SPEAKER_00: Our reading today is from Romans chapter four, verses one to twelve.
SPEAKER_00: What then shall we say was gained by Abraham or forefather according to the flesh?
SPEAKER_00: For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
SPEAKER_00: For what does the scripture say?
SPEAKER_00: Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.
SPEAKER_00: And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.
SPEAKER_00: Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised?
SPEAKER_00: For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: How then was it counted to him?
SPEAKER_00: Was it before or after he had been circumcised?
SPEAKER_00: It was not after, but before he was circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.
SPEAKER_00: The purpose was to make him the father of all who believed without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well.
SPEAKER_00: And to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_01: City Church has lived a bit of a nomadic lifestyle over the last uh month or so.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're in City Church, you know that uh we continue to be in search for uh a new uh space to meet and a new building.
SPEAKER_01: So here's my suggestion: let's just stay.
SPEAKER_01: Most of them are away in Grosvenor or in uh Evoka.
SPEAKER_01: No, seriously, it is a joy to be gathering with you guys.
SPEAKER_01: There's long been an affection and partnership between Grosvenor and City, and uh for Ed and the elders uh to extend the offer to meet uh here for us is really significant.
SPEAKER_01: Um the St.
SPEAKER_01: Patrick's Day is wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: We are grateful for the ministry of St.
SPEAKER_01: Patrick.
SPEAKER_01: The St.
SPEAKER_01: Patrick's Day Parade is a pen when you are when you are a church that meets uh uh when it falls on a Sunday, and you meet on a Sunday in the city center.
SPEAKER_01: So we really are grateful to you.
SPEAKER_01: Can I make one other uh city church-based announcement?
SPEAKER_01: It's not really uh exclusively to them, uh, but over on the tea and coffee table, you'll uh notice little flyers from Irish Church Missions.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, Irish Church Missions is the uh the umbrella mission organization that City Church is part of.
SPEAKER_01: We are a daughter church of them, and they have uh new literature uh telling you about their work and how you might be able to pray for it, and also inviting you to consider uh giving a small amount monthly to support the work of Irish Church Missions.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, uh those of you from Grosvenor Road are very welcome uh to take uh one of those, uh, but I wouldn't presume upon it.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's primarily for uh for city church folk to to grab one of those flyers and to take it home uh for your prayers and prayerful consideration for uh supporting the uh the work there.
SPEAKER_01: Let's uh let's jump into to Romans chapter four.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we are in a series uh in that if you want to pull it up.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we uh just it just dawned on us as Philippo was reading that we have a slight Bible translation clash.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, just realized that you guys have NIVs uh and on your chairs, and what was read was from the NIV from the N from the ESV.
SPEAKER_01: But hopefully there won't be too much of a uh a change and you'll be able to uh to stay together.
SPEAKER_01: But you can pull it up on your phone in the English Standard Version if you want to track with what I'm going to be speaking through uh as well.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I've said uh probably the city church before, uh, but I'll confess it here as well, uh, to the remnant from Grosvenor.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but one of the things that I really uh dislike and feel personally uncomfortable with is I don't really like feeling beholden to people.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't like the idea of being invited round to a dinner party and arriving, as my mother would say, with both arms the one length.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I feel like I want to bring some, I want to bring a uh a dessert or a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates or something in order to uh contribute to uh to the the gift that is uh that evening.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't really like the idea of uh of being dependent on people.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I'm I I would much I'd be I would feel much more comfortable lending you 20 euro than having you uh have to lend me 20 euro.
SPEAKER_01: That is to say, if you all come up to me after the service and say, can I borrow 20 euro?
SPEAKER_01: That's gonna be a problem.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but you get the idea, I don't like to be in, as I perceive it, uh, somebody's debt.
SPEAKER_01: And you might kind of nod your head, and I don't know, maybe that's an Irish thing, but I suspect that perhaps it's more a human thing.
SPEAKER_01: That one of the things that we struggle the most with is this idea of being beholden to someone, of being in someone's debt.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a problem.
SPEAKER_01: That's a problem when it comes to what Christians believe.
SPEAKER_01: Because we believe that we are completely and utterly in God's debt.
SPEAKER_01: That if we are going to enjoy forgiveness and new life with Him, that that is not something that we can contribute to.
SPEAKER_01: That that's not something that we bring our bargaining chips, our little bit, our box of chocolates, spiritually speaking, and offer it and go, it's great that you're forgiving me, but but would you enjoy these uh as well?
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the things that I think is most uncomfortable about Christianity is that salvation is an unearned gift of God.
SPEAKER_01: It's uncomfortable because the human heart instinctively wants to contribute something.
SPEAKER_01: We want to say, oh well, I did my bit as well.
SPEAKER_01: I tried my best.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, no, you cannot merit it.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot earn it, you cannot pay back God for it.
SPEAKER_01: He and I, or you and he, do not collaborate together in order to bring about your salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It's a gift from start to finish of his grace.
SPEAKER_01: You might sit here and go, yes.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: And you would be a good and well-taught believer.
SPEAKER_01: You might think that that's a quite a straightforward thing to grasp, but I think that many of us live as though it's not true.
SPEAKER_01: How many of us live and we think, well, Jesus is more pleased with me on the days that I read my Bible, and he's less pleased with me on the days that I don't?
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever think like that?
SPEAKER_01: Or do you think he's more pleased with me when I don't fall into that habitual sin?
SPEAKER_01: And he's less pleased with me when I do.
SPEAKER_01: Or isn't it easy to think that Jesus forgives my sin, but I need to I need to work hard to show that his sacrifice was really worth it for me.
SPEAKER_01: Or we can think perhaps that forgiveness kind of, it's like the starter motor in a car.
SPEAKER_01: That Jesus forgives your sins and it gets you off and running, but it's with the help of the Spirit that you live a positively righteous life, and in the end, God accepts you on that basis.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 5 of the reading, Paul says something that is quite uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_01: He says that God justifies the ungodly.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_01: The one who does not work but believes in him, that's God, who justifies, we're going to look at what that means, the ungodly.
SPEAKER_01: That is, God declares ungodly people, people who are not like God in terms of their moral character, he declares those people to be righteous.
SPEAKER_01: No inherent moral goodness, no waiting to see if they can clean up their act, how the rest of their life will pan out.
SPEAKER_01: No, God looks at men and women who are hostile to him in thought and word and deed and have no merit of their own, and he says, You are righteous.
SPEAKER_01: Justifies the ungodly.
SPEAKER_01: Now, in a sense, Paul's been saying this from the from the start, and uh forgive me, Grosner Remnant.
SPEAKER_01: Let me kind of bring you up to speed with where where we are uh in in terms of the book.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it uh Paul has been making this case that by human uh human nature is ungodly, that we by nature and choice suppress the truth about God in our unrighteousness, we reject him and his authority over our lives and live contrary to his law and design.
SPEAKER_01: And as a result, we rightly deserve his wrath, his judgment.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, what we read here from Paul in Romans 5, Romans 4, verse 5, is that God justifies, declares righteous people like that.
SPEAKER_01: People who suppress the truth and their own righteousness, people who are hostile to God in their mind.
SPEAKER_01: He justifies the ungodly.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul has been showing us that that has been God's intention all along.
SPEAKER_01: That in both the Old Testament and in the New Testament, people are saved by God as a gift of his grace.
SPEAKER_01: And in chapter 4, he is going to establish that this is how it has always been, and he's going to help us to understand how is it that God, the Holy One, could declare sinful people like you and I to be righteous.
SPEAKER_01: How is it?
SPEAKER_01: And he establishes this argument by going back to the Old Testament and looking at two key characters from the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: First is Abraham, and the second is David.
SPEAKER_01: And this is uh this is very important for Paul.
SPEAKER_01: This is a very good way of arguing for it because of the significance that these two people occupied.
SPEAKER_01: Abraham was the was the O T O G.
SPEAKER_01: He was the man of faith, the father of all who believed.
SPEAKER_01: And David was the goat in terms of Israel's kings.
SPEAKER_01: You know, goat, greatest of all time.
SPEAKER_01: That's me being street and hip.
SPEAKER_01: But David represented the high watermark of Israel's kingdom, and so you have the father of faith and the greatest king that Israel had ever known.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is saying that both of those back up what I am saying.
SPEAKER_01: And if he can show that they understood that salvation was by grace alone, through faith in God alone, then he can firmly establish that the message of Christianity stands in that same vein.
SPEAKER_01: So let's ask a couple of questions of this passage.
SPEAKER_01: First question is this What does it mean that God justifies the ungodly?
SPEAKER_01: Because using what we don't usually use the word justify, and it's not entirely clear what the word ungodly means.
SPEAKER_01: So, what does it mean that God justifies the ungodly?
SPEAKER_01: Two things on this point.
SPEAKER_01: First is God treats you as though you lived a righteous life.
SPEAKER_01: God treats you as though you lived a righteous life.
SPEAKER_01: Now, some of you might look back on your life.
SPEAKER_01: You might even just look back on the last week and think, well, how can that be?
SPEAKER_01: How can it be that God would treat me as though I lived a perfect life?
SPEAKER_01: Paul, in a sense, comes to you at the start of Romans 4, and he puts his arm around your shoulder and he says, Yeah, but do you remember Abraham?
SPEAKER_01: It was the same for him.
SPEAKER_01: We think of Abraham, and certainly the Jews thought of Abraham, primarily in terms of the great things that he did towards the end of his life.
SPEAKER_01: You think of his faithful obedience to the call of God to sacrifice Isaac, his son.
SPEAKER_01: And you think of that great, tense, emotionally breathless moment with Abraham with dagger raised as an expression of his faith and the angel calling from heaven, Abraham, Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: And Isaac is spared, and the ram is sacrificed in his stead.
SPEAKER_01: We think of that, but we forget that actually he's walked with God for 30 years in order to get to this point.
SPEAKER_01: And so Paul takes us much earlier.
SPEAKER_01: He takes us all the way back to Genesis 15, to a point when Abraham, frankly, was struggling with the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: He had doubts, he had questions.
SPEAKER_01: He just won a great battle, but God's promise of an heir, God's promise of a son, seemed still unrealized.
SPEAKER_01: His faith was not what it would be in Genesis 22.
SPEAKER_01: And yet God comes to him in Genesis 15 and reassures him of his promises.
SPEAKER_01: And then Paul quotes Genesis 15, verse 6, and he quotes it here in our reading in verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it with me.
SPEAKER_01: He asks the question for what does the scripture say?
SPEAKER_01: Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Abraham believed God, and what did God do?
SPEAKER_01: He counted it to him as righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the word counted is key for our understanding here.
SPEAKER_01: It's an accounting term.
SPEAKER_01: It means to credit to someone's account.
SPEAKER_01: It comes up ten times in this chapter, six times just in the reading that we're looking at in this portion.
SPEAKER_01: And so it is a key term.
SPEAKER_01: It means to put credit into someone's account.
SPEAKER_01: That is, Abraham was not perfect.
SPEAKER_01: He was not blameless in himself.
SPEAKER_01: Yet, when he believed in God, God treated him as though he were.
SPEAKER_01: He was not perfect, and God treated him as though he was.
SPEAKER_01: We are all in the red, spiritually speaking.
SPEAKER_01: We are morally bankrupt.
SPEAKER_01: Trusting God means that God doesn't just clear our debts and bring us to bring us to zero in our account.
SPEAKER_01: No, he credits our account.
SPEAKER_01: He makes us righteous.
SPEAKER_01: Do you understand that?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we teach our children that to be justified means just as if I'd never sinned.
SPEAKER_01: But that's only half the story.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul's saying here.
SPEAKER_01: It's only half the story to say, just as if I'd never sinned.
SPEAKER_01: Just as if I'd never sinned is clear your debt, bring you up to zero.
SPEAKER_01: But how do you get positive righteousness?
SPEAKER_01: How do you get into credit?
SPEAKER_01: Do you do it by working really hard?
SPEAKER_01: Do you do it by participation in the sacraments?
SPEAKER_01: No, Paul says.
SPEAKER_01: God makes you positively righteous.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just as if I'd never sinned.
SPEAKER_01: It's just as if I'd always obeyed.
SPEAKER_01: Just as if I'd always obeyed.
SPEAKER_01: God looked at Abraham as one who had always perfectly obeyed his law.
SPEAKER_01: He justified the ungodly.
SPEAKER_01: Abraham believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Another way of thinking about this is that God changed Abraham's status before he changed Abraham's character.
SPEAKER_01: He changed Abraham's status before he changed his character.
SPEAKER_01: God treated him as righteous.
SPEAKER_01: And then over time, over the course of his life, he made him righteous.
SPEAKER_01: If you're here this morning and you're trusting in Jesus, you are a perfect sinner.
SPEAKER_01: Did you know that?
SPEAKER_01: You think, oh yeah, no, I am.
SPEAKER_01: I am a perfect sinner.
SPEAKER_01: No, you're a perfect sinner.
SPEAKER_01: This is what Martin Luther said.
SPEAKER_01: Martin Luther said that the Christian was, I'm gonna be fancy now and quote some Latin, so if you're older and did classics, things like that, said that you're similar eustus et picator, simultaneously justified and sinful.
SPEAKER_01: That is the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: You are a perfect sinner.
SPEAKER_01: You are regarded by God as being perfectly obedient, as being righteous.
SPEAKER_01: And over the course of your life, he'll change your character.
SPEAKER_01: But he's already changed your status by faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We're perfect sinners.
SPEAKER_01: Your character, I am sure, is a bit of a work in progress.
SPEAKER_01: You've got some rough edges to smooth out.
SPEAKER_01: But your status is one of the blameless.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because you have been credited with a righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: The question then is, whose righteousness is it?
SPEAKER_01: Remember, or look back with me rather, at verse 2, where Paul says, Well, if Abraham was justified by works, he's got something to boast about, but not before God.
SPEAKER_01: That is, if Abraham's life was, he was it was pretty godly in the end.
SPEAKER_01: You know, he he did a lot, he listened to God, and he obeyed a lot, and and if he was justified by those works, well, he'd be able to boast to you and I, because he's better than us.
SPEAKER_01: He'd be able to kind of go, well, you know, um, I took my son to Mount Moriah.
SPEAKER_01: I I led 300 men in battle against the the king of uh Sodom and the kings of the valley, and uh, you know, I did I did all of these things.
SPEAKER_01: He would sometimes have something to boast about, but Paul kind of tips his hand and goes, Yeah, but not before God.
SPEAKER_01: Because none of those things are able to change his status.
SPEAKER_01: When God credits us with a righteousness, it is a righteousness that is not our own.
SPEAKER_01: A righteousness that is alien to us.
SPEAKER_01: It is a righteousness that belongs to the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Do you realize that?
SPEAKER_01: Why did Jesus even live a life?
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever think, you know, if we if we focus so much on the cross and resurrection on Easter, and the cross and resurrection are pretty important.
SPEAKER_01: Don't mishear me.
SPEAKER_01: But why wasn't Jesus just zapped down from heaven like Mr.
SPEAKER_01: Bean on Thursday evening and then die the next day?
SPEAKER_01: Well, because his sinless life mattered.
SPEAKER_01: He lived a sinless life in order so that on that cross, his sinless, perfect life of righteousness might be credited to your account.
SPEAKER_01: That you might be clothed in that righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way that when the prodigal returns, the father, after he's embraced his son, says, Go and get the best robe and put it on him.
SPEAKER_01: Who owns the best robe in a house in those days?
SPEAKER_01: It's the Father Himself.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, Go get my robe and put it on my son.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus on that cross took off his righteousness and placed it around all those who would put their faith in him.
SPEAKER_01: That is what it means.
SPEAKER_01: When it says that God justifies the ungodly.
SPEAKER_01: So that was God treats you as though you lived a righteous life.
SPEAKER_01: But the second aspect of this is the aspect that David brings in, and that is that God doesn't count your sins against you.
SPEAKER_01: God treats you as though you'd lived a righteous life, and then he doesn't count your sins against you.
SPEAKER_01: Here, Paul quotes Psalm 34 in verses 7 and 8, where he says, Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count, see that word again, not count his sin, or not credit his sin.
SPEAKER_01: David, if you know anything of David's life, you know that David is somewhat aware of his sinfulness, and indeed still are we.
SPEAKER_01: We can think of some of David's great successes, but some of David's terrible failures.
SPEAKER_01: Not least of all the episode with Bathsheba and Uriah.
SPEAKER_01: We and David also are aware of his sin.
SPEAKER_01: And it is because of his awareness of his own sin that he rejoices.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Blessed.
SPEAKER_01: I have been blessed by God, because God does not hold me to my sin.
SPEAKER_01: He does not hold my sin against me, and so he rejoices in it.
SPEAKER_01: What a thing, David says, that we might have our sinful deeds forgiven, that God would not hold those against us.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't it a terrible thing to have somebody to continue to lord something over you?
SPEAKER_01: Somebody who struggles to forgive you, who keeps on bringing up that thing that you have done.
SPEAKER_01: God is not like that.
SPEAKER_01: He does not hold our sins against us.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in a sense, both Abraham and David go together in our experience of grace in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: We are given a righteousness not of our own.
SPEAKER_01: And our sin is taken from us and not counted against us.
SPEAKER_01: Well, how is it dealt with?
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's what we saw in chapter three, right towards the end.
SPEAKER_01: That it is dealt with on the cross of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so you see the two aspects of what Martin Luther calls the great exchange, that just as just as Christ's righteousness is taken from him and placed on our backs, so our sin is taken from us and placed upon him.
SPEAKER_01: Both go together.
SPEAKER_01: It is not just that Christ takes our sin, that will be bringing us up to zero again, remember?
SPEAKER_01: It's not just that Christ takes our sin, though wonderfully and graciously he does.
SPEAKER_01: It is that he is disrobed of his righteousness and it is placed upon sinful people like you and I.
SPEAKER_01: That is what Paul is saying has always been the case.
SPEAKER_01: It is what Abraham and David understood.
SPEAKER_01: It is what it is how God, the Holy One, can justify the ungodly.
SPEAKER_01: And that is our second question.
SPEAKER_01: How does that justification come to us?
SPEAKER_01: How do we realize it?
SPEAKER_01: Well, on one level, we could be all be in Sunday school now and we could just stick up our hands and go faith and then all go home, or rather stay for lunch.
SPEAKER_01: It's a simple answer.
SPEAKER_01: And yet it's worth being unpacked.
SPEAKER_01: Because what does it mean that we are justified by faith?
SPEAKER_01: Paul helps us to understand here in these verses.
SPEAKER_01: First, it is faith over and against works.
SPEAKER_01: It is faith, not works.
SPEAKER_01: This is his illustration in verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: Now, to the one who works, his wages are counted not, not counted as a gift, but as his due.
SPEAKER_01: And to the one who does not work but believe in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: There are two primary ways in which some money can land in your bank account.
SPEAKER_01: You can work hard every day of the month or however frequently you get paid.
SPEAKER_01: You can work hard for your employer, do all of the tasks that they require of you, all of the demands that they place upon you, and then at the end of the week or at the end of the month, they pay you, you hope.
SPEAKER_01: Your work demands, requires a compensation for the hours given for the labor exerted.
SPEAKER_01: You are owed your wages.
SPEAKER_01: That is primarily in our world how money tends to land in your bank account.
SPEAKER_01: The other way that some money can land in your bank account is by a gift.
SPEAKER_01: Granny logs on to her banking app and she sends you a hundred euro, or she places it in a card, and she gives it to you.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because you've exerted hours and fulfilled all of her demands?
SPEAKER_01: Well, probably not.
SPEAKER_01: Simply because she loves you.
SPEAKER_01: Abraham wasn't credited with righteousness because he'd earned it.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he was credited with righteousness before he had ever earned it.
SPEAKER_01: It was given to him as a gift, and that gift comes by faith.
SPEAKER_01: Faith and works are two different types of trust.
SPEAKER_01: To work is to trust in your exertion, to trust in your obedience, to trust in your merit, to trust in your participation in religious activity, and then to say that on that basis, God in exchange gives me life.
SPEAKER_01: You are trusting in those works.
SPEAKER_01: Faith is to transfer our trust, to stop trusting in what we do, and to trust in what God has done.
SPEAKER_01: Faith is the antithesis of works.
SPEAKER_01: Second, faith is not abstract belief, it is not the simple affirming that God is there, a kind of trust in a deity, or to say that you're open to spiritual things or a religious person.
SPEAKER_01: No, faith is not an abstract idea.
SPEAKER_01: It must have an object, it must have something that it is grasping.
SPEAKER_01: It is a dependence, a reliance on something or someone.
SPEAKER_01: And here it is a reliance upon the promises of God and on the provision of a savior.
SPEAKER_01: Notice what Paul says in verse 5 to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly.
SPEAKER_01: Abraham did not simply believe that God existed, he placed his trust in God.
SPEAKER_01: He took him at his word.
SPEAKER_01: And so can I encourage you, brothers and sisters, friends, do not be content to be someone who says, Well, I believe in God.
SPEAKER_01: The question is rather, do you take him at his word?
SPEAKER_01: Do you trust his promises?
SPEAKER_01: Do you depend upon him for forgiveness and for life?
SPEAKER_01: Faith is not works, it is not an abstract belief.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, faith is not a trade.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we can think that faith is what I owe God in exchange for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: So we we you listen to what I've said and say, you know, it's not about moral goodness and doing religious things.
SPEAKER_01: You go, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: I like I'm not trusting in any of those things.
SPEAKER_01: But the way that you regard your faith is that is what I offer God, and God in exchange gives me forgiveness in life.
SPEAKER_01: Faith is the part that I play.
SPEAKER_01: It's my side of the trade.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a good deed, it's it's this kind of spiritual thing.
SPEAKER_01: But that's what I offer, and God gives me forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: Faith is not a trade.
SPEAKER_01: Do not think of it as something that you exchange with God.
SPEAKER_01: Rather, faith is the channel through which forgiveness flows.
SPEAKER_01: It is not an exchange for righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: It is a channel along which righteousness flows.
SPEAKER_01: You see, if faith were something that you traded with God, then your righteousness would not be a gift.
SPEAKER_01: Faith would be the work.
SPEAKER_01: But faith is not a work that you have to perform.
SPEAKER_01: It is the mechanism, it is the way by which the undeserving sinner is made righteous.
SPEAKER_01: When then does God justify the ungodly?
SPEAKER_01: So we have seen what does it mean for God to justify the ungodly?
SPEAKER_01: That is, that he regards you as though you'd always lived a righteous life, he does not count your sin against you, that it comes to us by faith, not works, not abstract belief, but a trust in God, and not a trade that we offer to God.
SPEAKER_01: When does God justify the ungodly?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we are told in verses 9 through 12, and I'll deal with them very briefly because uh we will be looking at it in more detail next week.
SPEAKER_01: Um sorry to you, uh Grosvenorites.
SPEAKER_01: You can come to the Odeon and uh hear the rest of the chapter if you so desire.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but very briefly, the question that 9 to 12 deals with is well, when did God justify Abraham?
SPEAKER_01: Was it before or after he was circumcised?
SPEAKER_01: And the emphasis on circumcision here is well, was it before or after he had done a religious work?
SPEAKER_01: He had done a big obedient thing.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul's point is, well, God justified him before.
SPEAKER_01: Justified him before he had ever done any religious, obedient work.
SPEAKER_01: Status always comes before character.
SPEAKER_01: God changed his status, and then over time he changed his character.
SPEAKER_01: God is committed to making you more like Jesus, he will see that work done.
SPEAKER_01: He is committed to making you more like his son, but you need to know that he regards you as his son now if you are trusting in him.
SPEAKER_01: God justified Abraham before he did anything to deserve it, because salvation is by faith.
SPEAKER_01: It's by grace through faith.
SPEAKER_01: It is a gift, not an exchange for any work done.
SPEAKER_01: And as a result, and this is what Paul goes on to expand, is that Abraham, therefore, is the father of all who trust in God.
SPEAKER_01: That to be a son or a daughter of Abraham is not about genetics and ethnicity and lineage.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, the sons and daughters of Abraham are the people who share in Abraham's faith.
SPEAKER_01: So you sit here and you think, well, I don't have any, I don't think I've got any Jewish descent, and uh I think that I'm just a true blood Gentile, and but am I a child of Abraham?
SPEAKER_01: Well, do you share in Abraham's faith?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I do.
SPEAKER_01: Then yes, you are.
SPEAKER_01: So rather than there being division between Jew and Gentile, what Paul goes on to show us here is that Abraham is the father of one united church.
SPEAKER_01: As we finish, why does any of this matter?
SPEAKER_01: If we were saved by works, if we were saved by our moral goodness and our obedience, then we would have no solid basis for assurance.
SPEAKER_01: There would always be that gnawing sense of, well, have I done enough?
SPEAKER_01: What if I undo what I have done?
SPEAKER_01: Being justified by faith alone as a gift grinds our assurance not in us, but in God and his grace.
SPEAKER_01: And so we were able to move forward with a with a humble thankfulness for what he has done.
SPEAKER_01: Not arrogant because it wasn't it was never our works to begin with, but humbly assured of his love for us.
SPEAKER_01: If we're saved by works, then the culture of a church would be one of competition and division.
SPEAKER_01: That we would exclude the sinful and elevate the seemingly moral, that we would divide in order to show our superiority over and against others.
SPEAKER_01: Why was Grosner so kind to let us meet in this building?
SPEAKER_01: Is it just because you're just you're just nice Southsiders taking pity on the Northsiders?
SPEAKER_01: Is that what it was?
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you all are very nice people.
SPEAKER_01: But that's not really, not really, not when you dig down through it, what's going on.
SPEAKER_01: The reason why we're able to worship together is because we all understand justification by faith alone.
SPEAKER_01: And that when we understand it, we're able to set aside our possessiveness.
SPEAKER_01: We're able to be generous, we're able to elevate others and be a blessing to others because we know that in doing so, it doesn't push us down, it doesn't denigrate our status.
SPEAKER_01: There's no competition in this, right?
SPEAKER_01: That does not come from an understanding that we are saved by our works.
SPEAKER_01: Being justified by faith alone unites believers together, Jew and Gentile, Grosvenor and Sidney, under Christ.
SPEAKER_01: As we express this morning.
SPEAKER_01: If we are saved by works, then our obedience is motivated by a desire to gain, to place God in our debt in order to earn his favor.
SPEAKER_01: But being justified by faith alone means that we're set free, we're set free to obey out of gratitude and out of love, not out of a sense of obligation.
SPEAKER_01: And when we realize these things, even though we might wrestle with the idea of being in somebody's debt, and we might still struggle with the idea of turning up to someone's house with both arms the one length, we can look at our Savior and think, well, perhaps it's not so bad after all.