Not Sinners, Than Who? (5)

Knowing God and Knowing You

Last week we discussed how we are no longer sinners, but we are Righteous. We are called to be the Righteous sons and daughters of God and we need to embrace what that means. But we also need to understand what it means to be righteous and to do this I want to take you to the first place the word Righteousness is used in the bible.

Genesis 15:6 NLT

6 And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.

God created his first covenant with Abram also known as Abraham. This covenant would be the continuing of God’s people through Abraham’s seed. Although Abraham was old and without children God promised to give him children.

Abraham’s lineage continues today because in

Romans 4:11 (ESV)

11 The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe...

So because of the initial act of faith and righteousness God’s promise to Abraham has continued for thousands of years.

However, Genesis 15:6 is quoted 3 times in the bible. So let’s break this verse down to understand why Abraham was counted as righteous.

First Abraham believed.

Believed

The idea of believe mean to prove to be firm or to put your entire weight on.

It stems from this idea. If I told you that tomorrow the S&P 500 stock would rise in in value tomorrow in ways the world has ever seen. There will be 3 types of people.

Those who don’t believe-They do nothing

Those who are hesitant- they will put a small chunk of funds in

Those who believe- They will place every available dollar into the stock

Abraham would have been in the 3rd group. The idea of believe is to give your full self over. holding nothing back.

This is why Paul in the book of Romans used Abraham’s belief to discuss salvation, because to live a righteous life you must not only be willing to give it all, but you must give it all, hold nothing back.

Abraham left his family. Went to an unknown destination. Followed God to the fullest extent.

Salvation isn’t received by making promises to God, but rather believing the promises of God.

Romans 4:18 NLT

18 Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping—believing that he would become the father of many nations. For God had said to him, “That’s how many descendants you will have!”

In hope he believed against hope-There was no reason for hope, but he had hope anyway.

It’s a simple phrase that means he looked past the natural. He looked past what he saw and into the promises of God.

Many are sitting here today in what may seem to be a hopeless situation, but Christ is saying do not look at what you see, but look past sight and into my word. Hope is what is promised not in what is taking place. In the natural Sarah was baren. They were old. They didn’t have a home. But they didn’t know the future. They didn’t know what God was about to do. They didn’t know what was around the corner.

The difference between an over comer and the overcome is that the overcomer didn’t give up when things looked bleak.

2) counted/imputed

Some versions of the bible use the term imputed. ESV mean uses counted, but it means the same thing. It’s a term of finance.

Imputed: means to assign a value when the actual value isn’t known. or its value added by its usefulness.

See what this means is that God removed Abraham’s wordly value-How the world perceived his use-fullness and credit to Him God’s value.

In the world we are measured by many things: Our credit score, our net worth, the car we drive, the house we own, the job we have. People assign value to us every day, but God has removed the value people assigned and given you Jesus’ value instead.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus took our imputed value and gave us his which gives us the name of Righteousness.

Righteousness

It isn’t what we earn it’s the very title we are given.

Romans 4:4–5 NLT

4 When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. 5 But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners.

Imputed Righteous isn’t because we inheritantly have value, but rather because God designated Jesus’ value to us.

When Jesus took the cross he took our negative balance and gave us abundant blessing.

Romans 4:7–8 NLT

7 “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight. 8 Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.”

Listen: This morning although you may not see hope we need to beleive that there is hope because God is still on the thrown.

God desires you to look past your current circumstance because he desires to bless you. He wants you to see past the natural and into the super natural. This morning you have hope, not because you created hope, but because God desires to give you hope. He desires to pour hope into you. He desires to infuse your being with blessings and hopefulness.