Justified by Faith - Rom. 4:1-12
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Intro:
Faith is central to all of life. For example, at some point in our lives, many of us will go to a doctor whose name we cannot pronounce and whose degrees we have never verified. He/she gives us a prescription we cannot read. We take it to a pharmacist we have never seen before. He/she gives us a chemical compound we do not understand. Then we go home and take the pill according to the instructions on the bottle. All in trusting, sincere reliance - FAITH!
Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 135.
That’s what faith is - reliance, trust, dependance.
When I came in this morning, I was not skeptical turning on the lights. I trusted the switch and the good people of the Linton Electrical Department to have done their job.
When you came in to sit down in your pew, you weren’t concerned wether it would hold your whole row up. You sat down relying on it to do so.
When you hopped in your car to drive through the wintery/spring tundra - many of you weren’t hoping the car would start just one more time. You were dependent that it would.
That’s what faith is - reliance, trust, dependance.
Now, before we make the main theme of our passage today too elementary, please understand that although this is the simplest of truths, it brings with it the most difficult of application.
As we have seen throughout Romans already, every facet of human nature has been tainted by sin. To express reliance, trust, and dependance in a biblical sense is not easy.
1. The Example of Abraham (vv. 1-3)
1 What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?
2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
2. The Explanation of Justification (vv. 4-5)
4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.
5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,
3. The Emphasis of David (vv. 6-8)
6 just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered;
8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”
4. The Extension to All (vv. 9-12)
9 Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness.
10 How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.
11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also,
12 and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.
WEEKLY FOCUS:
7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered;
8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”
Works don’t merit righteousness; therefore, we have no reason to boast. Live humbly this week, grateful for the gift of God’s grace.