Alba 8-22-2021
FAITH IS ACCOUNTED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS
Romans 4
John Newton, who wrote the song “Amazing Grace”, once said: “Down through life I have forgotten a lot of things. But these two things I remember. The first is that I am a great sinner. The second is that I have a great Savior.”
Anyone who agrees with that can say, “Amen!”
Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He paid the price for our sins when He went to the cross.
By so doing, He both pleased His heavenly Father and appeased God's anger toward our sin. Our hope is in Jesus, and we must place our faith in Him for our salvation.
God has always required those who want to be righteous to place their faith in Him. This has been always been true. As far back as Abraham in the Old Testament it has been true.
Look at what the apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Roman. Turn to Romans 4:1-8 and lets read.
“1 What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.
“5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, 6 just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works:
7 'Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; 8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.'”
The entire 4th chapter of Romans is devoted to Abraham, whom Paul uses as an illustration of the central biblical truth that we come into a right relationship with God by faith in Christ through grace, and not by what we try to do on our own.
Abraham was a good man, even a great man. He is a model of Old Testament piety. Yet Abraham was not saved by the good he had done, nor could he be.
Abraham was accounted as righteous by his faith because his faith was in God. His faith was not in himself and not in what he had done. His faith was in God. That is how he came into a right relationship with God. And that is the same for all of us.
What does it mean when it says that faith was “accounted unto Abraham for righteousness”? That word “accounted” means “to put on one’s account.” So when Abraham believed God, righteousness was placed on his account.
If we bank on our own righteousness to get us into heaven, the account will come up as lacking the funds necessary. We need the Lord to put His righteousness in our lives, or we will always come up short.
Abraham's faith was seen from the time God called him and said in Genesis 12:1-3, “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you.
“I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
With no guarantees but God’s Word, Abraham left his business, his homeland, his friends, most of his relatives, and probably many of his possessions. He abandoned his earthly security for a future uncertainty, as far as his human eyes could see or his human mind could comprehend.
The land he was promised to inherit was inhabited by pagans, perhaps even more pagan and idolatrous than those of his home country.
Abraham may have had only a remote idea of where the land of Canaan was, and it is possible that he had never heard of it at all.
But when God called him to go there, Abraham obeyed and began the long journey. Abraham trusted God to give him a land he had never seen, and a posterity he did not yet have.
Several things happened along the way. But a few chapters later in the book of Genesis (in chapter 15) Abraham complained to God that the great nation that was promised wasn't happening. Abraham didn't even have one child of his own.
“Lord God, what will You give me, seeing go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?... Look, You have given me no offspring... 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 'This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.'
“5 Then He brought him outside and said, 'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.' And He said to him, 'So shall your descendants be.' 6 And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness."
(Genesis 15:3-6)
That last verse is what the apostle Paul quotes here in Romans chapter four. It was the response of Abraham’s faith in God that was credited to him as righteousness.
Did you know that Abraham is mentioned 76 times in the New Testament? For example in Hebews 11:8-12 it says, "8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
"9 By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; 10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
"11 By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude—innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore."
God rewarded the faith of Abraham by giving a child to him in his old age. Abraham had faith even when it appeared to be physically impossible. It was a trust in what God and God alone could do.
By the time Issac is born, Abraham is 100 years old and Sarah is 90. They are well past the age of bearing children. But even then, God CAN do what He said, even though it seems physically impossible.
The Guinness Book of World Records is wrong in that it states that the oldest mother gave birth in October, 1956 at the age of fifty-seven. Sarah would beat that record by a comfortable margin.
Satan loves to bring doubt into our minds. We try to figure out how God is going to work, and sometimes we think our situation is hopeless. We give in to despair.
A life that looks sad, depressed and has no hope is just a life that isn't holding on to the promises of God. It is easily corrected. It just needs to be filled with the life changing promises of God.
No matter what your life looks like to you today, I can assure you that its present state is not the way that God sees it. You can only see your today, while God is looking at your tomorrow. You only see what your life is, while God see’s what it can be!
Just like Abraham, we need to keep believing in the miraculous power of our God. Abraham did not let obstacles stop him from believing in God.
Lest we forget his situation, Abraham lived in a country of idol worshipers. We sometimes think Abraham is this spiritual giant who everyone turns to.
Yet in his day, there was no one else around him who was worshiping God. Yes, he does meet Melchizedek one day. But his neighbors and friends are idol worshipers.
There was no encouragement from them to keep trusting God. Even his wife gives up on God and schemes to get a son by Abraham having sex with her maid Hagar.
But look at what verses 20-22 say here in Romans chapter four – 20 He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. 22 And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
Notice he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God. This is something important to see:
Faith grows as we exercise it. Abraham starts out with faith, and as time goes on, his faith grows. The more we exercise faith, the more faith we will have.
Scripture clearly shows that Abraham was declared righteous before he was circumcised. Then in verse 20 Paul encourages us as Christians, whether Jew or Gentile, to “walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.
By all definitions Abraham was a Gentile when he was made righteous before God. It was in Genesis 15 he was declared righteous. And it was not until 14 years later as recorded in Genesis 17 that he was circumcised.
Also he lived 400 years before the Law was ever given by Moses. So his righteousness did not come from either circumcision or the Law.
Paul skillfully argues that Abraham proves that circumcision does not determine one’s standing before God. This was quite devastating to those who thought that as descendants of Abraham they were better than the Gentiles.
Their notion that Abraham was righteous because he was such a good man made them think to themselves. “If Abraham could earn heaven by his good deeds, (and he certainly appeared to be a righteous man, just look at his life), then I must be able to do so as well; after all, I’m a descendant of Abraham”.
But Galatians 3:7 clearly says, know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. It’s not about blood type, it’s about faith.
Blood is not thicker than faith. Abraham’s life has something to teach us. You don’t become a child of Abraham by your “Do It Yourself” good deeds. Or by being a part of Abraham’s bloodline.
When God sits down in the accounting room of Heaven, He will not look at the calculator to add up how many good deeds you have done. He will not require a DNA test. God will look for faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.
God had a plan, all his blessings would come by faith not law. Even though Abraham was an old man, God promised he would be the father of many. And God kept His promise.
In Abraham we see complete faith. And as God accepted Abraham, God accepts us. It is through faith in Jesus Christ that we are saved.
But in the same way that God called Abraham to leave his country and go where he had not been before, God calls us to leave the things that hold us back and follow Him.
To all who will, God gives this great call, "Save yourselves from this reprobate civilization!" We live in a society where it can be a criminal offense to hand out Bibles in the schools - while it is allowed to teach perversion and hand out birth control devices.
It is a society where millions of people use abortion as a means of birth control after the fact; and where public media does its best to ridicule anything supernatural that has to do with God Almighty.
At the same time it promotes the worship of Mother Earth and in the name of pluralism makes Jesus Christ sound like a bigot when He declares: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
God calls all who will to come out of the influence of this world's system and into a relationship with Him that has vast rewards that includes a home in a place whose builder and maker is God Himself.
God's promise to save mankind is exemplified in Abraham. He is our example of righteousness through faith. Our salvation is dependent upon our faith in God, and whether or not we believe that He will do what He says he will do.
They say that the Grand Canyon is 6 to 18 miles across, 276 miles long, and one mile deep.
The chances of a person jumping from one side of the Grand Canyon to the other are greater than that of someone attempting to establish fellowship with God through his own efforts.
Our salvation completely depends on what Jesus has done for us. Without His willingness to take our place as the punishment was handed out, we would be lost.
Scripture says that our righteousness is no better than filthy rags. We need a righteousness that comes only by an obedient faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Yes, an obedient faith.
For we see that Abraham's faith was an active faith, not just a “head” faith. Like Abraham, our faith must be an obedient faith. Abraham's faith was not faith alone, but a faith that inspired obedience to God.
God is not going to ask us "How many good works have you done?" But He does want to see a faith that demonstrates itself as faith.
And that faith will be put on our account as righteousness. Not because we did so well, but because our faith in Him is what God is looking for in all of us.
CONCLUSION:
Warren Wiersbe shares a great picture of what this looks like:
There was a man in England who put his Rolls-Royce on a boat and went across to the continent to go on a holiday. While he was driving around Europe, something happened to the motor of his car.
He cabled the Rolls-Royce people back in England and asked, “I’m having trouble with my car; what do you suggest I do?” Well, the Rolls-Royce people flew a mechanic over!
The mechanic repaired the car and flew back to England and left the man to continue his holiday.
As you can imagine, the fellow was wondering, “How much is this going to cost me?” So when he got back to England, he wrote the people a letter and asked how much he owed them.
He received a letter from the office that read: “Dear Sir: There is no record anywhere in our files that anything ever went wrong with a Rolls-Royce.”
Wiersbe, Key Words of the Christian Life, p. 16 http://net.bible.org/illustration.php?topic=851
It was just as if it never broke down!
It is not as if God will say, “You’re forgiven and I’ll overlook it all and we’ll just pretend it never happened.” NO, it’s a righteousness that He gives. It’s as if a judge would say, not only are you not guilty, but you never did the crime!
God declares us as righteous because all the demands of the law are fulfilled on behalf of the believing sinner through the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
