the sin. And and and ever since that day that he gave into his flesh, he wasn't quite right with the Lord anymore. He felt distanced from the Lord. And finally Nathan came and and and confronted him, and and the and David came to a place of repentance. And he found the forgiveness of the Lord. What he did was terrible. A murderous adulterer. This is the man who we look up to as the example of a man after God's own heart. And yet he found the grace of God. Yes, people in the Old Testament, uh, just like in the New Testament, found favor in the eyes of the Lord as they trusted in the Lord. They looked forward to the coming Messiah. We look back to Jesus who was crucified on the cross. But the salvation came the same way. They believed God and was accounted to him as righteousness, and he was blessed because all of his lawless deeds were forgiven. How can anybody forgive what he did? This is the great mystery of the cross, isn't it? He was forgiven. He was made right. The rest of his life he suffered some uh ramifications of his sin, but he found freedom. And Paul's bringing that back. It's not about the works that we do, but it's about the grace that we find in Jesus Christ. And that grace brings freedom, brings blessing, brings peace, because God took it all upon himself in the person of Jesus Christ. He took our sins upon himself. Our lawless deeds are forgiven because they've been paid for by Jesus. Our sins are covered because they've been paid for by Jesus. And the Lord does not impute the sin to us because he's taken it away from us. What a glorious message, isn't it? Verse 9. Now, does this blessedness then uh come to the circumcised only or upon the uncircumcised also? I mean, that would be the the the argument. The Jews say, well, it's, you know, it's through God's chosen people, and Jesus came through, and and so uh it's about the uncircumcised, it's about the circumcised. But then he goes, for we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it accounted while he was circumcised or not circumcised? Well, let's investigate this. Abraham was the father of the Hebrews, father of the Israelite Jewish nation, right? But he's also the father of the faith. Moses brought the law later, but Abraham brought circumcision, a symbol of being set apart from the rest of the nations around Israel. But when did he believe God? When did he trust God? Before or after he was circumcised? Well, the answer is not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that the righteous n that the righteousness might be imputed to them also. He came to faith in Christ, looking forward to Christ in the Lord that he knew. He believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness before circumcision. Circumcision was a seal, a sign of that setting apart that he had put his trust in the Lord. And that is supposed to be something that points us back to the faith. But the problem is it points us to works. And eventually the law would do the same thing to the Jewish nation. They were looking to fulfill the law instead of looking at the one that the law was pointing to. The circumcision was pointing to the Lord and the faith that Abraham had placed in the Lord. So anyone who trusts the Lord, circumcised or not, would be made right with the Lord because of faith, because of what the Lord has done. And at the same time, verse 12, the father of circumcision to those who are not only of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of faith, which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised. It was a special group of people. The Hebrews were set apart from the rest of the nation to bring about, well, to be stewards of the law and to bring through their line the Messiah that was coming to save the world. But just because you were circumcised, set apart of God's chosen people, just because you were born a Jew, does not make you right with God. It's a great honor and a great privilege, a great responsibility that they had. But the key was going back to before Abraham was circumcised, that it was about faith. It's the faith that brings us salvation, no matter what position that you're in, no matter what your background, no matter what your philosophy, it's faith. And that applies to the circumcised and the uncircumcised. The circumcised had a very important job to fulfill. How much better is that job when they uh fulfilled it with faith? That's the point that Paul is trying to make. Verse 14. For the promise that he would be heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Again, this idea that the Lord would use Abraham to bless the whole world. And ultimately through Abraham would come the Messiah who would inherit all things. Did that come through the law or through faith? So if those who are of the law are heirs, then faith is made void and the promise made of no effect. Are you following this? If we think it's through the law that Abraham's seed, Abraham's seed would multiply the earth, then the faith is made void. The work that the Lord did on our behalf would be made void. If we're trusting in our works, if we're trusting in the law, the grace of God is made void, and it has no effect on you. The church in Rome had come to faith in the Lord, but most of the church was made up of Jewish believers. And it sounds like they were tending to fall back into works, just like the Galatians. You foolish Galatians, you've begun in the spirit, you want to perfect yourself in the flesh. We can't do that. We need to walk in faith every step of every day, and not try to perfect ourselves in our own flesh. Because when we do, it voids out the faith that we had, it voids out the grace that we have, it voids out the work that Jesus did on our behalf if we're trying to work ourselves to heaven. Does that make sense? And then he says, because the law brings about wrath, for where there is no law there is no transgression. Sometimes I have a hard time putting my head around what a verse is trying to say. So I go to some other versions of the Bible to get a little insight. And that's okay to do. It's also okay to go and look up words in a concordance. A concordance will tell you what the original Greek and Hebrew words meant and give you some other words that give you an idea of different angles to how this word applies. And in our studies, as we prayerfully go through and dig the treasure out of God's word, these are all good tools to use. In verse 15, I went and looked it up in the New Living Translation, which was based on the Old Living Bible. Remember that? It was big in the 70s and stuff. But the Living Bible was a paraphrase, which is, it was kind of rewritten with the author's uh angle on what it said, and it wasn't really a true translation. But the New Living Translation was later made, I think in the 90s, to be a true translation of the Bible and still have that nice feel that everybody liked about the Living Translation. The message Bible is one of those paraphrases as well. But the New Living Translation is an actual translation. Anyway, just encouraging you in your personal study. There are all sorts of tools out there to help you as you grow in your grace, grow in the grace of God. Now, in the New Living Translation, it says it this way, verse 15. For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it. That's pretty cut and dry. I try to obey the law. The law was not made for me to fulfill it, it was made for me to understand the sin that I'm in. So if you try to fulfill the law, it's going to convict you because you're always going to break it. You can't fulfill it. Do you get that idea? The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break. If I didn't have the law to try to fulfill, I wouldn't be breaking the law, right? And he'll continue on this thought too in a few verses here. But the idea is when you're walking in faith, when you're putting your trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ, who replaced you on the cross, who took your sin upon himself, and now as you identify with him on the cross as a crucified Savior, he died for my sin, so I die with him spiritually. I made a new creation and I'm justified in him, and I have a new beginning and a new life. I'm no longer under the law because he has fulfilled the law in my place. And if we walk by grace, we don't have to try to fulfill the law, which only leads to death if we try to do it in our own strength, right? Alright, you following? Boy, Paul makes you think, doesn't he? Verse 16 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 also those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, all of us that are followers of Jesus Christ. Abraham is the father of the Jews and the Christians, the Gentiles that have come to faith in Jesus Christ. He is the Father. And if we've we've acknowledged that if we try to fulfill the law, we nullify grace, and then we have no hope. If we we recognize that that's not an option we want to take, then we say, okay, we don't want to do that, we want to walk by grace. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace. This is how he was promised that uh the ends of the world would be filled with his offspring, both physically and spiritually. Then he has a parenthesis here. As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations, not only of the Hebrew nation, but out of every tribe and tongue, people who put their faith in Jesus Christ, as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness, we're all accounted as righteous and all symbolically made sons and daughters of Abraham. Right? You following that? So not only of the are of the Jewish line, but from all tribes and nations. He's the father of many nations. In the presence of him whom he believed, God who gives life to the dead, when I came to faith in Jesus Christ, I was dead in my sin. There was nothing that I could do. But when I came to faith in him, he made me alive. And he calls those things which do not exist as though they did. He's able to see the beginning from the end. He knows what's going to happen. And when he reveals to Abraham that he's going to have a child and many children, and the seeds of his offspring will be all over the world. God saw that, but Abraham didn't. But when God told Abraham that, Abraham believed it. Right? It didn't exist, but it's coming. God gives life to the dead. He calls those things which do not exist as though they did. And contrary to hope, Abraham believed in hope. In hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, so shall your descendants be. From a human standpoint, looking at all the facts and looking at all what was before him, there was no reason for him to believe that that would be true, except for what God told him. So, contrary to our earthly hope, I hope that works out. And the only way it'll work out is if these things happen, I don't see those things happening. So good luck to you. He trusts in the Lord, because the Lord knows and he tells us, and we believe it. And we have a hope in him. And thus his descendants walk the same way. The descendants in the spiritual sense, those that believe God, it's also accounted to us as righteousness as well. Verse 19. 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. Now I don't know about you, but when I read this, I think Paul's really gracious towards Abraham. Because if you know the story of Abraham, it wasn't as fully full of faith as you would think it would be. He had struggles along the way. It took 20 years or so between the time God originally made that promise and it was fulfilled. And during that time they had questions, should we turn back? Maybe God means we should do it this way. Here, Sarah said, Take my handmaiden, Hagar. That's how God is going to fulfill this promise. And that didn't work out. His Only Son is a movie we tried to show. That was our second film. It's available for streaming now and all sorts of streaming services, including the Angel app for free. Encourage you to go back and watch that movie because it brings up some of these other, you know, uh things that happened along the way that possibly could have happened, and some of the perceptions and some of the things that that Abraham had to deal with, and yet he was still faithful. He still walked it out. Even though he had doubts along the way, and his wife had doubts along the way, and other family members had doubts along the way. But that's encouraging to me, because sometimes I look at some of these things and say, I do believe, and yet my faith is falters so often. I stumble and trip along the way so often. But so did Abraham, so did David. And so the grace of God even covers my stumbles in my trying to believe, trying to walk in that faith. I find encouragement in that. I hope you do too. Verse 22, and therefore it was accounted to him for righteousness. Because he kept on going, he kept on believing, even though he didn't see it. God saw it and he believed what God told him. Do you believe what God tells you through his word? He declares it. And some of these things you read, and it's like, there's no way, Lord. But I believe. Help my unbelief. That's a great prayer. I believe, Lord, but I don't believe enough. I need to believe more. Help me to walk in that. Verse 23. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification. He was delivered up to the cross for our offenses. Christ died for sinners according to the scriptures. This was what he was called to do. This was his heart, because no one else could cover their sin, let alone the sin of the world, but he could. So he did. And he was raised because of our justification. We were made right with God, and not only that, we were given the righteousness of God. We were made right with God, and we were given a new life and a new command and a new power to go forth in his holiness, in his righteousness, that only comes through faith, that only comes by grace. That brings us to chapter 5. Therefore, because of this, having been justified by faith, you all came to faith in Jesus Christ, and your lives were changed, and that's why you're here. That's why this church is growing in Romans. You've been justified by faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of what He's done and our acceptance of it, we are made right with God. How often do you feel that, yes, I came to faith in Jesus Christ, but last week, boy, I messed up and now God hates me. Do you feel that way? Have you fallen short of the glory of God this week? Well, just remember you're still in these bodies of death, is what Paul describes. And our answer is not what we do or don't do as much. Much as it is who we put our trust in. That's why we need to come back and look to the cross. That Jesus died for our my mess up this week. Boy, I want to be perfect. I want to live my life in a way that glorifies Him, but I still realize that in this body of death, as Paul calls it, I'm still susceptible to tripping up and falling. But the answer is the blood covered it. He paid for it. So let's walk in that forgiveness. That's not an excuse to go sin. What it is, is a freedom from that sin to walk on and to continue to walk in faith. A boldness. Not because of me, but because of him. We have peace through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have peace with God, through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. If we've truly been changed by our faith in Jesus Christ, if he's come into my life and has worked something, we realize that I'm different. I've been changed. And I have this gift of God that He's given me, and I've accessed it by faith. And not only have I accessed it once, but I stand in it. I walk in it. I trust in Him every single day, not in myself. And something stirs within us. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. We realize that God is coming again, and He's going to save us from these bodies of death, and we're going to realize our ultimate salvation face to face with Him in heaven, where there's no more sin, no more death. And it's real because we sense it in our hearts. That's easy to say, right? Verse 3 is a little tougher. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations. In this life you will have tribulation, but fear not I have overcome the world, the Lord says. I love to glory in the Lord. I love to glory in the time where He's going to take us home and He's going to change us and give us new bodies that are free from sin so I could fully serve Him with my whole heart with no restrictions. What a glorious time that will be. But do I have that same excitement about tribulations coming? We live in a world that's becoming more and more hostile to the Christian faith. Are you excited about potentially being persecuted for being thrown in jail because you stand up and say, no? I'm going to declare the truth of the gospel and not any woke ideology that you force me to do. Even if you cancel my bank account, I can't buy anything. That's tough, isn't it? But this is the faith that we've been given. This is the grace of God that we've accessed. And it grows. And as it grows, we we know that tribulation produces perseverance. It's designed to knock us down. But in truth, God will use it to make us stronger. It'll build our faith. God promised me this would happen. It's happening, and I get to declare the gospel to my jailkeeper. And he gets to hit me, and I get to get stronger in my faith. Hey, they crucified my Savior. I'm not even close to that. You must see Jesus in me. Praise God. Did you know he died for you too? And then he hits me again. Oh Lord, help me grow in that faith. I'm gonna need it. You're gonna need it. But not only does tribulation produce perseverance, perseverance produces character. The character of Christ. As we grow in the Lord and we become stronger in our faith, as the Lord conforms us more and more into his image, we look more and more like Jesus. We act more and more like Jesus. We talk more and more like Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

That's Pastor Carl of the Mountain Cross. He's simply going through the book of Romans, verse by verse, chapter by chapter. There's just something about having the full counsel of God's Word, and that's our aim, to read and go through the full counsel of what God wants to teach us. Imagine the Apostle Paul writing this letter and sharing the good news, the gospel, to the nations beyond. He was giving a thorough explanation of the fact that before Jesus, we were trapped in a state of sin that was oppressive and limiting. Even following the laws of the Old Testament wasn't going to do us any good, as far as needing to be rescued. But through Jesus' mercy and grace, every single person has the opportunity to be brought into the fold, the family of God. Isn't that an incredible thing to think about? We are adopted by God and brought into his family. If you're not sure what some of this means, or if you'd like to learn more about being adopted by God, you can go to themountaincross.com where you can get a clearer understanding of what it all means for you personally. We have a tab at the top called How to Know God. Click on that and go from there. Once more, that website is themountaincross.com. We're so glad you've taken the time to listen to what Pastor Carl had to share in today's study of Romans. There's so much more to grow in as we study the Word. So come on up to the mountain with us again tomorrow as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come On Up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.