Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome

Good morning,

I hope all of you have enjoyed your weeks.

I know we are very glad to see all of you here.

You may have noticed the TV in the hallway that was gifted to us for our welcome center:

We see the need for a welcome center that helps visitors get connected here

So we’ll use this to help visitors get to know us and see what’s coming up

And we’ll also use this to communicate to you about key events

I also want to pull back the curtain to give you a look into just some of the work that is being done right now behind the scenes:

We have been putting an extraordinary amount of work into our live-streaming

We’ve been learning the systems necessary to streamline that content and make it better

For those of you joining us by Zoom, FB, or now by YT, I think you’ll see the difference

This is the first step in something that I think is critical to get our message out.

Without droning on about this too much, you will be seeing some huge improvements in our online presence in the coming weeks.

So if you are online, try to get connected with us.

Make sure you “like” and “share” our videos.

Challenge

Internalize the word: our church family has challenges each month that help equip us for our mission and keep us focused on the task God has called us to.

We are focusing this month on internalizing God’s word.

This includes memorizing Scripture to the extent you are able, but it is primarily focused on meditating on the word so that it dwells richly within you, enabling you to give timely answers to the people God brings your way.

Reading Assignments

Romans 4:9-17

Everything Set Right By Faith

Go Live: Smile: Pause

I hope you have all come hungry for God’s word because we have some really rich treasures to unpack this morning.

Our lesson today tells the story of how God is going to set to right everything that has been broken by sin.

All the suffering we see in this world that comes from the darkness of evil; all the pain we see in this broken world that comes from the corruption that was inflicted upon God’s creation by sin; God is setting everything right.

But even more than this, we discover today that the way God is setting everything right through faith has been God’s plan all along.

Far from being God’s plan-B now that the righteousness of the law has failed, faith has always been the means by which God sets right all that has gone wrong when people doubted him and rebelled against his way.

So the extraordinarily good news that Paul is unpacking for us from the gospel is that there is a way for deeply broken people to be really set right with a truly holy God.

In Jesus we find the means to reestablish our trust in God through his unfailing love.

Exegesis

MOVE quickly > > >

Now we will benefit from some brief exegesis so that we can understand how this wonderful news is told to us.

We want to understand the author’s original intent so that when we draw our living applications from God’s word, we are doing so as truly enlivened by God’s word!

You’ll notice as you read this section from 4:1 through verse 25 that 3:31 functions something like a hinge upon which Paul closes off one discussion and opens the next.

This verse doesn’t set the theme of the next section as much as it states the underlying principle that transitions us forward.

And as Paul swings open the door to this next section, he poses a rhetorical question that he uses to set the stage for his subordinate propositional statement in verses 3-4.

You may recognize this setup because it functions much the same way that 1:15-16 set the stage for Paul’s thesis in 1:17, which then launch his first subordinate proposition statement in 1:18 that propelled the first two arguments forward.

Then the question Paul poses in 4:2 sets one of the major themes of this section, and indeed, of the gospel itself, and builds directly off the rhetorical question of 3:27.

My last exegetical comment is that we should observe an important shift in Paul’s rhetorical style from the use of logical arguments to illustration.

Paul’s prior movements have been logical arguments, which are used to engage opposing perspectives in order to establish the validity of one’s own position.

Illustrations, however, are used to explain the meaning and function of one’s argument.

And what kind of illustration is Paul going to use to launch this section with?

A case study on Abraham.

This case study is how Paul drives home the continuity of God’s redemptive plan for humanity from the very beginning; the righteousness of God that has been revealed in the good news of Jesus is not, in fact, some kind of last-ditch effort to redeem people.

The Law hasn’t failed in its design.

Actually, faith has been God’s plan all along and attested by the law and the prophets.

You’ll see this point made in 3:21.

So there is a sense in which 4:1–12 provides the validation for this claim.

But even more than this, we now learn that this kind of righteousness is explicitly connected to God’s promises to Abraham.

Abraham Justified By Faith

Now that we see how Paul is swinging open the door to this section by using Abraham as an illustrative case study on the righteousness that comes by faith, let’s take a closer look at our text.

“What then” (“Τί οὖν”) (v.

1): You’ll recognize the logical conjunction “οὖν” by now, which “serves to continue the narrative after an interruption or digression.”

The difference is that this phrase is in question form, meaning that Paul is asking a rhetorical question to make a point.

He draws his point here all the way through the previous arguments to his thesis in 1:17 on the righteousness of God that is revealed through faith.

And the rhetorical point that he is making here is that Abraham has found something greater through faith than what was given by Moses through the Law.

So Abraham becomes a linchpin in Paul’s argument concerning how righteousness in God’s presence has come to humanity quite apart from the Law.

“Will we say that Abraham our forefather according to the flesh” (v.

1): Although you may recall from our study in Matthew’s gospel how much more emphasis first-century Jews put on Moses than Abraham, Paul rather sees Abraham and David as the central figures of the Old Testament.

Not only is Abraham the forefather of the Jewish people by physical descent, but he is also the one to whom the promises of God’s grace were first entrusted.

MOVE quickly > > >

By introducing Abraham as “our ancestor according to the flesh”, Paul lays the groundwork for chapters 7-8, where he develops a flesh vs. spirit dichotomy, where flesh stands in opposition to faith.

But the big idea for this section is Abraham’s discovery regarding faith and righteousness.

“Has found” (v.

1): By asking his audience to think about what Abraham has found in trusting God, Paul intends to help us discover the point that Abraham’s standing before God was based on God’s grace from the very outset.

Even more than that, Abraham’s standing with God was determined by this same grace from then on.

MOVE quickly > > >

I think it’s useful here to understand how Paul’s case study engages his audience.

There was an idea at the time that even though Abraham did not have the law, he was still righteous and kept the Law because God had already written the Law on his heart.

We see this kind of argument in 2 Baruch 57.2.

But Paul has already shown how no one keeps the moral law of God that has been written in their consciences (2:1, 12).

The deliberative nature of Paul’s case study on Abraham is clear: Paul is using this case-study on Abraham to establish and promote a new kind of community and value system.

Abraham turns out not only to be the forefather of the Jewish people by physical descent, but also of Gentile Christians by spiritual descent through faith.

And this “faith” becomes the basis for Christian unity since we all are united by faith in Christ as Abraham’s heirs.

“If Abraham was justified by works” (v.

2): At this point many casual readers make a critical mistake by reading this case study on Abraham with reference merely to personal salvation.

Many read this section as simply being about how we are individually saved through faith.

And, although Paul’s point undoubtedly has clear implications for our personal relationship with God, it is not primarily offering some kind of personal soteriology.

So I think we’ll benefit from an illustration offered by N.T. Wright:

Imagine a four-year-old boy who has lost his parents in a terrible war.

He is old enough to understand, and to grieve, but nothing like old enough to fend for himself.

Some distant relatives take him in for a while, but are unable to keep in permanently for lack of space and resources.

So he’s put up for adoption only to wonder what will become of him.

Then one day a couple without children of their own ask to adopt him.

His emotions are strongly mixed.

He’s naturally excited to finally have a home with people who seem loving, but at the same time he’s worried.

What sort of people are they?

Where exactly do they live?

What sort of life do they have?

In short, what kind of family is he about to Join?

This is the natural question that Paul is asking at this point considering what he has said in 1:5, 15, 17, and 3:21–31.

What kind of family are Christians becoming part of through faith in Christ when they are adopted as God’s children by the Holy Spirit?

So, when we read chapter three as though it were simply about how individual sinners are justified by grace through faith, without reference to God’s promises to Israel, to the covenant, and to justifying the claim that the believer is now part of God’s covenant through faith, then this excursion in chapter four into Abraham comes as quite a surprise.

Why would Paul suddenly want to talk about Abraham?

Paul’s point is actually about how Abraham is the forefather of God’s people through faith, by which an entirely new community has been realized by God’s promises, through which, and in which, God will finally deal with evil and set the whole world right.

“He has something to boast about” (v.

2): So if Abraham was made righteous by his works, then of course salvation is something to be earned.

Those who are saved, then, actually do have something to boast about since they have brought salvation about by the valor of their own works.