Romans 4:1-12 Jimmy Draper

Jimmy briefly mentions the main ideas covered in the first three chapters of Romans, including justification by faith alone and the complete ruin of sin for mankind. He emphasizes that believers are identified with the righteousness of Christ and accepted in Him. He introduces Abraham as the greatest hero in the Old Testament and explains that salvation has always been by faith, not by works. He discusses the challenges faced by Abraham, such as being childless and old, and how his attempt to help God by having a child with Hagar led to conflicts between the Jewish and Arab nations. Jimmy also briefly mentions Joel Rosenberg, a writer who has written about the Middle East and predicted certain events. He cautions against trying to help God and mention their own per Nobody really likes to be a deacon, it's just like a pastor, nobody in his good sense wants to be a pastor, but it's a calling, and so we've got some wonderful men in our church and in our class, and we need to think prayerfully, carefully about submitting names. We're going to take two weeks to get through the fourth chapter of Romans, we'll go through the first twelve verses today, and then we'll pick up with verse 13 next Sunday and finish it up. Okay, the first three chapters reveal some strategic truths, let me just go over them quickly with you again, and I think I put that draft at the head of your notes today. We're introduced to justification by faith alone, and by the way, chapter four is going to nail it down, nail in the coffin for people who think you can work your way to heaven, and so that's taken care of today, we've already been introduced to that. God is no respecter of persons, boasting about good works is forbidden, the complete ruin of sin for mankind, and mankind is not just bothered, he is destroyed. We have been eaten up alive, not by cancer, but by sin. Every one of us are sinners, none of us have escaped. By the way, is that Tim? Tim McGraw? Well, welcome back! How was your basketball season? Well, we still have a job! That's always good, because pastors used to be called every year, too, they'd have an annual call, so maybe you'll get past that. Well, good to see you guys, I didn't see you when I came in, but we miss you, and we're proud of you and grateful that the Lord put you there to work with those students over in Louisiana. Well, where was I? All right, complete ruin of sin for mankind, in other words, sin didn't just mess us up, it wiped us out. Every one of us is infected with it. We're sinners by nature, we're sinners by choice, we're sinners by conduct. Not one of us can say that we're without sin. Next, believers are completely identified with the righteousness of Christ, it's what we receive as the gift of God in salvation. We rejoice because we're children of God, heirs of his grace and joint heirs with Christ, and then we are accepted in Christ and the object of God's highest plans and tenderest love. Now, that's what we've seen in the first three chapters. Now this chapter introduces us to undoubtedly the greatest hero in the Old Testament. Now some might say, well, Abraham was important, but Moses was more important than Abraham. Well, Dudley Hall used to say, in my humble but accurate opinion, that's just not true. This chapter we're going to see, not today but next week, we're going to see this chapter that says no one has ever been saved by the law. Moses was the great lawgiver, yet nobody ever got saved with that. Abraham was the Old Testament character whom the Jews really claimed was the picture boy, the poster child for salvation by works. Paul shows that it's not by works at all, it's by grace through faith. So Paul's not presenting a new thing, he's saying basically that was the Old Testament way people got saved. They didn't get saved by keeping the law, the law couldn't save them. They didn't get saved by behaving and doing good, they couldn't earn it. Just like us, it got saved, it was by faith. So he is the great hero of the Old Testament, and is the one that Paul identifies as the one who really placed faith in the prominent position in our relationship with God. Now, we don't know a great deal about, by the way, his name is Abram at this time. Is it on? The green light's on. That's all I can tell you. Maybe you need to turn it up or something. The light's on. Do we need to turn it? Now I can hear myself a little bit. Is that better? I think they may have turned it down next door. Like they did before. I thought maybe I was talking so loud they turned me down here. But in Genesis chapter 12, Abram is his name. And what we're going to find now is that in this chapter we're going to find him referred to as Abraham. Now, you have to go back to Genesis 12 and Genesis 15 and Genesis 17 to find the name change. We'll have just a little bit about that. But God appears to have called Abraham, or Abram, in chapter 12, and he called him to leave everything he'd ever known. Now, he's a wealthy man, and he's called to leave the Ur of the Chaldees where he resided. And as I say, he was a very wealthy man. His father lived with him. And so his father left Ur and went to Haran or Haran and lived there. And Abraham went with him as far as Haran. And then he stayed there. Abraham's father stayed there when Abraham moved on. But God called Abraham, Abram, now Abraham, and promised that he was going to give Canaan to him. Now, we have several problems immediately. Where is Canaan? Abraham did not know. God told him to leave where he was and, by faith, to move out, and God would direct him. I can back up a little bit. And God would direct him. And so Abraham was called of God, but there were several problems involved. God promised him that he was going to be the father of a great nation. The problem was, Abraham was childless. He didn't have any children. How could he be the father of a great nation if he didn't have any children? Oh, and he was nearly 100 years old. He was 99 years old. And Sarah was 90 years old. So you would not expect a 99-year-old and a 90-year-old to be sending out invitations to a shower for a baby. It just doesn't happen. And so, in fact, when Sarah heard God telling Abraham that he was going to be the father of a great nation, she laughed. Yeah, in about Genesis 18, I think, somewhere, she laughed. And the woman asked her, why did you laugh? She said, I didn't laugh. Isn't that just like us? God points them, no, not me. I wouldn't do that. But anyway, so he had no way to be the father of a great nation at that point. It looked like it would be someone else's family, which is what Abraham and Sarah did to try to help God out. Sarah said, well, look, I have a handmaiden here named Hagar. Won't you bear a child with her? And that child will fulfill God's promise. Now, there we go again, trying to help God out. As if God doesn't have enough strength and wisdom and power to get through whatever it is he's supposed to be doing. And truthfully, that decision by Abraham and Sarah is the root of all the problems in the world today, politically and internationally. Because Abraham, by this call, became the father of two nations, the Jewish nation and the Arab nation. Both claim Abraham as their founder. And yet, what we have is the same thing. When Hagar was sent out into the wilderness to get rid of her, the Arabs and the Jews have not gotten along well over the years, let's say. Now, let me just say this as an aside. One of the best writers in today is the writer who writes novels. But he also has done some non-fiction books. Like he, in 1979, well, he refers to 1979 as the Islamic Revolution. And so he wrote a book called Inside the Revolution. And then he wrote a book called Implosion, which is basically showing what's happening in the world today. He has a way of, in fact, in his first book, he had a plane flying into the World Trade Center in the book before it happened. He had to rewrite that portion of the book after it happened. And so much of what he writes is almost prophetic. Because it seems like he writes about things before they happen. I don't have a take on that. But he and his family moved to Israel several years ago. He is probably the foremost Middle East consultant for our nation as well as many of the nations in the world. Joel Rosenberg. And I've lost his name. What's his name? Joel Rosenberg. Great writer. And he has written a book recently where he points out what he has done. He has brought an evangelical delegation to many of the Arab nations around the Persian Gulf and been well received by the king or whoever is in charge of the country. And believe it or not, he has already predicted, before it happened, the agreement that had been made in the Arab world with Saudi Arabia and Israel. And it's just fascinating to see. Abraham's trying to help God out created a lot of the mess that we are in today. That's the thing. And it's always dangerous for us to try to help God out. Consume a lot of time thinking about it. God really doesn't need our help. I'm hesitant to say this because I don't want you to think that I'm saying look at me or Carol Ann. I've never had a resume. I never talked to a church that had my resume. When I went to the Sunday school board, the trustees wanted me to give them a resume. I said, I don't have one. And they said, well, we've decided we won't consider anybody that doesn't want to be considered and doesn't give us a resume. I said, well, I don't want to be considered and I won't give you a resume. I knew all the committee that preached in the churches, the pastors. And they called me regularly starting January up through May about every two weeks. Is it off again? It's not loud like it was. It's not loud like it was? We can still hear you. Okay. If you can't hear me, just raise your hand or maybe just go ahead and go to sleep if you can't hear me. Take a little nap. That'll be all right. So anyway, Rosenberg has done some incredible things in bringing peace accord between Arab and Israel, which is a miracle. Nobody ever thought that would happen. But anyway, the conflict between Arab and the Jews started when Abraham and Sarah decided they'd help God out. And Ishmael was born. And Abraham thought, well, in fact, he told God. He said, look, I don't have any children. Ishmael's my son. Let him be the one. And God said, no, that won't work. He said, you're going to have to have a son of your own from you and your wife. And he said, no, we're not going to accept Ishmael. And so that's when Sarah left. But anyway, Abraham was met by God. And three, several times, three or four times, God renewed that same covenant in Genesis 12, Genesis 15, Genesis 18, 17, and 18. He renewed that covenant. And despite Abraham's advanced age, he said, you're going to have a son. And that in itself is a dramatic miracle. Not any of us could imagine this miracle happening. And this is what Moses recorded in Genesis 15. God took Abraham outside and said, now look at the sky. Count the stars, if you're able to count them. And then he said, your offspring will be that numerous. Then he believed in God, and God reckoned it to him as righteousness. Paul quotes that verse here in Romans from Genesis 15. Now, if you fast forward two chapters to Genesis 17, God gives another covenant to Abraham that not only reinforces the covenant of Genesis chapter 12, but he also included the covenant of circumcision. And circumcision became an outward sign of the promise of God. And that's why it was commanded of Jewish males to be circumcised. And in the process, God changed Abram's name. He changed it from Abram to Abraham. Now, Abram means father is exalted. And Abraham means father of a great multitude. And so it was just a slight change. And Dr. Terry could probably tell us now, I do not know Hebrew. I know how to find out what Hebrew means, but Hebrew was Greek to me. And Greek was Greek to me. I love Greek, but I never got there. But I'm told the only thing God did when he changed his name was add an H in there. Which I think most people who know the Hebrew language would tell you that's a reference to God. It's just a Jehovah now. So anyway, Abraham had his name changed. And this is what Moses explained in Genesis 17. I will make you the father of many nations. I will make you extremely fruitful. You will confirm my covenant that is between me and you and your future offspring throughout their generations. It is a permanent covenant that I will be your God and the God of your offspring after you. And to you and your future offspring I will give the land where you are residing. All the land of Canaan as a permanent possession. And I will be their God. Now, the changing of the name was a sign that God gave to Abraham. He not only confirmed that he would fully carry out the promise that he made to Abraham. But he also made Abraham the topological father of the faith. That's what Jude says. He is our father in the faith too. And so from the flesh of Abraham a multitude would come. And that is the Jewish people. And Abraham is not only the father of a single ethnic nation. He is the spiritual father of a multitude. That faithful multitude is comprised of Jews and Gentiles. It is too large to number according to Revelation 7.9. And all the nations of the world are going to be blessed through this promise that God gave to Abraham according to Genesis 22.18. Now, the blessing would not be possible if it were not for the one who came from Abraham's line. The one who would be the blessed one. The one we would call Christ. He has chosen Christ. And Christ has many names. The long prophesied one. The Lion of Judah. The Spotless Lamb. Who will crush the head of the serpent and be the light to the nations. And on and on. I have a set of books in my library of six volumes of just the names of Christ. There are dozens of them throughout the scripture. He is the one who, though the builders rejected him, is called the Cornerstone. Romans 9.30 and Ephesians 2.20. He is the one, even though the Father has given him a name that is above all names, did not seek to use it for his own advantage, but seeks and saves that which is lost. That is what Isaiah 9, Philippians 2 talks about. Luke 19. His name is forever the Word of God. John 1.1. Revelation 19.13. One day everyone will bend their knee and know him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Revelation 19.16. From Abraham's seed, Christ will come. He is the true offspring of Abraham's covenant. Now, someone asked me the other day, it says that the whole world is going to be blessed through the Jews, but the Jews are hated all over the world. When is that going to happen? Good news! It already has. The blessing to all the world was not something Abraham was going to do. It was something that would come after him. Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one who blesses the world. He is the seed of Abraham. And because of him, we are Abraham's children. And Abraham takes a spotlight anywhere his name is mentioned. Remember the rich man and Lazarus? The rich man died. Remember where he went? Abraham's bosom. Not the rich man. The poor man went to Abraham's bosom. The rich man went to hell. The rich man. That's right. We had the Craig John's day. Yes. Okay. Where was I? The rich man went somewhere. And when he saw Abraham, he asked to send Abraham for the drop of water to cool his tongue in the fire. So the point is, Abraham transcends all of time. He is so significant that after his death, God was called the God of Abraham. And James in James chapter 2 verse 23 refers to Abraham as the friend of God. So here is Abraham. Paul is not making this stuff up. This isn't something new. That's why he's talking about this in this chapter. It's not anything new. It's what was established in the Old Testament. By the way, I probably ought to stop and just read these verses. And maybe it will remind me of where I am in this. Okay. Anyway, but I did want to read these 12 verses. What will he then say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, has found? Interesting. Abraham is our forefather. If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness. That's in Genesis 15 verse 6. Now to the one who works, pay is not credited as a gift, but as something owed. In other words, if you work for something, it's not a gift. You earned it. But to the one who does not work, but believes on him who declares the ungodly to be righteous, his faith is credited for righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the person to whom God credits righteousness apart from works, blessed are those whose lawless acts are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Now we'll look in a moment at what's the difference between being forgiven and covered. Blessed is the person the Lord will never charge with sin. So, well, we've still got a few more here. Is this blessing only for the circumcised? Or is it also for the uncircumcised? For we say faith was credited to Abraham for righteousness. In what way then was he credited? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised? It was not while he was circumcised, but uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision as the seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while still uncircumcised. This was to make him the father of all who believe, but are not circumcised, so that righteousness may be credited to them also. And he became the father of the circumcised who are not only circumcised, but who also follow the footsteps of the faith of our father Abraham while he was still uncircumcised. That's kind of a convoluted passage, but basically what he's doing, he is removing any possibility that any ritual or any human endeavor can ever please God and make Him accept us on the basis of that. It doesn't matter whether it's baptism or whether it's circumcision or any ritual, we're not saved by that. We're saved by faith. And Abraham is the example of that. According to the passage, had Abraham appealed to the human court, he would have had something to brag about. But the little phrase in there that makes everything different, there in verse 2 says, before God. He might be justified before a human court, but he was not justified before God. And the Scripture said, Abraham believed God and it was credited him for righteousness. And Paul is showing that he was saved by faith and received God's righteousness by faith. Now this chapter really answers the question, what did Abraham really accomplish? How did he do it? And the statement is wrapped up in those two words in verse 2. Before God. That is the key to understanding faith and works debates or discussions. We receive justification by faith and we produce works because we are justified, not in order to be justified. We produce works because we love the One who has saved us and we want to please Him. We want to be obedient to Him. And so when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, it is not to determine whether or not we are going to get to heaven. That is already determined. It is a judgment of our works. God is going to judge us based upon what we claimed that we did in this life or what our life revealed. And that is not what God has saved. That happened through faith in Jesus Christ. So it is before God. None of us have any standing before God except through Jesus Christ. And that is the point that he is making. Now, it took Abraham most of his life for God to do everything that he was going to do with him. When he and his wife Sarah went to Egypt, he told the king that Sarah was his sister. Sarah apparently was a very beautiful woman. And Abraham thought, well, the king will get rid of me so he can have my wife. And so he told the king that she was his sister. Now, that was a half-truth. A half-truth is a whole lie. But it was a half-truth because she was his stepsister. He wasn't just blatantly saying it was true, but it wasn't the truth. Manly Beasley used to say the greatest heresy is the one that sounds the most like the truth. And so he was telling the truth, but it was a lie. He was a stepsister. It didn't work out well. God punished the Egyptians. And when the king found out that he'd been deceived, he disinvited Abraham and he was politely escorted out of the country. So it took him a while. But he always was a man who did what God told him to do when God instructed him. And so he was a man of great faith and he's no longer Abram now. He's Abraham. And God said, I'm going to make you a father of many nations. It's amazing to me. Abraham obeyed God to leave her of the covenant. Now, just think about this. He's a wealthy man, prominent man, greatly respected man, greatly ingrained in the culture of Ur of the Chaldeans. And God says, I want you to leave. I'm going to take you to a place I'm going to give you for you and your descendants. It's interesting to me, Abraham didn't say, where is that? He left Ur not knowing where he was going. He didn't know how he'd get there. He didn't know how he'd know when he got there. He didn't know how they would have provisions for the journey of getting there in the first place. But he didn't ask any of those questions. He didn't ask any of those questions. He obeyed without having the answers that you would normally expect from such a suggestion. It was his faith that secured God's acceptance of Abram, even though it made no sense. Now, let me just pause a minute. One of the marks... Now, follow me closely. I don't want you to go out and say I said something I didn't say. One of the marks, as you grow in your faith, is that you obey God even when it doesn't make any sense. I'm talking about human sense. Now, I'll give me as an example. I was 55 years old when I went to the Sun School Board. Who changes vocations at age 55? All I'd ever done in my life was to be a preacher. I had never had a business class. I'd never had an economics class. I had general math in the ninth grade. Never had any more math. Never studied economics or anything in college. All I ever did, pastor of Baptist Church. I had no qualifications for being president of the Sun School Board. I was 55 years old. I mean, even churches don't want to call a 55-year-old pastor. It made no sense. Oh, and the president before me had been telling the employees for five years that the Sun School Board was a dying organization. There just wasn't any hope there. Oh, and we were in the middle of a theological controversy about the conservative resurgence. And I represented to the employees the face of the conservative resurgence, which they didn't understand, but people rather cherish what they know than what they don't know. So when I was introduced by Bill Anderson to the employees as the next president of the Sun School Board, there was not even a ripple of applause. Eleven hundred people in there and others in the cafeteria in an overflow. I mean, no two hands got together. They just sat there. Honestly, I didn't take that personally because I knew they didn't know me. They knew about me, and you need to always be careful drawing conclusions about people before you meet them because they're rarely accurate. I'll just leave it at that. None of the employees were particularly glad. I had two or three that knew me. Roy Edgman, Harry Filon, they were good friends, had been for years. But by and large, they didn't know who I was. They didn't trust me. I wasn't sure why I was there except God told me to go. And it made no sense whatsoever, but we had an overwhelming sense that God wanted us to go. And as Bill Anderson said in one of our anniversary days, if love had been a call, he would have never left here. I mean, it was an emotional train wreck for Carol Ann and me to leave here. When I got home from resigning on Sunday night, my heart went out of rhythm. It is still out of rhythm today. I've been through Coumadin and all those things. And finally, it just stayed out. I never know when it's in or out. When I go to the doctor, I say, well, is it in rhythm today or is it out of rhythm? Well, most of the time it's out of rhythm. So I want you to sense something. You see, when a pastor resigns and leaves a place that he loves, he's going to a new place, but he's leaving a whole congregation. You're just losing one man. He loses a whole family. It's a traumatic thing. Carol Ann, I thought that Carol Ann could help me be president of the Sun School Board. So I put in a little cubby hole where I spent all my time except when I was meeting dignitaries in bigger offices, a chair I never sat in unless there was a company. I had two secretary desks put back there so she'd have a desk and I'd have a desk. She never used it because there wasn't anything for her to do. She couldn't help make decisions about the board. When I got ready to retire, I mentioned to her about us retiring and she said, well, I can help you with that. I've already retired. When we came here, I retired. I'm telling you, Carol Ann could have graced any women's conference in America with her presence, but she did not pursue that so she could go with me to have the ministry God has allowed us to have together. So you can look at all the Beth Moores and Priscilla Shires and all the people you want. She's been on their platform, but she could have been one of the ones making the rounds. It was a hard move for us. Plus the fact that nobody was glad I was there. Plus the fact that I was grossly unqualified for the job. And yet, God knows what He's doing. If I'd never left, John wouldn't be here. Claude was here for a while. I love Claude. He's a dear friend. Don't get into all that. But John's here. Do you realize that we paid a $22 million planned debt off during COVID? That's unbelievable. That would have scared me to death. I was so glad I was not the pastor. I thought, man, this thing's not going to fly. We met in June with some consultants and they said, you need to start this and do it in August. Sixty days. I said, that is too fast. They had a few of us come in to meet with them. That's too fast. But you know, God blessed. It was a time when it shouldn't be a blessing. It was. The building that was supposed to be $22 million was $19 million. When it all was said and done, it was paid for a month before it was finished. We still had several million dollars over to do some other things with. God just has a way of doing things. But when I left here, it made no sense at all. But, San Francisco Board of Trustees wanted a resume. I said, I don't have a resume. I'm not going to get one. And so, the only time I put together a resume was after I was elected. I had to give it to them. The point is that God's ways don't make a lot of sense sometimes to us. And rather than let that be perplexing, rather than let that be something that kind of, you know, what do I do next type thing, just trust that God knows what He's doing and you have a word from God, then you act on it. Now, I'm going to stomp metal a little bit. Most of us never hear from God. Now, I'm going to be judgmental here. I'm not critical. I'm going to be judgmental though and say that the average believer in America today who would say I'm active in church attends church one out of three Sundays. One out of three Sundays. I'm not sure how to... If you say, oh, how I love Jesus, how could you just come one out of three Sundays? Now, we're not like that. I mean, it's wonderful to come in here and see the same faces every week and strangers and newcomers. That's a blessing. We ought to live... When you got saved, God put the Holy Spirit in you. And the Holy Spirit is God. If God is in you, the Holy Spirit is in you. Jesus is in you. The Trinity. What I talked about in the book. We need to understand the three Persons of the Godhead. And we need to hear from God. But most of us don't communicate with God enough to ever hear Him say something that doesn't make much sense. But if you do communicate, then He's going to be right there. And the whole premise of my book, which took about two years to put together, is every advance of Christianity from the beginning, literally Genesis 1-2 where the Holy Spirit hovered over the creation that was undone yet, is on the wings of the Holy Spirit. And so, sometimes God's Word just doesn't make good sense for us. It made no sense for me to take a job as president of a company that was a $200 million corporation and I did not have a clue what I was doing. But I learned one thing. I learned when I was a pastor, if you want to succeed, hire people better than yourself. Seriously. And then you need to value your employees. Give them real assignments and hold them accountable. And you're going to succeed. And I found that work in church work. I found it worked in a life way. Sometimes God just tells us to do something. It's scary. It's emotional. It's difficult. But if God told us to do it... Here's Abraham. I can only imagine what he went through. It was enough to leave a herb to Chaldeas. But then to be told that at 99 he was going to have a kid and Sarah was 90. Can you ladies imagine what emotion went through that home? It made no sense at all. It's not even possible. Sometimes we get so used to helping God out and getting short answers for long-term needs that we don't realize that God says nothing is impossible for me. So, Abraham is an example of faith as the necessary ingredient for being saved. Now, let me tell you something else. Jesus Christ did not establish the church while he was on earth. Do you know where the church came from? Salvation? Well, let me just give you a little, perhaps visual. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit made a covenant together. Salvation didn't come because of Abraham's covenant with God. Salvation, justification, forgiveness came because long time before creation, back before there was a world as we know it, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit made in agreement a covenant together. Someone says that God devises and the Son accomplishes and the Holy Spirit imparts. Maybe different assignments, but they made a covenant together. And we are here as believers and part of the church of God and the family of God because not a covenant between Abraham and God, but a covenant between the Godhead that this is the way they would create for us to get to them. We couldn't get there any other way. There's not enough goodness in any of us to earn our way to heaven. But there are not enough obstacles before us that can't be overcome by faith. And so that's what Paul is talking about. And Abraham's role is just reminding us that the Old Testament way of salvation was faith. And so we're getting close and I'm not going to get too involved through the rest of this. We don't have much time. But salvation was secured by a covenant within the Trinity. And that's what sets Christianity apart. It offers a relationship with God rather than just a man-made religion. There are a lot of religions, but there's only one that offers a relationship. And that's the religion, the faith, the relationship of God through Jesus Christ. And this was falling on strange ears here to these Jewish believers. They had been taught from the earliest days that they were part of a distinct nation because of their physical descent from Abraham. And while that's true, their understanding was obscured by a maze of rituals and traditions. And Jews had over 300 laws that were not given by God but were put together by the Jews to add to what God had done. Again, trying to help God out, for goodness sake. He had no righteousness from his Jewish roots that brought him justification. He got there by faith. And Paul's whole argument... This really gets exciting to me. I know you all don't always get excited about what I get excited about. But when Paul quoted from Genesis 15, verse 6 in this passage, he was telling you that he believed that the Old Testament was the Word of God. He was saying this is the basis of this. He used Genesis 15, verse 6 and used it in Romans chapter 4 as proof that justification is by faith and not by works. So by implication to all of us, we just need to be reminded all the Bible is the Word of God. Now, well, I won't chase that rabbit. But there are those who have other views. They think some of the Bible is the Word of God. No, it's all the Word of God. And the Word that God uses, Paul uses here in this 4th chapter when he says that it's the word theonoustos, God breathed out. God, Abraham's faith justification had nothing to do with his works. It was his faith that brought him to the righteousness of God in the same way with us. If we could see what God has recorded in his book about us, it would be dark indeed. Our record is clear. By our nature, everything is against us. We are sinners by nature and by choice, by conduct. Our disgraceful lives and deliberate rebellion against God is apparent. We have no earthly conduct or devotion to commend us. The righteousness of God is not within our reach. Our debt is far beyond our ability to pay. Oh, but suddenly, in our account, the debt is marked painful. We had nothing to do with it. Suddenly, we're bankrupt. We're ruined. We're destined for hell. We're away from God. Suddenly, that debt that is beyond our reach was suddenly paid. The Old Testament and Paul here just simply says, Abraham believed God. And they credited all that to him, to Abraham, and he received the righteousness of God. Now, that's important because no one ever moves toward God without the moving of the Holy Spirit within the heart. So people talk about they're looking for God. No, not really. If you think it through, you'll usually find if you do find God, you'll really find out that He found you. And God made a permanent adjustment to our account. He wrote off our debt. He paid it all through the atoning sacrifice of Christ. He deposited everything we need to be children of God when we were saved. We were once bankrupt, but now everything God has is at our disposal. Now, this wasn't a reward of faith. It was ours because of what God deposited in our account. Grace through faith. Only God could have done that. There is nothing in us that could ever have come to that conclusion. There's nothing in us that could ever have brought us to that place. And he points out here early in this chapter, he points out the difference between a wage and a gift. The law reveals that people who work have a right to get paid for what they do. The wages, though, are not gifts. They're earned. Abraham shows that salvation is by grace apart from the works of law. It means salvation is free grace alone through faith. We are incapable of saving ourselves through works. Abraham might have had something to appeal to an earthly course, but before God he had no standing. So we work to express our love for the one who brings salvation, not to gain it. Abraham believed God. God deposited righteousness to his account, paid in full. This entire chapter reveals illustrations of his life. Well, we're not going to get all the way through, but verses 5 through 8 is a quote from Psalm 32. And the high status that we have before God is by grace alone, not measured by any human effort or achievement. We find our value at the foot of the cross. We experience it in the new birth. Sin, he mentions that sins are forgiven and our lawless acts are covered. And some will say, well, what's the difference between being forgiven and having them covered? Well, the word forgiven is actually a word which means to send away. Now, follow me quickly. When a criminal is convicted, he's sent away. The criminal is sent away to prison. But here, the sins are sent away. The criminal in prison is sent away because of his crimes, but he's still guilty. He still committed them. But it says that his lawless acts are covered. Now, what does that mean? Well, covered is a word that's only used here in the New Testament. It's the only place it shows in the New Testament. In the Greek Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, it is used in Psalms. And from our standpoint, if you cover something, you've covered it, but it's still there, right? I mean, I make the bed up in the morning. I put a cover on the bed. But the bed's still there. The cover's there, but the bed is there. So, humanly speaking, to cover something means it is still there. Well, how could that apply to us? Well, Christ had not yet come yet. So their sins were covered until Christ could deliver the gift of salvation through His death on the cross. And then they were uncovered and placed on Him. And when He died on the cross, He died bearing our sins who were covered but now uncovered. And now that they're uncovered, He died for them and we're forgiven. Isn't that great? I mean, only God could have done that. Everyone saved was saved by the death of Christ, His resurrection and ascension. He's just simply hammering home that no ritual or ordinance of man can save someone. Not Lord's Supper, not baptism, not circumcision. Abraham was judged righteous before he was circumcised. That blew the Jewish mind that he could be called justified before God and he'd never been circumcised. That was a horrendous thought for the Jewish people. So the whole passage and these first 12 verses are meant to show us that at the cross, God declared an ungodly man. Empathy here in this passage is Abraham to be forgiven on the grounds of the sacrification that was provided through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. So that would have shocked the Jews. The Jews believed in the holiness of God. And when he said that the ungodly would be justified, you can hear all kinds of objections coming out of the Jews. They hadn't been taught that. But that's what happened at the cross. Our sins had been uncovered before Jesus came. At the cross, our sins were uncovered. You say, well, are those our future sins? When Jesus died, all our sins were future. They were all future. So it answers the question that Jesus died for the sins that are in the future. Of course, they were all future when he died. But we stand before God judged righteous, not on the basis of anything we've accomplished or done or created or experienced, but on the basis of simple believing God and obeying him. Faith, grace, and it's ours through Jesus Christ. Well, it's a great passage. We'll look at the last portion of this and maybe pick up a verse or two before we get there next Sunday. By the way, several of you have asked me about Bill Anderson. I do not know where Bill has been the last two weeks. I need to call him. Do you know? He had some scalp situation. And they tried to bring some tissue to cover it up and it didn't take. Okay. You know, he has the cancer that he's fighting in his scalp. And they did some skin grafts that did not take. What Bill is dealing with is very serious. Now, okay. I'll sign it for you, alright? Anybody else that didn't get one and wants one, you're welcome to it. It's my gift to you. I figured you'd put up with me. I can understand you putting up with Jack Taylor. Jack Terry. But I can't... Now you laugh, but Jack Taylor's son is the one who published this book for me. And Jack was a dear friend. You know, I've got Jack Taylor, Jack Terrell, Jack Terry. And when you get my age, I understand where Abraham's coming from. So anyway, let's pray and then we'll finish up next week. Father, thank You for Your love and grace. And thank You that we don't get to participate in anything relative to our salvation except just to believe You and be obedient. Lord, You make grace possible for us through faith. No one but You could have done that. And by that grace, we're saved. And when we're saved, our sins have been uncovered and placed on Jesus. And they exist no more for He paid the price on the cross. Thank You, Father. What an amazing, amazing plan that You devised in order for us to be saved. In Jesus' name, amen.