Nothing to say, yet
Transcription
Jimmy summarizes the main ideas from the fourth chapter of Romans, emphasizing that redemption and salvation come through faith and not through the law. He explains that the law reveals the sinfulness of man but cannot redeem him, and that Abraham serves as an example of righteousness through faith. Jimmy concludes by mentioning the importance of Abraham and sharing a story from Genesis 22 where God tested Abraham's faith. Well, we're at the last half of the chapter four of Romans, and it's kind of playing out that we do about maybe two lessons per chapter. Jack is going to do the fifth chapter the next two weeks, and then I'll pick up with the sixth chapter whenever he gets through. And by the way, this is a lot of fun for us. It really is. We've known each other for almost as long as Carol Ann and I have been married, because they were at her home church where we married right after we married. So that goes back over 60 years. So I had three interim pastors since I retired, and other than being regular, I didn't particularly care about them, because it's just hard. It's kind of like somebody that has a lot of responsibility and no authority. And so when you're an interim pastor, you've got all kinds of responsibility, but you don't have a licking bit of authority to do anything about it. So it's kind of an awkward time, but I enjoy doing that. But I'll have to tell you that I'm enjoying studying and being able to share with you. Now, on the first Sunday, no, the second Sunday, it was the first, October 1st, or is it? What is it? October the 8th, we're going to team teach somewhere else. I'm going to teach in the morning here, and he's going to preach in a little country church out of Wichita Falls. Sunday afternoon, he's going to drive back here, and I'm going to drive up there. So and by the way, let me be real honest with you. I've preached in all kinds of churches. I mean big churches, little churches. I love preaching in country churches. If I had to choose between preaching in First Baptist Church Dallas or an open country church, I'd choose a country church every time. Just something about it. I'm not even sure where this place is, and I talked to the pastor yesterday, and so he's going to give me instructions how I can get there, and it's way up there. So anyway, we're going to team teach that day too, but we'll kind of swap out to do it. We're going to finish up the fourth chapter of Romans today, and I thought that I might just read this so we kind of get the gist of where we're headed. Starting at verse 13, Romans chapter 4, for the promise to Abraham, now maybe just pause long enough, Abraham's promise was the covenant that God made with him back in Genesis. I think it's about Genesis 12. It was a covenant that was renewed numerous times, and every time it was renewed there were little reaffirmations of some things, some introducing of new things. But when Paul's talking about the promise, he's talking about the Abrahamic covenant. So the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would inherit the world was not through the law, Paul's. That should be obvious because it would be four centuries later before the law came along. So it's kind of, you know, the Jews really focused on the law, that was really a big deal for them. In fact, they had even added some things to the law, had about 350 other laws that they added to it that they considered just as binding as the law of Moses. But the law didn't come into existence for 400 years before this. So we know, looking back, we know that the law had nothing to do with Abraham's covenant. It didn't exist. And so he says that the promise to Abraham, to his descendants, not through the law, remember that he's through this whole fourth chapter especially, but all the way up to this point, he's just hammering the same nail. Redemption, righteousness of God, salvation comes only through faith, through grace. Not part of the law, not through human effort. It's just through faith. In fact, Abraham, the Jews believed that Abraham was the one that really, through Abraham, they read that everything is the law. But the law didn't exist with Abraham. And the purpose of the law, by the way, and this passage tells us that nobody was ever saved through the law. Now the reason for that is nobody could keep the law. All of us are sinned. We aren't capable of doing the thing. Even Paul, who wrote 13 of the New Testament books, described himself as the chief of sinners and had a thorn in the flesh that he asked God to remove three times and God said no. I mean, the law, the idea of faith to get the righteousness of God is not a Pauline doctrine. It's an Old Testament doctrine. And Paul is just reminding them that the law was not involved in the righteousness that was accredited to Abraham when God made that covenant with him. If those who are of the law are heirs, faith is empty and the promise is nullified. Now the little phrase Paul is of the law, he's referring to people who depend upon the law. Their whole life is to do what the law tells them to do. They draw their strength from the law. He said if that would be satisfying, it would nullify faith. But law and faith don't go together because nobody keeps the law. And so faith is made empty and the promise nullified because the law produces wrath. And where there is no law, there is no transgression. Now pause a minute. In 1901, there were no speed limit laws in America. Now automobiles had been invented. But one state had any laws against the speed. The first state to pass a law relative to the speed limit was Connecticut in 1901. They predicted that you could go 12 miles an hour in town and 15 in the country. But until that time, there was no law. So nobody could be arrested for speeding. Where there is no law, there is no transgression. And so that's the point he's making here. For instance, Cain killed Abel. That was evil. It was murder. But there was no law against it. So he couldn't be convicted of committing a crime because there was no law that dealt with that. So where there is no law, there is no transgression. Now what that tells us is that the law is what helps us know we're lost. The law was never intended to save us, but to show us that we were needy people who could not do what was right. And so the law allows us to see us as we are. It's grace through faith that allows us to see us as God sees us through Jesus Christ. By the way, this is a transitional passage. When you come into chapter 5, he's turning toward dealing with sanctification. Up until this point, he's been dealing with the promise being fulfilled by grace through faith. And this is a good transition passage for us. Because the law produces wrath. Where there is no law, there is no transgression. This is why the promise is by faith, so that it may be according to grace to guarantee to all the descendants, all of Abraham's descendants, not only to those who are of the law, but also those who are of Abraham's faith. He's the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations. He is our father in God's sight in whom Abraham believed, and here he describes God, the God who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist. Now, we'll pause just a minute for that. Calls things into existence that just do not exist. That's what he did when he created the world. But when the law came in, it revealed the sinfulness of man, and man could not keep the law. The law could not redeem man, so man is in a hopeless situation. And when the law came in, then Abraham was granted righteousness by faith, not by the law. As I said, the law had not been existed, so there was no law present at that time. But the law is really like a mirror that lets us see what we are like. We are all sinners. He has talked about that in the third chapter. He will talk about it again in the sixth chapter. We are all sinners. See ourselves for what we are. The law allows us to see God as he is, but it also allows us to see us as we are. When this takes place, we understand that there is nothing in the law that is going to bring us the righteousness of God. That only comes through faith. So Abraham is really the father of faith. In fact, the Bible elsewhere calls all of us children of Abraham. It kind of underscores what I said to you last week about Abraham being the most prominent hero in the Old Testament. I will give you many reasons for that. One is very obvious. If you count how many times Abraham was mentioned in the New Testament, it was 64 times. That is more than David and Moses are mentioned together. Add those two together, Abraham is mentioned more often. But the main reason I say that is that Abraham is the one who God used to insert faith into the process of our redemption. Abraham did that, and Paul is calling attention to that righteousness. Abraham is the central person in this chapter, and his life and his character is proof of what Paul is talking about. Abraham believed God when he was in Ur of the Chaldeans. He left pagan worship. His family was Satan worshipers. He lived in a community of pagan worshipers and left there to become the father of the nation of Israel, but also the father of all who have faith. What an important individual. By the way, let me just jump a little bit, because I don't know how far we will get. In Genesis chapter 22, let me just read you a little of this passage. This is where God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Now remember, at this time, Isaac had not been born, but Ishmael had. So when God came to Abraham in this time frame, Abraham suggested that God let Ishmael be his seed, and God didn't accept that idea. And so he said, No, you are going to have a son, and you are going to be the father of many nations, and bear in mind, Abraham is 99 years old. Now, no one in here is 99 years old. Some of us are getting close, but hey, he's 99 years old. Sarah is 90 years old. No wonder she laughed when she heard the messenger tell Abraham that Sarah was going to have a baby. She laughed. Now, you ladies can appreciate that, and you men can too. At 99 and 90, you are going to be having a shower and spend your life in PTA? Yeah. So this is what is going on here when God is dealing with him. So he tested Abraham in chapter 22 of Genesis, and it says, After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, here I am, he answered. Take your son, your only son, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about. Now we pause a minute. God did never ask anybody to make a human sacrifice. This is unique. It never had been done. I emphasize that because Abraham obeyed God, and of course when he got there, and we won't read the whole passage because that's not part of the lesson this morning, but he took Isaac and wood for an altar, and he took two young men along with him, and they traveled for three days, and they came to Mount Moriah, which is the mountain in Jerusalem right now, Mount Moriah, and Abraham told the two servants that he'd come with him, the two young men they're called, for them to remain there while he and the boy, he said, would go. Now, you know, there's so many interesting things in this story. Why did Abraham do this? We'll get to that in a minute. But why did Isaac let him? You ever wonder? Isaac was a young man. He wasn't a toddler. He probably was a teenager. Why did he let him do it? You've got kind of a double miracle here, and not only Abraham, but Isaac went along with it, and it's kind of a mysterious thing, and so when they get to the mountain, Isaac said to Abraham, he said to Isaac, the fire and wood are here, or Isaac asked him, he said, the fire and wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son. Now what on earth does that mean? Oh, turn over Hebrews, because we don't know based on this, but if you come to Hebrews, in the 11th chapter, verse 17, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, that's why Genesis 22 started, God tested Abraham, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. He received the promise, and yet he was offering his one and only son, the one to whom it had been said, your seed will be called through Isaac. Now listen to this, he considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead, therefore he received him back, figuratively speaking. Just think of Abraham, he's a wealthy man, he has many flocks and herds, he even owns the wells that you have to have to keep a big herd together, and all the stock together to have water. He owned all that. He is living in a pagan city, his family is Satan worshippers, but he himself obviously is a God-fearer, different from his family, and God speaks to him. I would like to have been there when that happened. It must have been a powerful experience. Whatever happened that day when God appeared to Abraham, it had to be an enormously significant and spectacular appearance for Abraham to do what he did. Here's what God told him, I want you to leave here. Well, God, where am I going? I'm not going to tell you. Well, how long will it take for me to get there? I'm not going to tell you. How will I have provision for all the needs we'll have in the trip? It's none of your business. Just go. Now, he picked up all of his belongings, his family, his herds, and he goes to Haran, and that's where his father died. His father was with him up to that time, and then after his father died, they ended up going into Egypt, which by the way, Egypt is often used as a synonym for something bad that's going to happen. It was in Egypt that Sarah suggested that he have a baby with Hagar. That was in Egypt. Oh, it was also in Egypt, now Sarah must have been a very beautiful woman. Now, Jack, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't do it today. I think Sarah was Abraham's half-sister. It must have been beautiful, because when he got to Egypt, the king of Egypt asked him about his wife. Obviously he had interest in some things with her, and so he said, well, she's my sister. So here's the man of great faith who had a lot of lapses. His faith was not always terrific, nor were his actions, and yet, no matter what he did, God didn't disown him. He didn't kick him out of the covenant. He kept him in the family, and he became known as God's friend, and the God became known as the God of Abraham. What an incredible journey he's on now. He's been through all of that. Now they've been through the birth of Isaac. Now, you talk about a spoiled child. Just imagine how long they've been waiting for this, and God says to him, I'll tell you what I want you to do. I want you to take Isaac and go over to Mount Moriah, which is where Christ was crucified, and I want you to sacrifice Isaac. Didn't show that he thought about it. He just did it. The next day, he says he's got Isaac, so we're going to make a little trip, going to go over to Mount Moriah. We're going to worship over there, take a couple of young men with them, and they took off. When they got there, he told the young men to stay behind, and that's when Isaac said, well, where's the offering? Well, God will take care of that. Not sure what Abraham had in mind, but we do know now from Hebrews, at least it's my judgment, that he thought God would resurrect Isaac if he did sacrifice him. That's what Hebrews implies. He knew God could raise someone from the dead. So he had enough faith to believe that. Now just think of the faith of Abraham to be obedient to God, to get up and leave home with all of his trappings and his wealth and everything and become a nomad, not knowing where he was going, not knowing when he'd get there, not knowing if he'd know it when he got there, not knowing how they'd survive the desert. He just obeyed God. So we can understand at every point when God told him to do something, he just did it. I won't call his name because some of you know him, but I have a friend who periodically used to come to me and say, listen, I need to talk to you about something. God told me this, and I need to talk to you about it. And I said, well, time out. God told you, you don't need to talk to me. Don't ask me to evaluate what God told you to do. If God told you to do it, you just need to do it. Well, Abraham just did it. No wonder he became the true hero of the Old Testament and ought to be our hero because we're children of Abraham, and he's the one who put faith and grace into the mix when it came to the promises of fulfillment of God's blessing and God's righteousness. After they went to Egypt, all that happened. God never removed the covenant for all of his weaknesses, his lapses, never took back the righteousness that Abraham had received. He was declared righteous, and for anyone to be declared righteous is a blessing indeed. God did chastise Abraham for these lapses, but he never took him away from the covenant. He never took back the righteousness that he had received. He did nothing to deserve grace, and there's nothing powerful enough to destroy grace. It's good for us to be reminded of that. We will never deserve grace. We ought to always say, Lord, we don't want justice, we want mercy because we will never deserve justice. It only comes through the grace of God by faith. When Jesus died on the cross, the redemption that he perfected there on the cross took away our sins, and they're removed as far as east is from the west according to Psalm 103. Now, you're not as curious as Brother Jack and I are, but when I read that in Psalm 103, I thought, how far is east from west? You measure north and south. We have a north pole and a south pole. We know what that distance is. But the truth is, east and west never meet. If you start going east today and go for a hundred years, you'll never stop going east and start going west. You'll always be going east. East and west never meet. God says, that's what happens when you enter into a covenant with me. Remember what I said last week about the psalmist said that the sins of the people were covered? I'll repeat it just to remind you. When you cover something, it is still there. Just because you covered it doesn't mean that it's not still there. I use the illustration. I usually make the bed up in the morning, because typically I'm the last one to get up. But I made the bed up. But the bed was still there. And the truth of what the psalmist is saying is, before Calvary, people were saved on credit. They were saved anticipating the price to be paid. They were saved because God's plan had for his son to come from the seed of Abraham to die on the cross. But it hadn't happened yet. But everyone saved in the Old Testament was saved by grace through faith in what was going to happen on the cross. And when the Old Testament saints got saved, their sins were covered. But they were still there. When Jesus came to die on the cross, their sins were uncovered. And God took their sins and put them on Jesus. And he removed them as far as east is from the west. There ought to be something within us that just wants to shout hallelujah several times every day for the grace of God that he brings us and the opportunity he gives us to become his children and to be part of his family. Well, these first two verses, 13, 14, and 15, really just remind us that the law is incapable of saving. As I said, God did not give the law for 400 years after this covenant. And circumcision, by the way, was not instigated to the Jews for 15 years after the covenant. So neither circumcision nor the law could have anything to do with salvation. The easiest thing to express to me is that God saves us through the death of Christ on the cross, by faith, through his grace. Grace from the time of the cross up until the time of the cross, God dealt in a different way. But at the cross, grace became the M.O. for God. That's his modus operandi. God operates through grace. Aren't you glad? We approach God in his grace. We're living in the period of grace. And by the way, Jesus had to be crucified on the cross to fulfill all the prophecies of the Old Testament. Psalms talks about the cross. And there's some dispute exactly when the cross was begun as a form of execution. At least 1,000 years, 2,000 years, the Babylonians were the ones that introduced it. The Old Testament is filled with references on Psalm 22 that talks about Jesus saying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Well, he had to die on the cross because that was the only way to fulfill all the prophecies. That's why Jesus was not stoned to death. They tried to stone him several times. You notice he just kind of filtered in with the crowd and got away. That's why the citizens of Nazareth, when they tried to throw him off the cliff, God wouldn't let that happen. He had to die on the cross. The cross was part of God's plan for our redemption. He had to be killed by crucifixion, not by some other method. God made that clear in Galatians 3 that everyone who understands the need for repentance and faith can become a child of God. The first covenant, by the way, and I probably said this last week, too, but the first covenant was not just a covenant between God and Abraham. The first covenant was actually the covenant within the Godhead. Before the foundation of the world, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit made a covenant together to provide salvation. Everyone said that God devises and Jesus accomplishes and the Holy Spirit imparts it. But remember that the Godhead is one God, not three gods. We don't worship three gods. But when God is in you, the Holy Spirit is in you. Jesus is in you. When the Holy Spirit is in you, God and Jesus are in you. Jesus is in you, God and the Holy Spirit are in you. It's important for us, it may seem like a minor detail, but most of the heresies of the first century came from a misunderstanding of the Godhead. Christianity, one of the problems it had in the Roman Empire was the Roman Empire was filled with religions that believed in many gods. We have that today. If you are witnessing to a Hindu, they believe there are many gods and many of them are happy to accept another god to add to their gods. The unique thing about Christianity and about Judaism is one God. And yet three persons. And though the Godhead conceived of salvation and it was God's holiness that made it possible for them to fulfill the plan that was conceived before the foundations of the world, as believers we are in Christ, we are saved, we are secured and we are safe. Verse 15 says the law produces wrath and that is true because none of us can keep the law. It reveals our sinfulness and points us to our need. We need a Savior. The effect of the law was not peace but wrath. And again, where there is no law there is no transgression. So we are not to believe because of that that a man may live in lawlessness since he is not under the law because we are not under the law. But does that mean we can just sin? And Paul addresses that later here in Romans. He says, God forbid. Don't ever think of that. The presence of the Holy Spirit creates a new life in believers and brings us to victory and to power where we can live in triumph. And the substitutionary death of Christ established that grace is God's method of dealing with sinners. That is how he deals with sinners. I say it many times in conversation. God doesn't use any of us because of us. He uses all of us in spite of us. But that is the miracle of who God is. That is why he can say that all things work together for good to those who love God and call to glory to his purpose. He didn't say all things were good. Some things are just bad, they are evil, they are not good. God said there is nothing going to come into your life that I will not make best for you. He made that clear in John chapter 11 when Jesus and the disciples are a couple of days away from Bethany and word comes that Lazarus is sick and come quickly. And Jesus stayed there for two more days. Now you have to ask, if they were his good friends and if he is alerted, Mary Martha just knew that if Jesus knew that he was sick that he would come running. He didn't. Why? Well, if you read carefully the passage, he says very simply that Lazarus, they got word that he would die. He said, well, he is not really dead, but he has gone through this so that God may get the glory. And then he told the disciples, I am glad for your sake that I wasn't here. Because I wasn't here, what is going to happen is going to cause you to believe. So poor Lazarus, wondering what on earth am I going back for. I like to know what was in his mind when the Lord said, oh, by the way, you got to go back. But it was for God's glory. And so I learned this, chapter 11 in John gives us some great truth. But one is, whatever happens in our lives is for our best interest and for God's glory. Now you say, well, that's an oxymoron. That can't happen. Well, it does. And that's what makes our God unique. We are not subject to human tragedy in the way that humans who are not saved face tragedy. We face it, not alone. We face it in the grace of God, in the presence of God. And for instance, if you were to ask me, so I appreciate you doing that, what was the best thing that ever happened to me in my ministry, it was my father's death. I still think about him every day. It's been nearly 50, 60 years now. That was 1966 when he died. So that's been 34, 23, nearly 60 years ago. But I'd never experienced grief before. I had pastored churches, tried to comfort people, preach funerals and be an encouragement. When I was the one needing encouragement, I learned something about God that I knew, but I didn't know. I knew it up here, but I never had experienced it. I knew the grief and the pain that went with that kind of experience. He was 53 years old. God made it to sensitize my heart so that I can honestly say when people are grieving that I have empathy for you, I hurt with you, because I've experienced that. So God's able to take everything in our lives and turn it into something good for us. He didn't say it was a good thing, didn't say it was an easy thing, didn't say it was profitable, you know, it's just that it's in our best interest. God can take every tragedy, every challenge, and turn it into something that's an incredible blessing to us and to those around us. And oh, by the way, our faith is a stewardship that God gives to us. We're stewards of everything God brings into our lives. That means we're not only stewards of our successes and our victories and our good times, but we're stewards of our sadness, stewards of our sorrows. Don't waste your sorrows. You know, you hear it spoken in political circles here, never waste a crisis, but never waste a sorrow, because God has promised to bring what is best for us through that sorrow. And we can't explain it, but we know that he does. And so Christ's victory on the cross is one that meets us where we are. Abraham is referred to as our father, Father Abraham. We can stand beside Abraham for a while and just look and listen. We can learn so much. We enter into Christ's victory and what he accomplished two thousand years ago when we stand beside Abraham. We've seen the Lord in his glory. We have seen ourselves in our failure and our rebellion. So every thought of prestige or privilege or position has erupted into failure and contempt. It's gone in the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We realize how sinful we are and how gloriously gracious he is. Next section tells us no religious ritual can bring salvation. We mention that often through this. In verse 16, the purpose of the promise is so that grace can be made available to everybody. The Jews place great emphasis on the fact that they belong to Abraham's seed. But Paul comes along and says, no, the real Jews are not physical descendants of Abraham, but the real Jews are those who came by faith in Jesus Christ and by grace were saved. Faith is never a work that merits salvation. Faith is hopelessness reaching out in total dependence to God. The promise remains an act of grace, and God is a God of grace because that is his nature to be that. Verse 17 points out what I said earlier, that Abraham is the father of all who believe, leaving her the Chaldees, all the steps of faith. It's amazing what he did and demonstrated the faith, and interestingly enough, hope is found more in the book of Romans than any other New Testament book. Where there is faith properly invested in God, there is always hope. Abraham was never without God, so he was never without hope. We can draw strength from that, for the same thing has happened to us when we saw the glory of God and were transformed in our lives by trusting him by faith. The same thing happened to us for the God who gives life to the dead and caused things in existence that did not exist. He's still the God. He's the God who created the world, but he also created a nation, oh, and he also created individuals. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, Paul told Corinthians in 2 Corinthians. New creation. That's the kind of God we serve. When one is justified by faith, he has nothing to offer. So a new creation is needed, and it's God's creative call that gives us new life and highest praise belongs to God because no man can do what God can do. We're the creature. He is the creator. Hope is never used in the context of Romans with doubt. You know, if I say I hope the cowboys win tonight, there's a tinge of doubt in my mind that that's going to happen. But faith is never involved with doubt. By the way, I'll tell you, when I got my first church, Carol Ann and I, we married, and six weeks later we were pastors of the Steve Hall of Baptist Church, Route 3, Bryan, Texas. That's three miles from Texas A&M. That's where all the kids think you say A&M after your prayers instead of amen. It is a subculture, only it is the culture down in Aggieland. They can right put that on that water tower, Aggieland. That's what it is. There's a camaraderie and a family membership. If you ever see one Aggie, you've seen them all. I mean, they are together and always be together. And so our first experience was pastoring at Steve Hall of Church. I had to keep my car locked because they stick Aggie stickers on the inside of it. If they stuck them on the outside, I could get them off a little easier. But anyway, it was a time of blessing for us. It's a great, great church. If Carol Ann could have stayed at that church all of our lives, she would have. I mean, they're just great folks. They were old when we got there. And some of them are still alive. The kids, the kids that we knew there. I have in my little study at our new house the pulpit that I preached behind at Steve Hall of Baptist Church. It doesn't exist anymore. In town, it's come out and absorbed it as a satellite to one of their churches. But it's a great, great experience for us to be a pastor and a wife. But we were 20 years old. I was. She was 18. Now, my dad told me, he said, you're going to be faced with a lot of decisions. Now two principles for making decisions. And I can promise you they work. Probably told you before. He said, doubt never means yes. Don't you remember the story? I mean, a little joke, a little Johnny's upstairs and hollers down to his mother said, Mom, is this shirt dirty? And she said, yes. How did she know? Well, if it's doubt, it's dirty. So, you know, that's never part of faith. Faith expresses no doubt. Liberalism says faith is a leaf in the dark. But the life of faith says that faith is a leaf in the dark. So, you know, that's never part of faith. Faith expresses no doubt. Liberalism says faith is a leaf in the dark. But the life of faith says that faith is a leaf in the dark. So, you know, that's never part of faith. Faith expresses no doubt. So, you know, that's never part of faith. Faith expresses no doubt. Faith expresses no doubt. Faith is a leaf in the light. It's not hopeless and sure hope this happens and little doubt and concern, no, no. Faith because, you see, the thing that's important is what is the object of your faith? And the Bible tells us we can't trust ourselves. That's why we need a Savior. He gave the Ten Commandments. Nobody ever kept them. Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. Nobody could live by those principles. We just can't do it because there's something in us that is just sinful by nature. We're sinners by choice. Just watch a baby growing up. You don't have to teach that baby to grab something and say, mine. They'll do that naturally. I mean, there's just something selfish about a self-realization. I mean, we're all sinners. And the law was given to man so that God could give the real response, the real answer to the sin question. That's through the death of Christ on the cross from the covenant that Trinity made with each other before they created the world. So moving on. Anything is impossible with God, these last verses. We read verses 19 to 22, and the essence of that is that God does not work according to human limitations. Abraham's body was old and declining. In fact, Abraham said when you look back in Genesis, his body was already dead. I mean, he knew he was past age to have a baby. But Abraham's body was old and declining, but he didn't look at the facts or the obstacles. He believed that God would bring a miraculous birth, and that child would come as an order from God, and the plan came from God, not from Abraham. Nothing is foolish when it comes from God. It would have been foolish for anybody to stand up and say, my wife and I are getting ready to have a baby. I'm 99 and she's 90. That would have been Abraham sitting on it. If God says something is going to happen, it's going to happen. First Corinthians 1.25 says, God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. Abraham looked past his external circumstances and his internal circumstances, and he saw God and he obeyed him when that covenant in Genesis was established. Abraham did not focus on his feeble health or on Sarah's barrenness. He was well aware of both of those things. God had promised him a son, and in spite of appearances in advanced age, Abraham believed God said it, and that was enough. I think I said to you several weeks ago, sometimes we get to a place in our relationship with God that what he tells us to do makes absolutely no sense, but if God said it, it's okay. He'll take care of it. God doesn't think like we think. Just dwell on Isaiah 55, 9 and 10. My ways and my thoughts are higher than your ways and your thoughts, as far as east is from the west. As high as the heavens are above, so high, much higher are my thoughts than yours. We talked about that several weeks ago. God's ways are always safe and secure. God does not make mistakes. He knows all past, present and future. He's all-powerful. He is eternal. He is unchanging. He never fails. He never is surprised. He never says, oops. He knows us completely, and he knows the end from the beginning. Abraham's faith is outstanding, but he is joined by other Old Testament saints who had tremendous faith. Gideon, with a small army, greatly outnumbered and defeated the enemy because he believed God. Gideon, by the way, it's interesting. When God saw Gideon, he was hiding from the enemy on a threshing floor, and God said, oh, mighty warrior. I mean, isn't that interesting? You have to know God has a sense of humor, because here's a guy hiding from his enemies and God says, oh, mighty warrior. But he believed God and had a great victory. Caleb and Joshua were sent out to check out the land in Canaan. They saw giants and walled cities and powerful defenses, and Israel had no army. They believed God. God does the impossible, and though they were a minority recommendation when the nation trusted God, they conquered the land. David faced a fierce giant in Goliath. That's really got to be the funniest scene in the Bible when you just think about it. Saul offered David his armor. David was just a kid. Remember, he tried it on and he said, it's too bulky, it'll never work. So he didn't put on any armor at all, and so he had a slingshot and five smooth stones. You can decide why he had five stones. I don't think he planned on missing, but we do know that Goliath had four brothers, so maybe that's what it was. He was small, but he believed God, and God gave him the victory. Abraham is learning lessons about faith. Death was in his body, Sarah was in her nineties, doubt looks at circumstances while faith looks at God. And that's what we're to do. Looking at the promises of God without wavering, Abraham believed God. His eyes were fixed on the promises and nothing else mattered. He's a great example of faith that is repeated many times in the New Testament, as I mentioned, sixty-four times in the New Testament, Abraham's faith is counted. Well, we need to stop and we'll just quickly make a few comments. The genuine life of faith is an attitude, just like gratitude is an attitude. If I could give you one advice for your marriage, how do you make it sixty-seven years? Sixty-eight this next time for Carol Ann and me. Gratitude. Never take her for granted. To this day, when we eat lunch, Carol Ann without fail will say, thank you for lunch. When I take the trash out, she says, thank you for taking the trash out. When I make up the bed, she says, thank you for making up the bed. Gratitude is just a great attitude. And everybody needs encouragement and nothing is more encouraging than people who are grateful. Be a grateful person. The genuine life of faith is an attitude. It makes the Lord Jesus closer to us as we live with his promises that he has given to all of us. The Lord Jesus is God. He died for our sins, he rose from the dead, and he now lives within all believers. The big thing about this passage is that Jesus died for us. Now, when we were having a conservative resurgence and the liberals in the convention were fighting it, most of them were in leadership, and I was president of the convention, so I offered a suggestion. I said, look, let's agree that doctrine is important, so let me give you five basic doctrines that we could all agree on. Then we could work from there. I don't remember all the five, but I remember substitutionary atonement was one. Liberals never accepted substitutionary atonement, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus, liberals say it was a spiritual resurrection, it wasn't a bodily resurrection. I knew they wouldn't accept it, but I thought it was a good idea. And one of the liberals himself said, you're going to regret not accepting Jimmy's proposal. I don't know if they did or not, but we had to move on. But we're saved by the grace of God because he died for us. Now, I have, in my early ministry, our early marriage, three times I sponsored a man out of prison. We were in San Antonio, and my secretary, if you've been around me much, I multitask, so I sometimes have attention lapses. I had a secretary in the church in San Antonio who had said several times she wanted to talk to me. Finally, one day she put her hands on my face and said, sit down, I need to talk to you. I said, oh, okay. Well, her brother was in prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, and she wanted me to know about her brother. Anyway, I got connected with her brother, and through her brother, I ended up with a prisoner from Leavenworth, Kansas, living in a little one-room apartment behind our house in San Antonio. His name was Dean Foster. He came out, lived with us for a while, and then just disappeared. I don't ever know what happened to him. But that was sort of a pattern. When I got to Kansas City, I sponsored a guy out of the prison in Leavenworth again. His name was Sammy Woolley, and he was dying of cancer. The board of pardoned paroles called me and said, if you'll take him, look after him, we'll let him out of prison. He went straight to the hospital, and he died in the hospital. And I baptized him in the hospital, Sammy Woolley. He never got out of bed the last six months he was alive, except one time, and that was to be baptized. A Catholic nun observed my music minister and me as we baptized Sammy Woolley a few days before he died. Oh, so you'll know, the church did vote to approve that baptism, just in case that bothersome of you. But that was Sammy Woolley. The other one was Ray Summers, who's also in Kansas City. He was a prisoner in southern Illinois, and I was preaching revival over in southern Illinois, and the pastor was chaplain at the prison. So I went with him over to the prison one day, and just visited, followed him around, and met this tall six-foot-four, six-foot-five inch guy with a smile that just crawled down inside your heart. And I listened to myself say, I'd like to help you get out of prison. I thought, who said that? Well, a few weeks later, Ray Summers arrived in Kansas City. Carol Ann met him at the airport, because naturally I had something else to do, and took him shopping. Imagine taking someone shopping that had been in prison for many years. But Ray came and lived, we had a little house by our church that we weren't using, and so we put him in that house. And so he came from a rough life, he's from Chicago. He told me one time, he said, there's no crime I haven't committed. In fact, I had, this is really for another day, I had my life threatened in Kansas City, and Ray was there when that happened. The police told me we needed to pick our kids up at the school and keep our garage door, which faced the woods in the back, keep the garage doors down in our house, and you know, Ray came, and they knew who did it. But you can't call, you know, can't arrest a guy for making a phone call, and that's another long story, I won't bore you with that. But Ray wouldn't let me, he said, I can take care of this if you want me to. He said, no problem, and I said, no, Ray, we're not going to do that. But Ray would never let me start my car until he started it or checked the engine, he wanted to make sure it wasn't a bomb or something. Anyway, Ray was a dear friend, but had a tragic death. Before that, he did receive Christ, and I'll never forget, one night, about 1230, there's a banging on the front door, and I go to the door, and it's Ray, 1230 at night, and he just barges in the room, and he said, Jimmy, he said, he died for me, he died for me. He said, I was driving down the road, and all of a sudden, I saw this cross, and Jesus hanging on the cross, and the message was finally soaked in me, he died for me, he died for me. Well, he trusted the Lord, thankful we could baptize him, but you know, we just never, we need to never get over the fact that he died for you, he died for me. The greatest miracle would not be that Adolf Hitler, or Saddam Hussein, or Osama Bin Laden could be saved, the greatest miracle is that you could be saved. You're a simple, rotten sinner, just like I am. There's nothing we're not capable of, if we haven't descended in the depths of activities because we just got lucky and made a choice. He died for us. Well, I've done it again, I've run clear to 11 o'clock. So let's pray. God, thank you that you did die for us, we didn't deserve it, and in fact, we were part of the crowd that railed and cried crucify you, but you loved us anyway, and thank you that we're saved through your grace by faith, and we praise you for it, in Jesus' name, amen.
