SF 1644 Romans 4

***** SERMON MANUSCRIPT*****

Melburn H. Hardin, D.Min.                Kerrville, Texas

TITLE:   Blessed Are the Forgiven

SCRIPTURE:   Romans 4:4-12

TOPIC: 

SERIES TITLE:   Some of the Other Beatitudes         

INDEX NUMBER:   SF 1644

DATE PREPARED:   2009/01/26

DATE PREACHED:   2009/02/01

PLACE PREACHED:  Kerrville Sunrise Baptist Church

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Introduction

1.  Have you discovered that the Holy Bible is “the happiness book”? Just open it up and read—and see how often the words “bless” and “blessed” appear! Blessed!... In the Hebrew of the Old Testament the word is ashar; in the Greek of the New Testament the word is makarios. Literally, both words translated mean “happy,” “well-off,” “fortunate” and “healthy.”

1. The happiness the Bible tells about is not just the temporary happiness that occurs when things happen just right—like a surprise birthday party, or—back in the old days –when the Dallas Cowboys won titles and SuperBowls. The happiness, the blessedness, that the Holy Scriptures tell about concerns the well-being of one’s soul, of one’s spirit—not just now, but forever!

1. We have just completed a study of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. You may recall that this great sermon began in Matthew, Chapter 5, with “the Beatitudes,” or the list of blessings that our Lord declared.  3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (Etc.)

1. And this particular list of blessings is the most well-known. However, there are other Beatitudes. During the month of February, I would like for us to explore  Some of the Other Beatitudes  we find in the New Testament.

1. This evening, let’s look in Romans 4: “Blessed—Happy, Extremely Fortunate—Are Those Who Are Forgiven.”

I.                   HOW WRETCHED IS THAT PERSON WHO DOES NOT KNOW GOD’S FORGIVENESS!

1. No other burden on earth compares with the heavy burden of sin. Sin is a terrible thing.

1. Here, in our text, the Apostle Paul quoted Psalm 32:1-2  1 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 2 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.   

1. Psalm 32  is the second in the series of the seven penitential psalms (see Ps. 6). David wrote it after confessing to God his sins of adultery, murder, and deception (see 51; 2 Sam. 11–12). In 51:13, King David vowed to share what he had learned from this costly experience, and this psalm is a part of the fulfillment of that promise.

1)      The  Psalmist viewed sins as wrongs committed  against God—“transgressions.” Yes, indeed, our sins hurt ourselves and other persons around us—but most of all our sins are wrongs against our God, our Creator.

2)      Sins are seen loathsome, horrid acts. They need to be covered over, removed from sight—even as dead corpses need to be covered over, hidden.

3)      Sins are seen as crimes which need to be avenged for justice sake.

4)      Sins are represented as offenses, first of all, against Holy God—offenses against his Person, his Majesty, his Purity, his Justice. It is no wonder that the Scriptures tell us that our sins separate us from God!

1. Sin results in alienation from God and death of a person’s spirit.

1)      In his epistle, James gives us much insight into the deadliness of sin. (James 1:13-15)

2)      13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.   

3)      Sin alienates a human being from God, who is Life. It alienates us from God’s fellowship—as on the horizontal, human plane, sin alienates one person from another, a husband from his wife, a child from his parents, a neighbor from his neighbor.

4)      The Bible spares no words to convey the horrible state of one who is trapped in sin, lost in sin. In Luke 15, in his well-known parables Jesus told of a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost boy. The Parable about the Lost Boy (we usually call it “The Parable of the Prodigal Son”) is the most memorable. It tells of a young man who got all the money he could from his father, set off for a distant country and squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, he began to be in need. The Jewish boy was so desperate that he took a job slopping hogs. He was so hungry he wanted to eat the pig slop. And then he came to his senses! He realized just how well off he had been in his father’s house and he headed home!

5)      Jesus  was teaching us that sin is our deliberately withdrawing from the fellowship of God, our heavenly Father. Sin is squandering our lives in riotous living. Sin is starvation from the blessings of God. Sin is the result of losing one’s spiritual sense. The result of sin is being lost, away from God.

6)      How lost is lost? In Ephesians 2:12, the Apostle Paul reminded his new Christian brothers and sisters how lost they had been before they came to Christ. 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.  To

7)      How lost is lost? Well in this text Paul told us that it means one’s being “Christless,” “Churchless,” “Promiseless,” “Hopeless,” and “Godless.”

1. Sin warps the mind, sears the conscience. The Scriptures refer to sin as “the mystery of iniquity”—“the secret power of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:7) 7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.   A mysterious, secret power… why in the world do men and women do the crazy fool wicked things they do?? The stupid, sinful things they do?

1)      Sin brings guilt—“the wicked flee when no man pursueth,”

2)      Sin brings anger—how often family members murder one another during  sinful rages of temper.

3)      Sin brings despair—In his desperation the Prodigal Son wanted to eat pig slop. That’s bad enough. But I once read about a man who found his life so miserable that he took an electric drill and drilled 7 holes in his skull before killing himself.

1. Sin brings eternity in hell. It is appointed unto man once to die—but after this the judgment.

II.                WHAT A MISERABLE FAILURE IS THE LOST SINNER WHO ATTEMPTS TO EARN GOD’S FAVOR AND FORGIVENESS!

1. A sinful man or woman can and does earn his place in hell—“the wages of sin is death.” But there is nothing that anyone can do to earn his place in heaven!

1. In this entire section of the Roman epistle, the writer dealt with the truth that God’s forgiveness and salvation have never been earned by any person—not even by the great Abraham, “the Father of  the Faithful.”

1. One of the major problems with the many “World’s Religions” is that they all teach ways to earn the favor of their supreme being, or system. Christianity, on the other hand, proclaims that God’s favor—his amazing, beneficent grace—is  seeking to save men from their sins.

1. Martin Luther, when he was a monk, tried to work his way into God’s grace and into a place in heaven. He told of climbing the scala sancta on his knees, as a means of showing his penance to God. And then one day, the Holy Spirit revealed to him that man is not saved by works, but by faith in the grace of God!

1. Long before Martin Luther, there was Saul of Tarsus, trying to work his way to heaven. He was dead serious about it, i.e., deadly serious. He thought he could please God by having Christians arrested and killed. And then Christ appeared to him on the Damascus Road. He realized that only by placing is faith in the righteousness of Christ could he please God and have salvation of his soul. Hear his testimony (Philippians 3:4-10) …If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. 7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.  

1. Those lost sinners who try to please God with their “good works” only compound their miseries. You just cannot make yourself right with God no matter how hard you try!

III.             BUT, O HOW BLESSED ARE THE FORGIVEN!

1. Here in Romans 4, God’s Word speaks of the happiness, the well-being for all eternity, that comes with God’s full and gracious pardon. It comes by faith in Christ, in his Person and in his sacrificial work.

1. When we trust Christ, our iniquities are forgiven like a debt that has been canceled, the score against us has been erased. Jesus died in our place.

1. Our sin is covered. You remember that old Ark of the Covenant, that chest of acacia wood that contained the stone tables of the Commandments that Moses had brought down from Mount Sinai? That chest was covered with an ornate lid called “The Mercy Seat.” Even as that Mercy Seat hid the engraved Law from view, Christ’s blood covers our transgressions against that Law, hides them from view. Even as a stone that is hurled into the sea is buried by the waters, Even as white, fleecy snow hides an ugly landscape, so our sins are covered by the blood of Jesus!

1. Note Verse 7 again: 7“Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered” What does it mean that our sin are covered by the blood of Jesus? Old Dr. Harry Ironside told of visiting a sheep ranch in Texas. As he was looking around the corrals he saw the strangest looking creature he ever saw. It looked something like a sheep—but it had four front legs, four hind legs and two heads! He asked his host, the sheep rancher, “What in the world is that?”

1. The rancher chuckled and told him. “The other evening we had a healthy ewe deliver a dead lamb. The same evening we had another ewe deliver a healthy lamb, but she died in the process. We attempted to save the newborn lamb by giving it to the ewe that had lost hers. But she would have no part of it. The lamb would try to suckle and she would drive it away.

1. One of our hired hands came up with a clever idea. He skinned the dead lamb, leaving the head and legs attached to the skin. He tied the dead lamb’s skin to the orphan lamb. When we brought the covered lamb to the ewe who had lost her lamb, she immediately approached it, smelled it and adopted it as her own! It is a beautiful creature to her, because it is clothed in garments of her own!

1. Oh, my brothers and sisters, that is the way God sees us, when we are covered with the blood and righteousness of our Savior. God sees—not our ugly sins, but the righteousness of his dear Son! We are covered.

1. The Lord will not impute—reckon—our sins to us. This is “justification”—“just as if I’d never sinned!” (Psalm 103) 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. You realize how far that is? Dale, each of your daughters, the one who lives in Australia and the one who lives in Indonesia probably suppose that they have some inkling how far it is! But it is so far one could never get there throughout eternity!

1. A full pardon! Just last month President Bush commuted the sentences of the two Border Patrol Officers who had shot and wounded the drug dealer. But that did not mean they were pardoned; it meant that they did not have to serve any more time. They are still convicted felons. But when God forgives ours sins through the atoning work of Christ Jesus we have a full pardon. We are no longer convicted felons, we become adopted children of God!  Jesus said such forgiveness brings a new life. It is like being born again. It means cimpletely starting our lives over with God.

1. In Romans 5:1-11, we are given some of the “blessings of being justified.”    Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we  have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we  rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we  also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.