Romans 4:16-25

Coram Deo Reformed Baptist Church iconCoram Deo Reformed Baptist Church

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Verse 16 again, that is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be
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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?
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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 exist calls into existence the things that do not exist
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Last week we looked at verse 16 and 17 as well.
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We take a look at them again because There is no end to the words that can be written about these two verses
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There's so much here that can be unpacked So much richness in just these two verses
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We start with the fact that God caused justification to depend on faith
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So that it can be guaranteed if it was up to us
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To earn our justification rest assured There would be no guarantee
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Look at those who even today trust in themselves in any work based faith
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They have no assurance be it Jews or Catholics or Muslims They have no assurance
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Do more good than you do bad How do you know you don't know until the end you have no idea and I will say that This is definitely one of the things that I am so grateful for the knowledge
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That I can't the knowledge that I can in no way shape or form earn salvation only
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God can only God could accomplish That which is needed and the best news is
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He did not he will he did
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It's already done. The other thing
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I want to point to is we have a phrase that is
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Not well understood and that small phrase is once saved always saved refers to the doctrines of grace very short very misunderstood
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But at the same time in the church, there are those who believe that you can in fact Lose your salvation.
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I want to point out the arrogance and hubris of those who think
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They haven't if you believe that If you believe that you can lose it
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Just that you haven't yet. How much hubris does that take if you could you definitely would
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Which is why we have assurance Because it defended it depends on faith not your works
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But because God said so he swore on himself
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Because there was no higher thing But Paul quotes from Genesis 17 here
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That God said I have made you the father of many nations not one nation not two nations many nations
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I Would assume that if he meant to he would have said a few the other thing here is that we must let
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Scripture interpret Scripture Always no commentary
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No presuppositions, no nothing always Scripture interprets
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Scripture and Paul has made it very plain
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That he is talking about Jews and Gentiles Jews and non -jews
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Abraham Is the spiritual father of all the elect
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Secondly, he doesn't say in his in his promise. I will make you father of many nations
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He says I have made you the father of many nations
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There was no decision that needed to be made It's already done
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Nothing that needed doing on Abraham's part. He had done so From the foundation of the world how reassuring it is to know that our justification isn't going to happen
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Or is happening It happened We can never get more justified than we are right now at the moment of justification
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There is no more justified There is no less justified because our justification all depends on the same person person of Christ And Like Abraham we were picked out before the foundation of the world to be justified by Christ in the sight of God and not for the sake of ourselves either
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But for Christ's sake So that God could be glorified
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He made us his people. This is why we gather we are a nation among nations
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One day when he returns we will be gathered together With our
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King and it is guaranteed
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Because of who made the promise our salvation is guaranteed
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By the God who gives life to the dead Hebrews 11 8 through 12 says by faith
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Abraham obeyed when he was called to get called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance and He went out
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Not knowing my apologies not knowing where he was going by faith, he went to live in the land of promise as In a foreign land living in tents with Isaac Jacob Heirs with him of the same promise
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Where he was looking forward to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is
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God By faith Sarah herself received the power to conceive
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Even when she was past the age And she considered him faithful Who had promised?
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therefore from one man and Him as good as dead
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Were born the descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore
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Verse 18 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
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He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body Which was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb
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Paul here points out that Abraham had no worldly evidence to lay his faith upon To give him any indication that there was a possibility of Sarah to give him a son she was advanced in years her womb was barren and He himself
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Was a century old this is not like before the flood a century old either
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Like like our time 100 years old Paul says his body was as good as dead
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This is why Abraham said to have believed against all hope Against hope
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I want to point out that it isn't enough First of all to believe in God If you have someone do you believe in God and their answer is yes, that is intellectual assent
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That is the acknowledgement that he exists. Yes, I believe there is a God that is not salvific faith
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They may recognize that God is real But they do not recognize who he is what he has done
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I will also say this for those people Good. I'm glad that you believe that God is real.
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So does the devil what the
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Bible is talking about in regards to Abraham is personal trust or fiduciary
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Abraham had personal trust in God This is the same trust that we must have in Christ trusting what
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God says even If we cannot see the fulfillment of the promise in our lifetime
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He told Abraham 400 years 400 years your descendants will suffer
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Abraham believed him Now at the same time this doesn't mean that Abraham had what we call today blind faith.
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He didn't He knew that he could trust God because of who
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God is or Because he knew God's character He knew of God's character
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What God was capable of his Omnipresence and omnipotence
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Omnipotence this is why Paul said what he did in the previous verses about God's power over life and death and the power of creation
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Abraham believed Because it was God that made the promise and we can believe on the same basis
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God can't break promises it's not a matter of he won't it's a matter of Can't cannot do anything that is against his character breaking a promise would make him a liar
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Which would be against his character Also, he is the
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God that creates ex -nihilo or out of nothing
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Before there was something there was God there was nothing else
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There was the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and then he spoke there is also
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Because of who God is nothing that man Or the enemy can do to thwart his will at all nothing
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Everything aside from God is a created being How can a creation?
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thwart the will of its creator And on that note
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I will also say Now on the same note
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I want to I would like to address something that occurs in the church today not this church but many churches the fact that there seems to be a swollen sense of self and a misunderstanding of The devil just for a moment.
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We can declare nothing We can bring into existence. Nothing try as you might
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Putting your thoughts out there in the universe. Nothing will come of it. I promise
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What we have is a bunch of people with bad hermeneutics
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That think that think that they can and we have also
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Those groups with bad hermeneutics That think that they have authority
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They think that they have spiritual authority over that which cannot be seen Please Name a verse in Scripture where an apostle cast out a demon from a person or Did something that they did not do in the name of Christ?
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It was not their authority Even Michael when he rebuked the devil didn't do so on his own authority but what you get with these folks are fake miracles like Pulling on feet and an absolute unadulterated corruption of the gospel heresy, please understand
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God does not need our help He doesn't
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He would be just as gracious and loving had he saved no one because he would be gracious and loving the
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Father to the Son Son and the Holy Spirit Right, he does not need our help
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To bring about his will he does so on his own We are the means by which the gospel goes forth
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But that is it We do as he instructs in his word We fulfill the
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Great Commission That is our purpose We do not lean on our own understanding
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Because man's wisdom is only ever foolishness In the eyes of God back to verse 20.
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We're almost there No unbelief 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
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That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness Abraham never doubted that God would keep his promises
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Abraham based his faith on the fact of who God is as I said before He is the
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God that can read it that can create out of nothing And not only that he does so with his words not with some act of violence as some other religions have in their creation stories or some type of Magic some others have but by speaking
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Genesis 1 1 says In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and void
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Darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God Was hovering over the face of the waters and God said
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Eight times in Genesis chapter 1 God speaks and it was so and when
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God destroyed the earth with water there was nothing that could thwart the oncoming deluge in Genesis 7 when man decided to gather together in one place and build the tower
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God confused the language and scattered them in Genesis 11 Abraham knew who
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God was And he knew that he would keep his promise In Hebrews 6 13 through 18.
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It says but when God made a promise to Abraham Since he had no greater since he had no one greater by whom to swear.
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He swore by himself Saying I will surely bless you and multiply you and thus
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Abraham having patiently waited obtained the promise For people swear by something greater than themselves and in all their disputes and oath is final for confirmation
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So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose
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He guaranteed it with an oath so that by two unchangeable things
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In which it is impossible for God to lie We who have fled for refuge
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Might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us verse 23
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The words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also
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It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our
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Lord Who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification a
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Thousand sermons alone can be written on these verses. I did not write an entirely new one to go through right now, but Paul here demonstrates firstly
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Why the events in Scripture were recorded these events took place not only for those
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Present at the time but for our sake as well. It was recorded that it was counted to him
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So that we would know it That those who read the Scriptures would know the blessing of Scripture is too often overlooked
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How many things were set in place? so that we could sit and Read it
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Ourselves how many throughout time could not This is a recent development
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You read it in a native language We are only a little more than 400 years off 500 years if you do not know who
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William Tyndale is by all means Read about that man
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He is the reason That we sit here and read it in English Today, but how many things were set in motion so that you would sit here or?
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Anyone in any sound church for that matter how many things were set in place?
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So that we could read these words so that it is counted to us, too
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That we would know that Paul Has proven over the course of this chapter in the previous chapters that justification is by faith alone
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Abraham is our example of this He is justified because he believed
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God and trusted him to fulfill his promise Paul has proven that it is not by merit and here he gives us these final verses
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The gospel those who believe as Abraham did trusting in God who raised from the dead our
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Lord are justified in active obedience
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Christ fulfilled the obligations of man to the father as He said and as he satisfied his wrath in passive obedience taking on our sin and Becoming a curse for us all done to make a way of Salvation for his people the resurrection of Christ Was God's vindication of who
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Christ who Christ said that he was it is also
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His acceptance of the sacrifice that Christ made on our behalf
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Sproul says this on the subject when the father raised the son from the dead.
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He said to the world I Accept this payment for debtors who cannot pay
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The resurrection of Jesus is not simply his vindication. It is our justification
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Because it is God's demonstration to his unjust people That he accepts the payment in full for the moral debt they have incurred
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Relieve as Abraham did because of who?
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God is Unchanging everlasting Omnipotent omnipresent He crew he who creates from nothing and he who's the one who gives life to the dead
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As he did us I'll leave you with the words of a very well -known hymn that adults don't sing often enough
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I've changed it here a little bit more like a poem But I'm sure you'll catch on What can wash away my sin?
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What can make me whole again? For my pardon this I see for my chain for my cleansing this my plea
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Nothing can for sin atone Not for not of good that I have done
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This is all my hope and peace. This is all my righteousness
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Old precious is the flow That makes me white as snow