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Feb. 26, 2017 In Abraham’s Footsteps Romans 4:9-25 Pastor Josh Sheldon
Chapter 4 of Romans, our text this morning, as you see in the bulletin, is verses 9 through 25 of this chapter. I'm not going to read it all right now. We'll read it as we go through it. The question answered here in these verses, which you'll see again, as I said, as we go through them, this is what I want you to be listening for.
The question to be answered, really, is what must I do to be saved? This is something Paul has been working towards throughout this book, showing the need for salvation and then the way of salvation. What must I do to be saved?
You know, it's a question that Jesus was confronted with by the rich young ruler in that famous incident that happened in Luke's Gospel. He says, good teacher, what good work must I do to be saved? What do I have to do to know salvation?
And, of course, the Lord answered with the law. He says, you know the commandments. You know what to do. Cited some of them to them. The rich young ruler, as you recall, and he's not our text for this morning, but he says to them, all these things I have kept since my youth.
And Jesus says, but one thing you lack. Sell all you have, give to the poor, and come, follow me. In other words, follow the law. Then come, follow me. Now the expositor, Donald Barnhouse, he cites this encounter, and he does this in his exposition, by the way, of Romans 4, 9 -25.
And then he goes to the Philippian jailer who asks the same question. He goes to Paul and his fellows and says, good sirs, what must I do to be saved? And Paul did not answer with the law. He said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
The difference between the two, Barnhouse says, depends on which side of the cross we're on. Are we on what I call the north side of the cross, our side of the cross, or south, before the cross? Before Christ died and rose again, the answer to salvation had to do with law.
After the cross, after the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, by faith. Well, I read that, and I like Donald Barnhouse quite a lot, but I think the two answers to what must I do to be saved, the rich young ruler prior to, south side of the cross, the Philippian jailer on the north side of the cross, after the cross, I think the answer is a bit more similar than he made it out to be there.
What must I do to be saved? Are we asking that this morning? What must I do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ has always been the answer. There's never been an answer, there's never been a Savior, there's never been a salvation, there's never been grace of God, except by faith in Him, in Jesus Christ.
The rich young man had his faith challenged, if faith he had, when his treasure on earth was held up against the treasure in heaven, which Jesus promised him. The Philippian jailer was challenged by faith confirmed in what he saw in Paul and his companions, to believe in the Lord Jesus.
That is, to have faith in Him and to relinquish all else. And the call to us this day, centuries and centuries after these occurrences, is the same. Faith in the promises of God by Jesus Christ. Salvation is the heart of our passage this morning.
Paul has labored, he has repeated himself, he has reasoned and he has pleaded for this one conclusion to be gained by us, one which, if we have already settled ourselves upon it, needs to be reinforced daily, hourly, moment by moment.
Strengthened, relied upon more and more. And those who hear me this morning, who hear from the Scripture this day, have not landed upon this truth and its eternal consequences, that they will now turn away from all self-reliance, from all idea that they can accomplish what only Jesus Christ accomplished, that they will have but this.
Faith. Faith, as all the apostles have been arguing for in all these chapters we've been going through. Faith. Faith in the promises of God in His Son, Jesus Christ. Faith in that, in that alone, devoid of all works, denuded of all self-effort in the law, stripped of all nationalistic pride in anything like circumcision, any other outward symbol.
Just faith, and faith alone. You must believe this gospel, the promises of God, accomplished and finalized in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith. A faith that unites all who believe under this one Father, Abraham.
The subject, the main subject of these verses before us. The figure that Paul presents to us here as his model of faith. This Abraham. The father of the patriarchs who eventually made up Israel. And there he stayed for centuries.
Owned by Israel and Israel alone. Now later, on our side of the cross, on the north side of the cross if you will, Paul, here in Romans 4, also in Galatians 3, which Daniel just read to you, he uncovers for us the true meaning of Abraham.
That he is the father of all who have faith in the promises of God. Not just the father of those who descended from him physically. The father of those who have faith in God and His promise. This faith was Abraham's when he left Mesopotamia, as we read in Genesis 12.
This faith was counted to him as righteousness, as we read in Genesis 15. This faith was confirmed by the sign and symbol of circumcision, as we read in Genesis 17. It's all of faith. And here the apostle, the apostle Paul, again presses us, cajoles us, commands us, begs us, pleads us.
Pleads with us. Believe just this. Faith in Jesus Christ and all that God accomplished in Him, which is all that the scripture speaks of in this one Lord and Savior. He makes three points here in the passage, and I'll begin reading in just a moment.
One is that Abraham's righteousness, his righteous standing before God, came before circumcision, came before the law. He was made righteous prior to those things. Two, this same righteousness, this righteousness that was counted to Abraham, this righteousness that is given to us as the model of our faith, making the father of all who believe, is just that.
This righteousness is for all who have what he had, hope, faith, confidence, trust in the promises of God. And three, all who follow in his faith are his true children, more than Israel as a nation ever was.
Because as Paul will say, that was the very purpose for Abraham's existence, if you will. We'll look at these section by section. First is verses 9 through 12. So the first example, the first proof of this idea that righteousness prior to all these things, any of these things, is in verses 9 through 12.
And the first example is circumcision. The apostle asks, is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? Let me just stop for a brief moment, and then we'll read the rest in just a second.
The blessing he's talking about is from the verse just prior, where David is brought forward as this other model, other than Abraham, of knowing God's imputed righteousness. David having gone to God in Psalm 32 and called out the wonderful blessedness of him to whom the Lord does not count iniquity.
He whose sin has been covered. And so after having exposited that for us, and that was our subject last week, that is the question here in verse 9. Is this blessing, this blessing that David knew, this imputed righteousness by believing in the promise of forgiveness of sins, is that only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised?
We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.
The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised so that righteousness would be counted to them as well. And to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
You know, I wonder a bit, a little bit tongue-in-cheek, who is it that Paul is thinking can't get this idea that righteousness comes by faith? And righteousness, as we've learned, that is basically equivalent with salvation.
This comes by faith, by grace you've been saved through faith. And as we read these first four chapters of Romans, I wonder, who is he repeating this for? Who's the dullard who needs to hear this over and over and over again?
Must be those Romans 2 ,000 years ago because they're not at our level, are they? No, it's for all believers, all the church, in all ages, we need to hear this over and over and over again. That this righteousness comes by faith, it comes by faith alone.
You know, next week, with God's blessing, Lord willing, we'll open up chapter 5 of Romans and begin there. And do you know how it begins? Therefore, having been justified by faith, and we dare not become impatient with the apostle, pull out our hair, okay, Paul, we get it.
No, we don't get it. I don't think until we see Jesus Christ in glory will we really understand what this has meant and why God put it here in the Scripture for us and why Paul says it so many times over and again, justified by faith, justified by faith, and we dare not get bored with it or tired of it because, brethren, this is our hope.
This is our salvation. Is this blessing, by blessing, meaning that forgiveness of sins that David knew, is it only for the circumcised or for the uncircumcised? And he immediately answers. He doesn't leave the question dangling there.
He doesn't allow us to speculate and for our minds to wander and come up with some solution that might be askance from what the Holy Spirit would have Paul tell us. And the answer is really in two steps.
Step one, we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. Very simple. Faith, not circumcision. Step two, righteousness was counted to him before, not after, he was circumcised. He had the sign of circumcision.
What is this evidence? It's evidence that he belonged to God. He had the seal of circumcision. A seal was a reminder of God's promises and the covenant that God made with Abraham when he gave him the sign of circumcision.
And then in verse 11, which I read to a second ago, we have the purpose God had behind all this because circumcision came after, not before faith was counted or reckoned or imputed or attributed. All those words work there.
Because circumcision came after, not before that, then the performance of the rite could only confirm, could only be a symbol of what it tried to communicate. But it could not be the basis. It could not be the cause for God's declaration of righteousness.
In the middle of verse 12, Paul writes that he, that Abraham is the father of all who follow in his footsteps. What does it mean to follow in footsteps? Well, in this context, it means to be like your father.
We like to say the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. For Abraham's children, Abraham, as Daniel just read to you from Galatians 3, being a man of faith or the man of faith as Paul called him, let's hope that the fruit doesn't fall very far from the tree.
There's a positive thing to be people, to be men, to be women of faith. In John 8, verse 39, Jesus says to Jews who claimed Abraham as their father, which indeed in one sense, which we'll get to, they in fact were.
He said if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing what Abraham did. If you were his children, if you really were his children, if he were your father, you'd want to be doing what your father did.
Well, just a little bit before that verse in John 8, just a little before that, he agreed that they were Abraham's seed. So I know that you're Abraham's descendants. The word is seed or sperma in the Greek.
I know you come from him. They were his physical descendants. But here in 839, if you were Abraham's children, the word there is techna, techna, children. Not merely in the line by physical descent, but children by following in his ways.
And of course, the way that Paul has in mind here, in case we didn't get it and he says it over and over again because we're slow to hear this, the way of faith. Abraham, the man of faith. It's sort of a syllogism.
Major premise is righteousness comes by faith. Minor premise is that Abraham had faith. He believed God. The conclusion, the synthesis of the premises, if you will, is that righteousness comes by faith.
Then there's this one. Major premise, Abraham is the father of all who follow his footsteps. Minor premise, some of us have followed his footsteps. So the conclusion is those who did so are his descendants.
His true descendants. His children according to the promise. The question we need to ask ourselves is which footsteps? Which footsteps does Paul have in mind? If the act of obedience and circumcision, then you followed the result of faith.
But not his faith itself. If the former, if the other, then believing God on the basis of his word and nothing else, then he is your father and you are his child by faith and the righteousness that God imputed to him, your spiritual father in that sense, is yours by grant, by God's grace.
You see, if that were not the case, and this is so important to Paul, if that were not the case, if he was declared righteous because of what he did, then only those who did what he did could ever be his children.
And they were speaking, doing what he did in the physical sense. But because this was what God did before the rite, before the command to be circumcised, Abraham's faith is what brings the righteousness of God to the sinner.
And this makes us his children, not just his descendants. Next is the law and how it relates to all of this. The law hanging over this whole question, sort of an 800-pound gorilla in the room that has to be addressed.
Read on with me. I'll read verses 13 through 17. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null, and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgression.
That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring, not only to the adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations, in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. You see here there's some content to Abraham's faith, believing in the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
What did Abraham believe? That many nations would come from him, and that nations would be blessed by him, but there's one to come from all that. Abraham believed that. What was Abraham at the time? He was one old man, about a century old, married to a woman a few years younger, who was past the age of childbearing, and yet what did he believe?
Nationhood would come. Excuse me, I feel like a piece of sawdust just got in my throat. It's over four centuries after the great hallmark of circumcision that this other hallmark comes along. Excuse me again.
And that's the law. The law after circumcision. Paul's first point here seems obvious. It's this, the promise of nationhood came before the law came. The issue here is not whether the law applied or whether it now applies to all men everywhere or just to the Jews.
That's not in play here. Rather, Paul's point is simply that the law contained no such promise. The promise of nationhood to Abraham, the righteousness he had by faith, none of that is in the law. Verse 14, If it is the adherence to the law who are to be his heirs, faith is null and void and the promise is void.
In other words, if we can earn this, what do we need faith for? Give me a checklist. I'll do the thing. I'll get the merit badge if I was a Boy Scout, and you will then give me my next rank because you owe it to me.
We covered this last week. If it's owed, it's no longer of grace. It's not a gift. It's my wage. It's my due. It's what I have coming. Paul says if the law could have done this, faith, promise, could we add grace?
The sheer goodness of God? No longer necessary. He gave us a list of jobs to be done. We fulfilled the jobs. He owes us whatever the checklist promised. That's not the way this works. If the law could bring about the promise, then faith is excluded.
The promise is void because the promises are apprehended by faith. It's back to what he wrote in chapter 3 in verse 28. For we hold that no one is justified. Better change that. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
Verse 15 then says that the law actually cannot have brought about the promise because what does the law bring? The law brings only wrath. Not promise, but the wrath of God. Before the law, there could be no transgression of the law.
What Paul means there is simply that obedience to it cannot bring about the promise of God. In fact, when Abraham believed God and had righteousness imputed to him, there was no law to be disobeyed and so bring about God's wrath.
Paul's word there for transgression is very specific. It means disobedience to a known and revealed statutory corpus. Something you can kind of get your hands around. You can open up and read and say, okay, this is what God would have me to do.
So when we stumble, when we falter, we know what we've violated, this particular precept within the law. There was sin before the law. Genesis 3 makes that crystal clear. But there was no sin against the law because the law hadn't been given yet.
It's very simple. The law didn't bring the promise because the law, when Abraham received the promise, was still some 400 years away. We have in verses 18 to 22 a description of the faith that has been Paul's subject here.
He set aside circumcision or anything physical in us or about us or anything we've accomplished. He set aside the law because the law cannot bring about the promise. The law doesn't contain the promise.
And here in verses 18 to 22, there's a description of the faith that this one in whose footsteps we are to follow had. In hope, he believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations.
As he had been told, so shall your offspring be. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead, since he was about 100 years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.
No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.
Believing in the God who calls that which is from that which is not, this couple that could not possibly bear a son, and then how could that possibly become a nation, and then how could that possibly become many nations?
Here's one of the simplest definitions of faith that we have in Scripture. Convinced that God is able to do what he has promised. That's faith. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.
See, faith does something. Faith moves on the trust that it has in God's word. Faith overcomes what we see. Faith can look past a circumstance. 1 Corinthians 5, 7,. For we walk by faith, not by sight.
What did Abraham do? Genesis 15, God says, Look up at the stars and count them. If you are able, so shall your descendants be. By faith he believed that those stars, which even today, have we counted them?
They keep finding more and more and more. I'm amazed at how many there are out there. By faith Abraham believed that what he could see represented the offspring God would bring through him. He was about a century old.
Sarah passed the ability to conceive, much less give birth. If he had looked no further than that, he'd have stopped right there. But with eyes of faith, he believed. Abraham's children are those who walk in his footsteps.
Every day, we're confronted with decisions to make. And brethren, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you believe that this word, which as best we can, everyone who comes to this pulpit tries to preach to you accurately, if you believe that this word is the word of God, that it's full and complete and sufficient, that the man of God may be prepared for every good work, it's like at almost every moment, we have a decision to make.
Am I going to walk by faith, or am I going to walk by sight? I want to get married. I want to buy a house, a career choice, a church to attend, whatever the case may be. And so we do quickly do our calculations, and here's the salary, and here's the cost of living, and here's the number of miles to this church, and here's all the programs they have.
And we look through all these things, and we have this. But what goes on the other side of the ledger? Anything. If you're Abraham's children, one simple word that overrules all the rest. If you're walking in Abraham's footsteps, there's only one decision to make.
Faith. Faith and trust in the promises of God. Abraham did not weaken in his faith when he remembered that so far as giving life, his body was dead. He had no chance. Or that so far as bearing life, Sarah's womb was no different.
But what did he do? He gave glory to God. This is faith. And if we claim him as our father, and if you're a Christian, he is your father, so you must claim him. And if you deny his fatherhood, you have a whole lot of scripture that you're denying, so you need to examine yourself to see if you're really in the faith.
We follow Abraham's footsteps. It's just this. You're 100 years old. Your wife is not far behind, and God has said you're going to have a son. He's going to come from your loins. Sarah, your wife, is going to give birth, and your children, your descendants, will be as numerous as the stars.
And faith stops looking down. Faith doesn't look at self. Faith doesn't look at the desires, the plans, my side of the ledger with the number of miles I have to go to this job and all these other things.
It just says faith. I trust God's promises. God will make of me what God's word promises to me. I don't mean to imply that in the scripture you will find the name of the college or the wife that you're supposed to marry or anything like that.
We had a Sunday school a couple weeks ago, two-week series on finding God's will, so I'm not implying that. What I am saying is when our circumstances seem to conflict with the promises of God, if you're Abraham's child, if you're walking in his footsteps, you hold on to God's word and nothing else.
The promise of God, and you trust him to fulfill what he has said he would do. I spoke last Friday to a fellow pastor who's in a very difficult place. The church he's at is in a very poor area that can barely sustain itself, much less his young and growing family.
And he now has an opportunity to leave that church and leave it in another man's capable hands and to take a recent church plant about four hours away from there. If he does that, his expenses rise dramatically.
He and his wife both have to work, but then he has a slightly larger church with some more possibilities. He's leaving the other church in good hands. He thinks that that's going to work out. He has all these things, and as we discuss the answers, as we discuss the different alternatives, this is the one that made the most sense to him, and praise God.
We walk by faith, not by sight. With my recent studies, I could add that we walk in Abraham's footsteps, believing and trusting God at every point to which he has spoken to do that which he has spoken.
I don't know which way he'll go, but I am very confident that in God's grace he'll choose the way of faith. It may not be the easiest path. It may not be the smoothest route that we'll ever choose, but if God's word addresses it, if God's promise applies to it, it's the only choice we have if we're Abraham's children, if we're his techna, his children, not his descendant, his sperma, his seed.
And if we are those things, if we are those who are walking in the footsteps of faith, we need to beware of things that make sense. Alternatives, the one that just looks golden, this one looks good, because too often, brethren, that's just the easy one in this temporal sense.
It doesn't mean that that's not God's will for us. It doesn't mean that that's not the way of faith. You just need to be a little circumspect about it. Abraham's way of faith was, as we keep saying, a century-old man believing that he was going to father a child who would become nations and nations.
Children of promise, children of Abraham, those who are his techna, walking in his footsteps, we look to God's word. Descendants, sperma, seed, they look to circumstances. The techna, the children, we shrug that a hundred-year-old man is told that he'll have children.
We say, if God promises it, then it's going to happen. Techna will say, if God promises children like the stars, then on that basis, I will center and organize my whole life. That's Abraham's footstep.
He was fully convinced that God was able to do it. Isaac was the son of promise. He was born when Abraham was about 100 and Sarah was 90. And about 60 years after that, Isaac and Rebekah, his wife, had two sons, Jacob and Esau.
And 15 years after that, the 12 patriarchs were born, and that's when Abraham died. He died believing the promise. He saw two great-grandchildren, that is it. And yet he died believing that he was going to become a great nation.
Was his faith misplaced? May it never be. Paul says he is the father of all who have faith. He became the father of Israel, that numerous people. He is now the father of all the Christian. He's the father of the church in that sense, small f.
I'm not saying he's the one from which we derive. We know that that's not the case. But he holds this very important place, this model of faith. This one who, if you are a child of Christ, you are descending from Abraham and that by faith.
What does it mean to believe and trust this promise of God? What does it mean to really walk in his footsteps? Why is Paul making this so important to us? The opening words of Deuteronomy, Moses says, the Lord, your God, has multiplied you and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven.
Think about this for a moment. Moses told them, you are as numerous as the stars of heaven. What does that hearken back to? That hearkens back to Genesis 15 .6. Look at the stars and count them if you are able to number them.
So shall your descendants be. Moses says, check. God has done it. Abraham's faith is confirmed. God did it. When Joshua gave his last speech to Israel, he said in Joshua 23 .14,. And now I am going to go the way of all the earth and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things the Lord, your God, promised concerning you.
All have come to pass for you. Not one of them has failed. To whom was the land promised? Abraham. What does it say in Exodus? When God met Moses, or Moses met God, I should say, at the burning bush. It says, He remembered his covenant with Abraham and so he returned to redeem the people and to give them that land.
And here's Joshua saying, Not one word that God has spoken has failed. The promise to Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land. Check. God did it. When Solomon dedicated the temple, he said, Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people, Israel, according to all that he promised.
Not one word has failed of all his good promise which he spoke by Moses, his servant. A reference to Moses is not the law there. It says the author of Genesis. God gave his people rest. There were as numerous as the stars.
Everything God said, he would do, he has done. Check. Abraham's faith you see, Abraham's faith, the he whose footsteps we have to walk in, is fully vindicated. He saw the son of promise which was Isaac.
He saw the father of the 12 patriarchs who was Jacob. He saw more than he needed to see because all he needed, all we need, is full faith and trust and reliance on the word of God. Abraham didn't have to see the millions.
He trusted that God would bring it about. Is he too great a figure for us to compare ourselves to? No, he's not a hallowed figure at all. We pointed out last week that to borrow from what James says about Elijah, Abraham was a man with a spirit like ours.
God chose him out of Ur, the Chaldeans, because he chose to and that's all. That's the only reason. He led him each step of the way no more or less than he does now for the family of faith. Now you and I are not going to have a place in Scripture that holds us up to be the great example of faith for others to follow.
You may be that example of faith that we should follow, but it's not going to be in Scripture. Paul's going to write towards the end of this book, for whatever was written in the former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.
We could add a bit to that, though I don't want to add to Scripture, but just in a homiletic sense, that you might have faith, that you might have trust, that you might rely on God and his promises. I want you to listen to what Calvin wrote here on just these verses, verses 18 to 21.
Let us also remember that the condition of us all is the same with that of Abraham. All things around us are in opposition to the promises of God. He promises immortality. We are surrounded with mortality and corruption.
He declares that he counts us just. We are covered with sins. He testifies that he is propitious and kind to us. Our judgments threaten his wrath. What then is to be done? We must with closed eyes pass by ourselves and all things connected with us that nothing may hinder or prevent us from believing that God is true.
That is the point of this whole thing. I love the way Calvin puts this. This is what it means to walk by faith and not by sight. This is Abraham's faith. He is good as dead, believing God was going to do what he had promised.
Finish with the last three verses, verses 23 to 25. But the words it was counted to him, meaning Abraham, the words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
We come right back to where we started. God's imputation of righteousness to Abraham was not for him alone, but it was for us who believe and follow in his footsteps. It's for the church. It's for his techna, his children by faith.
Notice that Paul finishes here with the death and resurrection of Jesus our Lord. There's no non sequitur here. It's very intentional. This is how we follow Abraham's faith. He believed that God would bring life from a couple that were as good as dead.
In terms of being able on their own to accomplish the promise, they were dead. Yet for God nothing shall be impossible. Faith has a content. God brought life to Jesus' dead body. Do you believe he died?
Do you believe he died for your sins? Do you believe God brought life to his body? That God resurrected him from the dead on the third day? Faith has a content to it. Jesus was delivered to death on account of our trespasses.
What's he speaking of? It's the cross where he bore God's wrath for our sins. Faith joins the apostle and says the Son of God who gave himself for me. What must we believe? That God raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
The 16th Psalm says that has Jesus testifying that the Father would not allow his Holy One, Jesus, to see corruption. Jesus believed God would raise him from the dead and God did. Jesus believed that God would rescue him from death and God did.
What must we believe? That God did that. That the promise of God's Word, that Jesus Christ, his Son, would pay the price for our sins and that God would confirm this, our justification would be affirmed by his resurrection.
Faith has content. Are you Abraham's children? These are his footsteps. The scriptures foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, in you shall all the nations be blessed.
What's that final and ultimate blessing? I don't think God's done making nations, but that blessing is now complete. It's Jesus Christ. It's what Paul ends chapter four of Romans with, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus Christ and faith in that.
This is what he looked forward to, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify them and said, in you shall they all be blessed. You see, the gospel, this gospel we're calling you to believe. If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, act upon this gospel.
If you do not know Jesus Christ, believe this gospel. That's what this gospel is, is death from life. Ephesians chapter two, verse four, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, the resurrected Lord.
Death has no more hold on him. He is now at the Father's right hand. He lives forevermore, interceding for the church, pleading his blood constantly against our sins. What is Ephesians 2, 4, and 5 speaking of?
But the same dilemma that Abraham might have had had he looked in himself and God said, no, you who are dead in terms of accomplishment I promise, you cannot do it. I make you alive. And he looks today at dead sinners.
Walking dead men, I called them once when I preached from Ephesians years ago. Walking dead men. Faith says, God brings life where only death reigned. Without faith, you're as dead as Abraham. No more able to bring about the promise of eternal life than he was able to do anything about nationhood or even a single child.
And yet he believed. If you know not, the Lord Jesus Christ offered to you today the miracle of the gospel. Believe that you're dead in trespass and sin. Believe that you're as dead to God's promise and as able to bring them about as Abraham was.
Believe that you are as able as Abraham was to bring about that promise, to bring yourself to God all on your own, by your own effort because you're circumcised, because you obey the law, because any of this other than faith in Jesus Christ, believing the promise of God in him.
So then, Galatians 3 .9, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. In Galatians 3 .29, if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.
If you are Christ's, if you're following in the footsteps of Abraham, you were dead and God has made you alive and raised you up even now with Christ Jesus in heavenly places. Romans chapter 4, Paul would have us grab hold of this.
He seems to fear that we're not, as Alistair Begg says so often, sensible people. This righteousness comes by faith. This salvation comes by faith. This declaration of being just before God and his law comes by faith.
Faith in him, Jesus Christ, who alone accomplished the law. Trust in him, he alone, who is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The promise of God that when Jesus Christ on the cross said, it is finished, it was all finished.
There's nothing left to add and there never was anything to add to the salvation that he accomplished. Believe this, brethren, and be saved. Amen? Heavenly Father, we do thank you again for your word and for this day that you have given us to look to it.
Let us pray, Father, that we would all walk by the faith that you, in your grace, have granted. That we would be that people that looks not to circumstances as Abraham did not, but looks to your scripture, to your word, to your promises, to what you have done in history, in your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and what you have given us by faith that we might hold on to and believe these promises.
And we thank you for all this in Christ's name. Amen.
