The testimony of two giants Romans 3:27-4:8
There were three children bragging about their fathers: the first one said, “My dad’s so smart he can talk for one hour on any subject.” The second one said, “My dad’s so smart he can talk for two hours on any subject.” Finally, the third one said, “My dad’s so smart he can talk for 3 hours and he doesn’t even need a subject.” Makes you wonder if they were preacher’s kids.
Here's Paul again writing to the Romans and I’ll begin where I left off last day.
27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31 Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? 2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3 What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
4 Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. 5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.
6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: 7 “Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven; whose sins are covered. 8 Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”
Some of us who’ve been in church all our lives might feel as though we’re head and shoulders above those who were saved off the streets, but the fact is; we’ve all been saved from a terrible place called hell which we deserved and when we get to heaven we’re going to understand fully when we see Jesus in all of His glory that none of us have anything to brag about.
Listen, the Bible describes us all as sinful and as Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” That means that there is no one, past, present or in the future who ever has been or ever will be someone who has never sinned and come short of God’s expectations. We are either saved by God’s grace or we’re not saved at all.
D.L Moody once said: “It is a good thing that man cannot save himself; for if a man could work his way to Heaven, you would never hear the last of it. Why, when someone gets a little ahead of others, you hear him boast of being a self-made man. I’m so glad that through all eternity we’ll never have to hear anyone bragging about how hard he had to work to get there."
I can't brag about how much I love God because I fail him daily, but I can brag about His love for me because it never fails. There is a Spanish proverb that says: “Tell me what you brag about, and I’ll tell you what you lack.” And another said, “Noise proves nothing. Often the hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.”
When I was a salesman, I had a customer who was always bragging about how much he had won the previous night at the racetrack. One day he told me he probably averaged a few hundred a night and I asked him how he did it. He said, “the secret was; he studied the horses and knew which one was going to win.”
I always felt bad when I had to call on him because I was just a salesman and I knew I’d never gamble because I also knew I’d be sure to lose everything I had. But years later I was thinking about him and I began to wonder, “Why was he still working at a dead-end job in a small company that didn’t seem to have any future?” The answer was simple: he was a typical braggard. And I wondered, if he really considered himself to be so much smarter than me; then why did he try so hard to impress me?
One thing I learned from him is, braggarts always appear as though they’re someone great when in reality they’re simply empty souls who are trying to pump themselves up.
Many of us were fortunate enough to be brought up by loving parents who celebrated our every expression of creativity and they rejoiced in our every success, often doing what they could to lay a good foundation for a healthy self image. If and when we mature we realize that not everyone is as excited for our success as mommy and daddy were.
So, in verse 27 Paul asks an interesting question and it’s, “Where is boasting?” Or as we’d say, “What have you got to brag about?” Have you done anything to save yourselves; or are you saved by faith?
Listen, it doesn’t matter who your parents were, where you were born or how much you’ve given or accomplished to expand the kingdom; because if you’re not saved by faith, then you’re not saved at all. And this applies not only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles.
I Faith is the key
II Abraham was the first giant of faith
III David was the second man of faith
I Faith is the key
Faith is one of those words that seems so simple and yet it’s can be very difficult to understand. The problem is, many of us have many misconceptions of what faith really is.
First then, faith is our full and unreserved confidence in God and it’s in His love and His power to help us in any and every situation and our faith is expressed through prayer.
Second, faith is also an absolute belief in the Bible, which is God’s message to mankind in general and to you and I in particular. The Bible says in Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” And in Hebrews 11:1 it says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” So, God hasn’t left us to figure out life for ourselves but He’s given us His word so we can both know Him and His will for our lives.
Third, as I said, faith is a belief or confidence in God; but James adds to this by saying, “Faith without works is dead.” So, if you have faith and you have no desire to do anything then what you have is a dead and useless faith. In Ephesians 2:10, Paul tells us we were “created in Christ Jesus to do good works.” In other words, if you’re saved by faith, then you’ll naturally want to share your faith with others, and the reason is, so they can be saved as well. The things we do are never a substitute for faith but they’re the natural result of faith.
The word ‘faith’ is only expressed as a verb, because faith never exists apart from action, because apart from action, there is no faith.
Hebrews 11 is full of people who are famous for their faith. But have you ever noticed that all of them are presented in terms of some kind of action? Noah built an ark, Abraham left his home, Sarah was enabled to have children, Jacob blessed his grandsons, Joseph gave instructions about what to do about his bones, Moses chose to be mistreated and Joshua fought for God and his people. And then there are a list of those who suffered and died and they all did this because of their faith.
Faith starts as a belief in God but this belief always expresses itself in action. I’ve had people say to me, my gift is giving and what they mean is they’re well to do and give a substantial amount of money to the Lord’s work but serving God is much more than simply writing a check.
I believe there are some who have the gift of giving but this doesn’t take the place of any other form of service. The one whose spiritual gift is giving is giving what he has to God and his giving goes beyond the ordinary because they’re motivated by God to do whatever they can to serve the church. Their motive is always to further the work of God whether it’s in the life of individuals or organizations because their giving is an act of faith.
Many times, I’ve heard non-Christians say, “You just have to have faith.” But what they really mean is, you have to have faith in faith. Susan Walker in the Christmas movie Miracle on 34th Street said, “I believe; I believe. It’s silly, but I believe.” And there are many who have this same kind of faith which is nothing more than a blind leap in the dark.
Our faith is in the finished work of Jesus Christ and from there we live from faith to faith. Blind faith is not faith at all.
William Von Osten was a mathematics teacher and horse trainer and he managed to teach a horse how to perform arithmetic. The horse was named Clever Hans, and it would solve calculations such as adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing and the horse would share the results by tapping his hoof a certain number of times.
Questions could be asked both orally and in written form and Clever Hans was right 90% of the time. The animal understandably became a sensation.
In 1907, psychologist Oskar Pfungst decided to investigate the extraordinary phenomenon and what he found was; when the horse was placed behind a curtain so he couldn’t see the spectators, or when he was wearing blinders, or when the questionnaire did not know the answer to the question, the horse couldn’t perform the calculations correctly anymore.
The problem was the horse had never been counting; he had been reading cues from the audience to determine when to stop tapping his hoof. The more excited people looked, the closer he could guess he was coming to the right answer. These people had faith but it was in a horse who counted even count.
But listen, our faith is not blind; but our faith is based on the word of God. Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Only he who obeys truly believes, and only he who believes truly obeys.”
I’ve experienced a few answers to prayer in my life but I would hardly compare myself to George Mueller who had prayed, believed God daily and then saw God’s provision on almost a daily basis. George had founded and ran several Christian orphanages and he was dependant on God’s miraculous power to provide the needs of these homeless children.
As we see the many miracles Jesus performed; He never did anything to impress anyone or to demonstrate how important He was; but He was constantly meeting people at the point of their need, whether their needs were healing, provisions or delivering some from the powers of the devil. Jesus faith demonstrated His absolute dependence on His Father in heaven and our faith is to do the same.
In this chapter Paul gives two great examples of two of the greatest leaders in the Old Testament and both of these were saved and served in faith. The first one is Abraham who is referred to as the father of our faith because his faith is the faith of both the Jews and the Gentiles. In Genesis 15:5 God said to Abraham, “Look now toward the heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them. So shall your descendants be.”
II Abraham is the first giant of the faith.
And get this, Abraham never owned a Bible and he had never attended any kind of temple or synagogue and he never even had someone teach him about the things of the Lord. But the scripture says he was justified because he believed God.
There have been many times in my life when I’ve preached in prisons, churches or young people’s events and I’ve given an invitation and I’ve never known if someone had responded after the event but God could have used these times.
I remember playing guitar and singing on a cable TV show and thinking what a waste of time it was. A couple of years later a young woman approached me at a coffee shop I was singing at and told me she had been contemplating suicide but remembered seeing me on the show I thought was a waste of time and God spoke to her and she gave her life to Him. So, sometimes we see the fruit of our work while other times we sow seeds and others reap but we’ll never know what we’ve accomplished until we get to heaven.
I remember someone asking me after I preached to a group of teens if there were any decisions and I said, “There were several, a few decided to follow Christ but more than a few decided they weren’t interested.”
But God spoke to Abraham and Abraham was saved and he went on to become the father of our faith. And here, Paul uses him as the ultimate example of someone who was considered to be righteous before God and this was around 600 years before the law was even given. So, if salvation only came from someone who was obedient to the Law then how could Abraham be justified since the law didn’t even exist while he was alive?
I think Paul uses Abraham as an example because the Jews were hoping they were right with God because of their relationship to Abraham. He also used Abraham as an example because he lived before the practice of circumcision and circumcision was seen as an act of entering into the covenant between them and God but listen, he was declared righteous before circumcision.
So, by using Abraham as the scriptural example of justification, or salvation, by faith alone, Paul was undermining the belief of many of the Jews. After all, if Abraham was not justified by works then how could they claim they were? If he wasn’t then no one could be. On the other hand, if Abraham was justified on the basis of his faith in God, then everyone else had to be justified in the same way.
And then Paul goes straight for the heart by stating that all have sinned and all must come to God through faith in Jesus Christ. It makes no difference whether you’re Jew or Gentile because everyone stands on the same level when it comes to being lost without Jesus Christ.
There are many today who believe that those who lived in Old Testament times were saved by a different way than we are today. They believe that we’re saved by grace but the Old Testament saints were saved by their obedience to the law. But listen, Paul’s point is that Abraham was saved in the exact same way we are today.
So, Abraham was saved by grace through faith and everyone whether Jew or Gentile must be saved the same way.
In Ephesians 2:8 it says: 'By grace are you saved through faith' - do you know what 'grace' means? Grace means God's undeserved favor and goodness. You see, if you think you deserve God's forgiveness, you'll never have it - because the very nature of God's forgiveness is that it's undeserved. That's why we sing: 'Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling'. We are forgiven because we confess, we’re sinners and receive His forgiveness and not forgiveness in general but forgiveness for every sin we’re ever committed.
Dostoevsky has this fabulous observation. He says, "Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind."
Listen, God is not looking for good hard-working people to save. God is looking for those who realize how wicked they are who are willing to come to him without no claim of goodness. God is simply looking for sinners who know they need to be saved.
We are seeing some major changes in our world today because the evangelical church seems to be less evangelical than before. The focus of many churches is no longer reaching out with the gospel but their goal seems to be drawing the unsaved in with their preaching, music and programing. Now listen, I love good music and good preaching and I also love it when there are good programs to reach not only the youth but the seniors as well; but whatever happened to evangelism. Very few churches ever invite those who are gifted evangelists and there are many more who never even give an invitation for salvation.
And then Paul gives one more example of someone who was saved by faith and not works and that’s David.
III David was another giant of our faith.
As we read the many psalms and the books about David, I’m afraid we tend to belittle his faith because he was not only the king, but he was also a very good-looking guy with musical abilities who had won every battle he ever fought and at the end of his life his total wealth was simply beyond our comprehension. I mean, he gave about four billion dollars to the building of the temple before he died. I love the guy but I also find him hard to relate to.
On the other hand, even though he had come from a wealthy family he was the one they put in charge of the sheep. He was also the one who was sent to the battle lines with supplies for his brothers. After his defeat of Goliath, he worked for King Saul and yet several times Saul attempted to kill him. He married Saul’s daughter Michael who was given to someone else when David had to escape for his life and then later; they lived together but separately because she had mocked his faith.
His initial army were a group of social misfits who were totally in debt and then later when he was king several of his leaders left him to join Absalom his son in a rebellion while others defied his authority and had to be dealt with as well. One of his son’s was killed by Absalom who in turn drove David out of the kingdom and then Absalom was killed as well.
David had seventeen wives and several concubines but one day he committed adultery and tried to hide his sin with murder and these sins led to even more problems.
So, he was wealthy and powerful and could do whatever he wanted; but he was still just as sinful as you and I and he had to live with his sin and its consequences. As much as people like to say they can simply forget the past, the past keeps creeping in our present.
I remember talking to a man just days before he died and he spoke about his life and how rough things had been growing up. I presented the gospel and offered to pray for him but he said, “I don’t believe in prayer and as a matter of fact, I intend to confront God with all the things I had to go through and ask Him what His intentions were.” I tried to explain that the day of judgement was for us and not for God but he couldn’t or wouldn’t see it and a few days later he died thinking he was right and God was wrong.
Gordon Liddy was one of the Watergate conspirators and he said: “I have found within myself all I need and all I ever shall need. I am a man of great faith, but my faith is in Gordon Liddy. I have never failed me.”
At the end of the Nuremberg Trial which was for the war crimes committed by Hitler and his Nazi leadership, Adolf Eichmann, the architect for this plan was not there...he had escaped to Argentina...but 15 years later in 1961 he was brought to trial in Jerusalem. He was convicted and sentenced to death...and on June 1, 1962 he was hung but before he died, he was given a chance to repent to make a final statement...he said, “Repentance...repentance is for little children!”
Regardless of whether we feel we’re justified in unbelief, totally committed to our own plan of salvation or totally disregard everything the Bible says, someday we’ll all stand before God and give account of our lives and there will be no egos on display in that day.
Henry Ward Beecher once said: “A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.”
I had a friend who decided he was sick of his sinful life and he intended to live for God. He quit smoking, he started jogging and lost about thirty-five pounds. He started going to church and he even read the Bible; but he said he almost went crazy. He came to the realization that it was absolutely impossible for him to live for Christ until he went forward at service and received Jesus as his Savior.
When we have truly received Christ, we are able to share our testimony of God’s saving power in our lives without feeling the shame of our past failures.
Instead, we can say as David did, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” God can use our past failures as a testimony to others of Christ’s saving and redeeming grace, so they can receive the same salvation we have.
I was sharing my testimony in a Christian coffeeshop in New York one night and after I was finished a guy came up and said, “That’s not much of a testimony. I’ve heard of guys who’ve done ten times as much drugs as you have.” I felt like apologizing and telling him that if I ever backslid, I’d make up for my failure as a sinner and do my best to impress him the next time. But I just said, I was saved and that’s all that’s important.
What if God saved you and then called you to do something unusual? Like quit your job and accept a position where you didn’t know where your next meal was coming from? Elisha did that. Gideon was hiding in a field trying to reap enough grain to get by when God told him to forget his food and go lead the army. David was sent to deliver food to his brothers when God called him to go fight Goliath.
I was selling food in Toronto when the Lord spoke to me about going to Bible college. I went home and told my wife and then we told her father who agreed to drive us to Word of Life in New York where I enrolled for the next semester. Listen, God can use anyone who is willing to be used.
I was just reading these verses in my devotions. In Jeremiah 9:23-24 where the prophet says, “Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.
There are three things the prophet warns us not to get excited about; our wisdom, our strength and our wealth.
This wisdom is referring to our human wisdom which is the perspective of life that assumes we know everything and that belief in God is merely superstition. Carl Sagan wrote: "We live in a vast and awesome universe in which, daily, suns are made and worlds destroyed, where humanity clings to an obscure clod of rock. The significance of our lives and our fragile realm derives from our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning." And to Carl one who was considered to be brilliant I’d say, “Life is tough, but it's even tougher if you're stupid."
There are many who see their strength in their natural abilities. We’ve all seen the powerful business types who can move people and nations with their money and influence but one day they’ll all die and all their power and influence will die with them. And yet, they act as if their life has no end and they’ll never have to account for their thoughts, deeds or actions but the Bible says so clearly in Hebrews 9:27, “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.”
And then there’s the wealthy crowd and wealth can be described as ‘more than we need to sustain a normal life.’ Listen, there’s nothing wrong with wealth because God blesses people with it. We see this in the life of Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon. In the Old Testament, wealth was often an indication that the Lord had blessed them and we also see several in the New Testament who were wealthy and faithful. But wealth has never been an accurate barometer of someone’s spiritual life because there have always been those who were righteous while very poor and the extremely rich who can only be described as wicked.
No matter how much we have none of us can take it with us and in the end we’ll all answer for what we had or didn’t have and what we did with it. The Stoics of Paul’s day said, “The wealthiest man was the one who was content with the least.”
There’s a tombstone in an English village that says,
Here lies a miser, who lived for himself,
And cared for nothing but gathering wealth.
Now where he is and how he fares,
Nobody knows and nobody cares.
A wise man once said, “Money is a great servant, but it’s a lousy master.”
Sometimes wealth is a matter of perspective. My wife and I have been privileged to do some travelling and while we were in Barbados there was a man who working at the beach who really liked to talk. I asked him if it was a good place to work and he said, ‘It’s fantastic. I make $100 a week.’ And when I asked him if there were any benefits included; but he didn’t understand about the concept of benefits. And listen, he worked, seven days a week, twelve hours a day. And he considered himself to be very well paid.
And when were we in Egypt a waiter at our hotel who spoke several languages told me he had earned twenty dollars a week and he was very glad he had a job because everyone in his family of five had to work so they could afford to share the rent on a one-bedroom apartment.
And then there were the guys who worked for the mission in Bolivia and they earned fifty cents an hour and for fifty cents they spent most of their days carrying fifty-pound bags of sand up four flights of stairs in ninety to one-hundred-degree heat. And they were grateful for the work.
So, compared to them, anyone on welfare or any kind of pension in our country would be considered ‘rich.’
The problem is, we compare ourselves to those who appear to be more prosperous than we are and feel as though we’re failures because we haven’t reached some kind of economic security.
Behavioral scientists have discovered that we usually see things we are prepared to see. This is all centered in a network of nerve cells called the "Reticular Activating System" and everybody has this. The "Reticular Activating System" works like this: once something has been brought to your attention and you have been prepared to see it, you’ll see it everywhere you go. For example, if you decide to buy a new car and make up your mind that you want a certain brand, a certain body style and a certain color; then you’ll see these cars everywhere. You’ll see them on the roads, in TV ads, in newspapers and magazines. They’re everywhere.
So, what happens? Well, they were always there, but the minute you became interested, your Reticular Activating System kicks in and you began to notice them. And this happens in other areas of life, too. We tend to see what we want to see. And if we want to see good results and opportunities, then that’s what we’ll see but if all we’re looking for is doom and gloom then we’ll be sure to find that as well. So, if we allow our economic standards to be set by those around us who have more than us, we’ll never be satisfied.
But listen, Paul is pointing out in this passage that the two heroes of our faith had more than just money. They had the promise of everlasting life. Do you have it?
Jesus said in the book of Revelation, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” And right now, He’s knocking at the door of your heart. Are you going to answer?
