1. Justification… Salvation… they come to us by faith.
a. It’s a wonderful work of God’s Grace that sinners can be cleansed, changed, and redeemed by faith!
b. It’s not by keeping the 10 Commandments.
c. It’s not by keeping elaborate codes of conduct.
d. It’s not by rituals and religious expressions.
e. But Salvation & Justification come by faith!
Ephesians 2:8-10 (NKJV) 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Writing to the believers in Rome, Paul anticipates the questions that will be on the mind of all the believing Jews.
• “What about our Father Abraham?” How does he fit in?
• I thought you had to be a Jew first, then become a Christian.
• What you’re teaching Paul sounds so foreign to the Old Test.
CH 4 opens with Paul so brilliantly using Abraham, the father of faith, as a power example of man saved by grace through faith!
I. (4:1-4) Abraham.
1. (1) What did Abraham find in his works?
a. Most people thought that Abraham had perfectly obeyed the Law of God and that was why he was saved.
b. After all, he was the “father of their nation”.
c. According to the Mishnah & other Jewish writings & traditions, Abraham was SO PERFECT that he never had to repent!
d. The book of Jubilees, a text written around 200 BC said:
For Abraham was perfect in all his deeds with the Lord, and well-pleasing in righteousness all the days of his life… Jubilees 23
http://ccel.org/ccel/charles/otpseudepig/jubilee/23.htm
That’s funny… Abraham never sinned? Is that true?
• Well just ask Sarah! He had to repent a couple of times for the things he did to her huh?
But that’s on the minds of the people… Abraham our father in the faith was perfect… so if it was good enough for him then it’s good enough for me.
APP: TRADITION can really blind a person to the truth.
• And some of the toughest traditions can be religious traditions.
• “We’ve always done it this way so we’ll always do it this way.”
• But what if the Lord wants to do something new & fresh?
The real question is: Are you ready for a new work?
Are you ready for God to do something new and radical in your life?
• OR Are you really happy with how things are going & would be very upset if God changed things?
APP: I think it’s so easy to get comfortable and then become immovable and eventually become unusable in the Kingdom of God.
• Maybe you never associated comfort with being unusable but that’s the predictable pattern for the cruising Christian.
• Flip over to Matthew 9.14-17
Basically Jesus is saying that He didn’t come to sew up a ripped old garment. (The traditions, rules and legalism of the Pharisees.)
• The Pharisees had become so dry, so inflexible, so rigid
• Jesus came to do a new work, bringing a new covenant.
APP: A prayer I pray for you individually and as Calvary Chapel is that we not become rigid & inflexible to the leading of the Spirit.
• Just as denominations and movements before us, we can become so fixed in our ways that we lose sight of God’s work today!
• Oh the 70’s, peace man, praise the Lord. YES… praise the Lord.
• But what about 2006!? How is God doing a work in you today!
NOTE: Often when God wants to do a new work, he bypasses the old work and the established system altogether.
• We don’t want to be established… known as a immovable work.
• We don’t want to be passed up and passed over!!!
We’ve got guard against the notion that we’ve got it figured out.
• I’m not ashamed to stand before you and say that there is much in this church that I just don’t have an answer for!
• I’m praying, seeking God’s face, trusting in Him… but still waiting for His direction and confirmation.
• We want to give God room to work, to overwhelm us!
• To pour new wine into a new wineskin!
APP: So be careful of tradition, any tradition so that it doesn’t become a stumbling block to you when the Lord wants to do something fresh, new and exciting!
2. (2-3) What can Abraham boast about?
a. What was it in Abraham’s life? His good deeds?
b. Is that how God accepted him?
c. If that was the case, then he COULD boast.
d. But from God’s view, he had nothing at all to take glory in or brag about. -- He didn’t do anything but believe God!
LET’S GO BACK TO GENESIS 15:1-6ff
• Earlier, in CH12, God appeared to Abraham and told him to leave his country & was promised to the father of many nations.
• God comes to him now and speaks to him… Abraham believes!
NOTE: The Bible says that God saves us the SAME WAY!
• We believe the Lord and the truth about Jesus Christ that He lived, He died, and He rose again to forgive our sins.
• We believe that if Jesus died for us, then we should live for Him.
• And it’s our faith that is accounted for righteousness.
• Read on from v7-21. INTERESTING… What’s missing?
• Abraham! Where is he? Divinely paralyzed through it all.
• He can see everything that’s going on but can’t move!
• God is doing it all. Abraham isn’t doing anything!
• All he could do was lay there watch God perform!
APP: That’s the love of God for you as he reaches down to save & rescue & save you.
• And like Abe, we believe & God accounts it as righteousness.
Job 37:14 (NKJV) 14 “Listen to this, O Job; Stand still and consider the wondrous works of God.
2 Chronicles 20:17 (NKJV) 17 You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!’ Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you.”
BUT I have to believe. Got to believe, it’s all dependent upon me!
• Yes, you need to believe, but don’t make belief supreme.
What if out at the Aurora Reservoir I saw you flailing in the middle of the water… close to doing under.
• I notice I have a rope and I throw it out to you.
• I cry out to hold on to the rope or you’ll go under. Hold on!
• Now when I pull you in, who are you going to thank?
• Your hands? The rope? The boat? “Oh what a great rope you are. You saved me little rope! I owe you my life?” NO way!
• Hopefully you’re going to thank me! Thanks Ed. Wow!
God has given us faith for salvation… it’s a gift from God.
• He threw you and me a rope… even that rope is a gift from God.
• It’s not my works, not my grabbing or grasping. It’s God!
• We can’t boast in hanging on to the rope.
• The Lord could have made a noose out of that rope for me if He wanted to. I deserved it!
• But instead in draws me and saved me by grace through faith.
• It’s GRACE THROUGH FAITH. It’s not just faith alone.
• It’s not alone, faith has to be tied to someone
• Jesus saved us. He rescued us. He delivered us. He helped.
• Our faith is tied to Jesus Christ who is full of Grace & Truth!
NOTE: The word “ACCOUNTED” in v3 is a banker’s term.
• It literally means to ‘put to one’s account’.
• Spiritually, you and I were bankrupt, empty, lost.
• But now by faith, God fills our spiritual account with the very righteousness of Jesus Christ! We are full in Him!
You see if we worked for it… if we earned it… then God would owe us. But notice v4-5
3. (4-5) Not wages but grace.
NOTE: We recently put up some posters in our kitchen at the office, café.
• They dictate to all employees what the bare minimum is in our working relationship. It’s called the minimum wage.
• For any employee, the bare minimum that we as a church would owe them is a set amount.
• That’s the agreement between employer & employee.
But with God, there is nothing we could to that would cause God to owe us salvation!!
• But rather, God justifies the ungodly… the undeserving!
CAN YOU IMAGINE the shock that would be to the Jewish hearer?
How can God justify ungodly people?
• All their lives, they were taught:
Exodus 23:7 (NKJV) 7 Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked.
Deuteronomy 25:1 (NKJV) 1 “If there is a dispute between men, and they come to court, that the judges may judge them, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked,
SO WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? What’s the Answer? THE CROSS!
• Jesus Christ took the wrath of God so that we can take His righteousness upon ourselves.
• I didn’t earn it. I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t merit it.
• God reached down to me in my despair.
Romans 4:4-5 (NLT) When people work, their wages are not a gift. Workers earn what they receive. 5 But people are declared righteous because of their faith, not because of their work.
WHEN a person really believes in Jesus, then his righteousness becomes their righteousness.
• It really just blows us away doesn’t it?
• I mean I know me, I know my failures & shortcomings.
• But I’m so grateful for what Jesus has done for me that I give him my life. You can have it all Jesus. Use me.
But it’s the person that really doesn’t understand the grace of God that will live a life that displeases the Lord.
• A party life. A sexually immoral life. A life that gives no regard for the price Jesus paid to rescue you & me from sin’s grasp!
• Oh I held on to the rope. I’m the one that saved myself!
• No way… Peter says.
1 Peter 4:3-4 (NKJV) 3 For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. 4 In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you.
Jesus died for me. I live for Him. That’s my life! The more I know Him, the more I love Him! It’s so cool.
• And when you preach the gospel, the good news of God’s grace, there is no need for carnal methods to attract people to church.
• Free candy. Free gifts. Free money. There is a church in town that gives away $100 every service.
• Listen what we have to give is the free gift of salvation that comes through faith in Jesus Christ!
• My heart is to motivate you with love. You fall in love with Jesus and then your heart is so captivated with Him.
2 Cor 5:14-15 (NLT) Whatever we do, it is because Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for everyone, we also believe that we have all died to the old life we used to live. 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live to please themselves. Instead, they will live to please Christ, who died and was raised for them.
