27 | Romans | Romans 4:1-5 | What was Gained by Abraham?

INTRODUCTION

This morning we begin with a recap of this letter to the Romans.

This sermon is what is often called didactic.

That is, it focuses on teaching.

What I’m saying is, you’re going to have to follow along closely.

A didactic or teaching sermon does three things:

1) It’s main content is instruction.

2) It has a clear structure, with a logical and systematic order.

3) It focuses on your understanding.

That is, the goal is that you would know and believe.

But no teacher can make happen.

The congregation, from the oldest to the youngest, must lean forward, and engage the scripture and the preacher with the hope of understanding.

Is that you, do you want to know the Gospel in Romans | the power of God for salvation?

How?

Keep your Bible open. Flip through the pages and references to try to see what I am sharing from this incredible letter.

I would recommend taking notes as we go through.

I will try to be as systematic and clear as I can as we begin this recap.

Try to note the sections of the scripture and the main idea of each section.

Then, go back and study the Romans 1-4 in the coming week making use of your notes.

I have three purposes for our time this morning.

1) I want you to learn the book of Romans.

That’s why, as are coming back to this series, I want to begin with a didactic sermon, a sermon that focuses on teaching.

I want you to take this book with you, church.

I want it to belong to you in heart, mind and soul.

Even better, I want you to belong, to be captured, by the God of grace that this book holds out to us.

2) I want you to enjoy the God of grace and faith.

That is, I want you to worship the Lord as we learn together this morning.

Never tire of the realization that we can know our God and his gospel!

Romans 1 speaks of a people who know the eternal power and divine nature of God and yet suppress the truth.

Oh, but we know so much more than the invisible attributes of God.

Through the scriptures, we have seen our God!

Let us worship him this morning by earnestly, diligently seeking him in his word!

3) Finally, and more pointedly, I pray you will see that salvation, our hope of redemption, is by faith alone.

There is no works of righteousness that your or I may do …

… to reconcile ourselves to a holy God.

Our one hope is that the Lord would save by his grace alone.

And the only way to take hold of that grace, that you would be saved, is by faith alone.

So, let us move forward with expectation that we can know our God and his gospel.

PRAY

5:00

The Gospel in Romans | the power of God for salvation

Let’s Remember Romans

Romans is written by Paul to the city of Rome

Paul is writing as a servant, apostle, and one set apart for the gospel of God.

Paul has actually never been to visit this church in Rome.

So, through this letter, he seeks to provide theologically clear teaching and a unified foundation for the church in Rome.

v7 - to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints.

A diverse church of Jews and Gentiles, facing tensions both internally and externally.

And yet …

v8 - Known for their faith, which is proclaimed in all the world.

So, they have been faithful in adversity and persecution, holding fast to the hope in Christ.

8:00

v16-17 is the Thesis Statement of the Book

Read v16-17.

The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

The gospel is not just about an initial moment of faith

The gospel nurtures and strengthens the believer’s ongoing faith.

Through it, the righteousness of God is revealed, showing us that salvation is entirely by faith from beginning to end.

As the Scriptures declare, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’

Moment by moment, from first to last, our life is by faith in grace upon grace.

This is why Paul is not ashamed of the gospel—it is both the foundation and the sustenance of faith.

11:00

Do we really need to hear this?

Don’t we already know the gospel? Now, we just need to know how to live in this crazy world.

We just read that the whole world at the time had heard about the strength of this church’s faith.

v15 - And yet, Paul was eager to preach the gospel to them!

There must be some great value in preaching the gospel TO THE CHURCH, to those who have already believed.

And so, the answer is yes, you and I still need to hear the gospel.

The gospel is the power of God!

It is the leveraging of his strength to save sinners.

We simply do not graduate from our need for the gospel.

But it is also true that even this great theological letter of Romans is clear and thorough in application.

Romans 1-11 = Doctrine / clear theological teaching

Romans 12-16 = Application

13:00

Four Part Division Of Romans

Romans 1-4 — coming under grace

Here Paul describes the gospel as by Grace Alone through Faith Alone.

These chapters demonstrate the severity of the need for salvation, the futility of any attempt on our part to save ourselves, and how God accomplishes salvation.

These are the chapters we are in this morning.

Romans 5-8 — living under grace

This section covers life in Christ and the hope and assurance believers have in Him.

Romans 9-11 — overflow of grace

This section explores how God’s grace extends to both Jew and Gentile alike, addressing his sovereign plan and the inclusion of all nations in salvation.

Romans 12-16 — a church shaped by grace

… as the gospel transforms both the life of the church and individual believers, calling them to live sacrificially and in unity.

This is what we find in Romans.

We find a gospel that interrupts any faulty, mistaken understandings, our idea of a self-made/self-righteous good news.

We find a gospel that reveals the righteousness of God that is the foundation of our faith.

When we first began in Romans a couple years ago, I preached four sermons that covered these four sections of Romans.

We will link these four sermons on these four sections for you in the Top 3 this week.

17:00

We are still in the first section — Romans 1-4.

Let’s take a moment to see the clear flow of the letter thus far.

After having given the big idea of the letter in v16-17 …

… that the gospel is the power of God for salvation

… for in it the righteousness of God is revealed by faith from first to last

… Paul immediately begins to describe the problem

… why the gospel is needed at all.

Romans 1:18ff — God’s wrath revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

Here, Paul is describing the lostness of the Gentiles.

Please note that he is clear that their lostness means that they are directly under God’s wrath!

Their judgement is explicitly the judgement of God upon their sin.

Justice isn’t just a passive judgement, it is the active wrath of God on sinners.

Romans 2 — Also describes the judgement of God, but in this chapter with a focus on the Jews.

Read Romans 2:12 and Romans 2:25.

So, apart from grace, the judgement of God rests on both Jew and Gentile in this diverse church in Rome.

Romans 3 brings the condition of fallenness and the judgment of God upon this righteousness together for all of mankind.

Read Romans 3:9–11.

So far this doesn’t sound much like good news. Where is the gospel in all this?

There is no gospel, there is no good news, without a clear understanding of the bad news.

To put it another way, there is no salvation without the clear sense of need and personal confession that we need to be saved!

23:00

APPLY

The point of Romans thus far can be summarized like this:

You need the GOSPEL.

If you’re here and you’re still trying to save yourself …

… you need the gospel.

If you’re here and you trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sin …

… you need the gospel.

We do not graduate to some degree of self-righteousness where do not need the gospel.

For in the gospel the righteousness of God has been made manifest!

THE GOSPEL

If you really are a sinner, like our first parents, Adam and Eve, then you are under the judgement of God.

None is righteous, no, not one.

But, if Jesus, God-made flesh, really has come to this earth.

If he really did live a perfect, righteous life.

And, most importantly, if he really has died on a cross in our place.

If Jesus really was cursed on that cross, shame cast upon him for my sin …

… there is utterly no way by the divine justice of my Lord God in heaven that I will ever be cursed for my sin!

This is the gospel!

The gospel is an answer to the question:

How is God righteous, who does not call sinners to account for sin, but rather treats them with divine grace?

God utterly hates my sin and so when the pastor speaks over me… ‘The Lord bless you and keep you,’ he does this because Jesus became a curse and was crushed for me.

So, I am saved, by his grace through faith.

26:00

Now, this brings just right up to our passage this morning.

But we have to get one thing clear before we are able to understand Romans 4.

What is wrong with the world?

It is clear that something has gone terribly wrong with the world!

And, if you’re paying attention, what has gone wrong is that you and I, humanity has gone terribly wrong.

So, is the fix to just start doing remarkably right?

Do we simply just need some cosmic second chance?

So, what is the good life?

Is the good life just to live the good life and so get good things?

Does life and religion just boil down to something more like karma?

Do bad things, get bad things.

But the good news, the gospel, is do good things, get good things?

ILL: There is an old commercial from the 80’s for the investment firm Smith-Barney.

“We make money the old fashioned way. We earn it.”

This has been repurposed as a theological concept with the phrase:

“We get our salvation the old-fashioned way. We earn it!” (See Kent Hughes-NOTES)

29:00

The essential question thus far in Romans is to address what is wrong with the world.

Some would say that what is wrong is that we are living in the mess that we have made.

And this is true.

But, then they would go on to say that we just need to do differently.

We need to clean up the mess.

For those who are religious, this would mean that …

… where we have been unrighteous, it has led to an ungodly disaster for our lives.

So, what is needed is for us to do righteousness …

… in order to clean up the mess.

But the clear teaching of Romans thus far has been this.

We aren’t merely in a mess.

We have come under judgement.

So, no last minute effort to clean things up can ever atone for our sin.

That is, no effort to turn things around on our own can reconcile us to a holy God.

You see, our ungodliness has not only made a mess of the world …

… it has destroyed our relationship with God, who is righteous.

So, we remain under the righteous judgment of God for our sin.

What shall we do?

I hope you can see that the question becomes not merely: What will make the world a better place?

The question is how will we escape the wrath of God on sinners like me?

Romans 1:18 ESV

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

How can unrighteous sinners be declared righteous before the just judgement of God?

32:00

Now, I know we are coming to the end of our time this morning and all that we have had is a recap …

… but this morning is also the beginning of a mini sermon series this Spring in chapters 4-5.

My point in this long recap has been this.

Where we jump back in in Romans 4 is the beginning of our time this spring, but it's not the beginning of an argument.

Let’s look where we left off last year.

We left off at the end of chapter 3.

Where We Left Off

v21-26 - “The righteous God righteously righteouses [or, makes righteous] the unrighteous.” - Andrew Naselli

v21ff - Righteousness of God has been manifested in that sinners are justified by grace through redemption.

But how? How is that righteous?

By the blood of Jesus atoning death received by faith.

v25-26 - This shows God’s righteousness = just and justifier.

v27-31 - Among the redeemed there is no boasting

All who are justified are justified by faith.

Whether Jew or Gentile, circumcised and uncircumcised, justification, salvation redemption is by faith alone.

35:00

So, for our last 10 minutes we come to the question of chapter 4.

What about Abraham? Works or Faith?

Read v1.

What Paul is doing is giving an illustration.

It is the most important illustration that the Apostle Paul, the Jewish former Pharisee, could have given anywhere ever …

… because he is going to Abraham.

Abraham is the patriarch.

He is essentially the founder of the faith.

Now, we know when Mark prays at the end of the prayer confession every week …

… the true author and perfecter of our faith is Jesus.

But, for the Jew, according to the flesh, the patriarch and founder was Abraham.

What is happening in Romans is that this church is being taught the founding perfection of Jesus.

The most shocking thing Paul is saying here is that Abraham wasn’t righteous.

And he wasn’t made righteous by the adoption of religious rituals, nor the works that accompany them.

Abraham was made righteous before the religion was founded!

39:99

Here is how Paul explains it.

v1-3 — If justified by works = boast!

Abraham was no one particularly special.

He had a wife, but no children.

He had no heritage, he had no land of his own.

He had no powerful prospects in the world.

But God came to him with a promise in Genesis 12.

He promised to make Abraham into a great people …

… and through him all the families of the earth would be blessed.

Specifically, in Genesis 15, God promised that Abraham would have a son.

And in Genesis 15:6 we are told that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Many in history have viewed Abraham as a righteous man.

That is, it was by some act of righteousness that Abraham found favor with the Lord.

Which would mean Abraham earned a favor from the Lord.

But this is not the clear teaching of scripture!

When Paul asks the question, what was gained by Abraham …

… he is saying, did Abraham gain or earn something from God?

So he could boast, look what I earned from God!

But the clear answer is no! God made his promise to Abraham and Abraham believed God.

Abraham did nothing, but on account of Abraham’s faith upon the foundation of Lord’s promise of grace …

… the Lord counted him righteous.

That is, unrighteous Abraham was counted righteous …

… not by a work of righteousness

… but by faith alone.

42:00

John Calvin If Abraham was justified by works he has something to boast about; but he does not have anything to boast about before God, and therefore he was not justified by works.

v4 — Works — Wages —> due (not gift)

Amazing grace is often cited as the favorite American hymn.

Now, read this verse.

If our hope of salvation hinges on our works, our righteous …

… there is nothing amazing about grace.

Grace is actually a counterfeit!

It becomes a due, wage.

43:00

But what of the one who does not rest on his works?

Is there any grace for him?

And how might he take hold of this grace?

v5 — Believes — Faith —> counted as righteous

Read v5.

Righteousness is not the result of the works of the sinner to do some righteous deeds or perform some righteous ritual.

The whole argument of Romans is this.

It is not our righteousness that is revealed.

The gospel is the righteousness of God counted or credited to the unrighteous by faith alone.

John Piper When faith is born, we are still ungodly. Faith will begin to overcome our ungodliness. But in the beginning of the Christian life—where justification happens—we are all ungodly.

APPLY

Faith justifies the ungodly.

Do you know anyone that needs to hear this?

Do you know anyone who knows he or she is ungodly?

Perhaps who is avoiding the church altogether precisely because he does not feel like he would be welcomed because of the sort of life that he has lived?

Do you hear the good news of the gospel?

Faith justfies the ungodly.

The gospel is for the one who knows that he does not deserve it.

The gospel is for the one who knows that he is a misfit before a holy God.

But it is the gospel of Jesus Christ that justifies the misfit, that cleanses the unrighteous and declares him justified by faith alone.

Perhaps this is you.

You’ve heard the good news.

Today is the day to believe.

And it is true, that for everyone here who has already believed, it was once all of us.

Or perhaps, you know someone who needs to hear this gospel.

Why aren’t they here? Why haven’t you invited them?

… next week = David

46:00

APPLY

In America, historically we have imagined ourselves as self-made people. We are a kind of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps“ sort of people.

Now, try to do it. The whole point of the origin of this phrase is that it’s not only impossible, it’s absurd.

So too is the idea of boasting before a holy God, or putting him in your debt.

Mention new Podcast — After Sunday

——————

Perhaps you are disappointed, even afraid of a second Donald Trump term.

The inauguration of Donald Trump as president isn’t what is wrong with the world.

Perhaps you’re excited about Monday’s inauguration. Be excited, celebrate whatever is worthy of being celebrated.

But the inauguration of Donald Trump to a second term is not salvation.

If Abraham isn’t the founder and perfecter of our faith, surely Donald Trump is not.

There is one who is righteous.

There is one who is the just and the justifier.

We have one object for our faith.

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