Sunday Sermon: Counted to Us Who Believe (Romans 4:18-25)

You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series. Here is Pastor Gabe.

Opening Romans 4 and the Promise to Abraham

Well good morning.

Good morning.

Open your Bible if you would please to Romans chapter 4 as we continue our series in the book of Romans, Romans chapter 4. The catechism that we do in the morning, the catechism question that we do right at the beginning of service is from the Baptist catechism as it's labeled.

It's also referred to as Keech's catechism, for that catechism has been put together by Benjamin Keech from back in the 17th century. I found this quote earlier this week from Keech, when you see a great rock, think of Christ.

And that's it. That's very simply it. So looking at those things that are around us and being reminded even from examples that we may encounter on a daily basis of the goodness of God to us, Christ is referred to as the rock in scripture and so when we see a rock we might think of Christ.

The Apostle Paul has been using an example for us here in Romans chapter 4 that we would know that our justification is not by our works but by faith just as it was for Abraham. And so we come to finish up the chapter as we've been reading this lesson in Romans chapter 4.

The section we're looking at today is verses 18 to 25. In honor of the word of the King would you please stand. Romans chapter 4 beginning in verse 18 and reading to verse 25. Hear the word of the Lord.

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 a hundred years old or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.

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. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness but the words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone but for ours also.

It would 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. You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father as we come to this word this morning I pray you continue to teach us about the riches of your grace.

How you in your compassion for us considered our need which we could not fulfill by any works that we had done. We could not forgive our own sins. We could not work our way to some righteousness that would have made us worthy to stand before God let alone dwell with you forever in your holy place.

But seeing that we could not achieve this and we were as good as dead you sent your son Jesus to die for us that by his sacrifice on the cross even by his resurrection from the dead as we read here we are justified by faith in him who has fulfilled and accomplished all these things on our behalf.

Unto Abraham it was granted righteousness because he believed by faith. And this is an example that's given even to us that we may also have righteousness credited to us when we believe by faith in you.

Continue to give us assurance of our salvation in these things in which we have believed according to your promise in Christ Jesus our Lord. It's in his name we pray.

Amen.

Abraham and Sarah as a Picture of Resurrection Life

Now I opened the sermon last week talking about how God had promised Abraham who was 100 and Sarah who was 90 that they would have a son. The scripture even tells us in Genesis 18 11 that the way of women was no longer with.

Sarah.

She was physically incapable of conception and giving birth to a child. God told Abraham this time next year you and your wife Sarah will have a son and Sarah overheard this and she laughed. But three chapters later Genesis 21 begins.

The Lord visited Sarah as he had said and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him whom Sarah bore to him Isaac meaning.

Laughter.

And Sarah said God has made laughter for me everyone who hears will laugh over me. Not with the absurdity at which Sarah laughed when God had made this promise but will laugh with joy because God had fulfilled this promise.

In verse 7 she said who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children yet I have born him a son in his old age. In the text that we have been reading here in Romans chapter 4 we're picking up where we left off last week with this statement about Abraham in verse 17.

This was what we last read in the previous sermon 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.

Now keep those things in mind even as we come into this section here today. Indeed Abraham and Sarah as a couple they were incapable of having children yet where this was not physically possible. God worked a miracle.

This is an actual miracle. Whereas nature would not have allowed this thing to have even taken place. But God gave life to the dead and called into existence the things that do not exist. And what we read here in verses 18 to 25 pick up on that very idea even promising life to us in Christ Jesus.

Warren Wearsby said of this section quote these verses are an expansion of one phrase in Romans 4 17 who quickeneth the dead or as we read it who gives life to the dead. Paul saw the rejuvenation of Abraham's body as a picture of resurrection from the dead.

And then he related it to the resurrection of Christ. One reason why God delayed in sending Abraham and Sarah a son was to permit all their natural strength to decline and then disappear. From a reproductive point of view they were dead.

But Abraham did not walk by sight. He walked by faith. What God promises he performs and all we need to do is believe unquote. So as we break up this passage here we see first Abraham's belief in the promise that's verse 18 followed by the strength of Abraham's belief.

That's in verses 19 to 22. And then we will also see how it is counted to us who believe verses 23 to 25. And that's the title of the sermon today. This is counted to us who believe we who are children of Abraham will likewise receive the promise and the blessings of God by faith in Jesus Christ who justifies.

So first of all we look at Abraham's belief in the promise. This is verse 18. In hope he believed against hope. Now remember we're talking about Abraham here. It's an unusual phrase but I'll come back to that here in a moment that he should become the father of many nations as he had been told.

So shall your offspring be. Abraham believed the promise of God. Now this quote so shall your offspring.

Excuse me.

So shall your offspring be. You'll notice this in quotation marks that's from Genesis 15 5. When God brought Abraham out under the stars and said look toward the heaven and number the stars if you were able.

And so will be the number of your offspring. So shall your offspring be. They will be uncountable as innumerable as the stars in the sky. I remember a song by Rich Mullins from back in 1991 when this song was released sometimes by step or as it's commonly known step by step.

At the start of the second verse Mullins saying sometimes I think of Abraham. How one star he saw had been lit for me. He was a stranger in this land and I am that no less than he. Abraham's faith rested upon the word of God and in hope he believed against hope.

Now that statement sounds like a blind faith statement. Like there's we can't rationally or reasonably think that there's anything there but we step out in blind faith. But any description of faith that we have in Scripture is never blind faith.

Even here it's never blind faith. It's not just believe.

OK.

Just just believe that something is there. Step out and God will catch you. That's not necessarily the understanding. We believe and we step out because we know the promise of God. We're not stepping out on nothing.

We're stepping out on something. And it's what God has promised us in Christ Jesus. But to phrase it this way in hope he believed against hope is to say that by any earthly or human or natural reason this did not make sense.

The scientists would not have been looking at Abraham's odds or chances and given him.

Any favor.

Oh yeah.

You can still have kids. Your wife the way of women is no longer with her. There's no womb. There's no ovaries. There's no ability for her to conceive. But you can still give it a shot. No from the human perspective they were as good as dead.

We tend to misuse this or misapply this word hope. We really cheapen the word hope. I'm not sure if you're aware of this but the Diamondbacks have lost four games in a row. They've actually won only a single game in their last 10.

They're in a real slump right now. But if someone were to say I hope the Diamondbacks win today. They snap their losing streak and they go on to win most of the rest of their season. That may seem improbable.

It may seem unlikely. But it would not really be an unrealistic expectation. There are sports teams throughout sports history that have done stuff like that. May not seem likely but they managed to overcome the odds and they do well and there's this heroic postseason and everybody remembers the World Series that they won and the odds that they overcame.

We can hope for rain here in southern Arizona which actually looks like it may happen today. May occur here even in the middle of my sermon. Most days that's not likely. But it's not far off. It still does rain out here in the desert as it did a month ago right in the middle of my sermon.

We heard the pitter patter on the skylight up there. So we can hope for these things and they're not outside the bounds of normal possibility. But here there was no physical way. There was no way for Sarah to get pregnant and have a child.

Hoping that you could fly through the air like a bird or breathe underwater like a fish. Was just as, that's just as impossible. That's just as unrealistic an expectation as believing a woman who no longer had a functioning womb or ovaries could still have a child.

But Abraham didn't just believe in some exercise of mind over matter. As long as I believe hard enough then it will happen for me. What did he believe in? He believed in the promise. He believed in the Word of God.

It wasn't Abraham's intense hope that made it happen. God made it happen and Abraham believed the promise that God gave him when any rational natural mind to anyone of earthly thinking that outcome would have been absurd.

A 90 year old woman was going to give birth to a child? But again Genesis 21 .1 says the Lord visited Sarah as He had said. And the Lord did to Sarah as He had promised. So what kinds of promises has God made to us that we would likewise believe against hope?

Very simply I think about the fact that the Bible says that my sins are forgiven by faith in Jesus Christ. Can you give me some natural rational proof for my sins being forgiven? Can you scientifically test that and prove to me by some physical or tangible means that my sins have been forgiven?

That my past wrongs have been removed by the grace of God? No longer held against me and I will not be judged for them. I think we're all familiar with the concept of cancel culture. As it exists in our culture today.

If the culture doesn't like something that you're saying. If they want to silence you somehow. If they want to discredit you. They'll dig into your past and find some way to cancel you. Anything is fair game.

And whatever you've posted on the internet, it still exists. And they'll find it and exploit it. And this world is incredibly ungracious and unforgiving. It is really, really difficult, if not impossible, to have your sins forgiven by the world.

Is the world just going to get together one day and go, you know what, yeah, we're not going to count this stuff against you anymore. You're free to go. You can't receive forgiveness from the world. So when Psalm 103 verse 12 says, as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

And I believe that. That's in hope, I'm believing against hope. Who can actually have their past removed and their sins forgiven? With man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. And now having been forgiven, we have peace with God and eternal life through Jesus Christ.

Our Lord.

And this is all according to His promise. As Romans 8, 1 says, there is therefore now no condemnation for all who are in Christ.

Jesus.

So we believe in life after death. And we believe in this against hope, against any earthly sense of hope, against any naturalistic understanding of what happens to us when we die. No one has ever come back from the dead to tell us what's on the other side.

Some of them have attempted to and write bestselling books. But the only one that we can really trust has seen what's on the other side and has told us what is there is the one who came down from heaven to tell us what's on the other side.

The Greeks in Athens mocked the Apostle Paul when he talked about the resurrection of the dead and that's still the case today. You start talking about the resurrection of the dead, those who are naturally minded, those who are worldly minded, they will mock this belief in life after death.

But we believe against any human sense of hope. Abraham believed the promise of God that he would be the father of many nations. And so when we look around, even here in this room, we are the fulfillment of that promise.

All who are in Christ Jesus. So it brings us to the second part of this passage we're looking at here, the strength of Abraham's belief. This is verses 19 to 22. Let me begin reading here in verse 19.

The Strength of Abraham's Faith and the Danger of Doubt

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 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. A few weeks ago, I had mentioned to you that we enter into heaven's gates on the strength of God's mercy and grace, not on the strength of our faith.

We will not have believed perfectly, yet the Lord will welcome us into his kingdom anyway because he is gracious. Now I don't want you to be confused by that though, and hear me saying that doubt is okay.

Just because you didn't believe perfectly, you still had your doubts. No, doubting God is actually a sin, in fact. The scripture tells us that. Nonetheless, God is gracious and the strength of your faith doesn't have to be perfect.

Jesus even sometimes rebuked the disciples for their little faith, O ye of little faith. Yet in Matthew 17 20 he said, with the faith of a mustard seed you can say to this mountain, and move from here to there and it will be done for you.

But you still must have faith, and your faith, the strength of your faith is going to be demonstrated in the fact that you are unwavering, meaning that you don't lose faith. You cannot take your eyes off Christ, even for a moment.

Abraham and Sarah may have laughed when God said they were going to have a child, nonetheless, Abraham believed God. The impossibility of the promise didn't make Abraham throw up his hands and go, well this is impossible, I'm going back to err.

He continued to hold fast in faith.

He believed God.

And however imperfect his faith, God delivered what God had promised. You can pray to God and you can say, God I do not know what you are doing in this moment, but I believe in you. I trust you. And saying that is not weak faith.

That's in fact a very strong faith. Consider what David prayed in Psalm 13. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Is David doubting God?

No.

Asking a question of God is not doubting God. David may not understand in his circumstance why God is doing what he is doing, but listen to what David goes on to say. Consider and answer me, O my God.

Lift up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Lest my enemies say I have prevailed over him. Lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. So even though David is in the midst of a circumstance that causes him to ask God, where are you in the midst of this? He doesn't doubt.

He says, I'm still going to continue to trust in you because I know your promises. I know your character. I know you have dealt bountifully with me. And whatever this trial or whatever this circumstance is, God is dealing bountifully with David even in the midst of that.

That's a strong faith. This isn't a moment here where we look at David and we go, man, David, you're wimping.

Out.

What's the matter with you? I thought you were this warrior king. And here you're asking these questions. How long am I going to continue in this place? I would hope that we would be able to relate to David in the midst of that.

And if David, a man after God's own heart, can mourn before God this way and search and desire to know God's will in the midst of a tough trial, then it's okay for us to come before God and say the same.

And this is not doubting. Do not let Satan whisper in your ear, did God really say? We trust in his word. We trust in his promise. You respond with confidence. Yes, God really said. The Bible says it.

That settles it. And I believe it. As you've probably heard it said, the Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it. As R .C. Sproul has pointed out, that's the wrong order. The Bible says it. That settles it.

And now I believe it. And you will have what he has promised. D .A. Carson gives this illustration. He says, let's say during the time of the Passover, the Jews have already put the blood over the doorposts of the house.

God's announcement of the 10th plague has been given. He's going to pass throughout all of Egypt and all the firstborn will die. But those who have the blood on the doorposts of the house and over the lentil, the angel of death will pass over.

And no one in that house will perish. So D .A. Carson sets up this scenario. Let's say you have two men, Smith and Brown, two very Jewish names, by the way. So Smith and Brown are sitting in their house as that night is drawing near.

And Smith says, well, this is really kind of nerve wracking, isn't it?

Are you kind of worried?

Are you at all concerned about what's going to happen here tonight? And Brown says, no. I mean, God gave the word to Moses. He said, put the blood over the doorposts of your house. That's what we've done, right?

So what do we have to worry about? You put the blood over your doorpost, didn't you? And Smith says, oh, of course I did. I'm not stupid. But still, I mean, you've got to look at all the stuff that's happened here over these last several months.

The great plagues, it's kind of scary. Didn't happen to us. God protected us. It came upon the Egyptians. Oh, it's still horrifying. I've never seen anything like this before. The wonders and the signs that God caused from heaven, the blood turning or the Nile turning to blood or the flies coming, the frogs, the boils, all that stuff.

That was incredible stuff. And now there's this threat of death that's coming upon the land of Egypt. The firstborn sons will die. And I love my son. And there's still, you know, just that kind of feeling of like, I'll be much more comfortable when this night is over.

Don't you feel that way? And Brown says, bring it on. I trust in the promises of God. The angel of death comes that night and passes through Egypt. Between Smith and Brown, which one lost their son? The answer is, neither.

As D .A. Carson says, because death doesn't pass over them on the ground of the intensity or the clarity of the faith exercise, but on the ground of the blood of the Lamb. And one may have been a little apprehensive of what was about to happen that night.

The other one may have seemed to exhibit more confidence. Yet it's not the strength of their faith that delivered them, but the blood of the Lamb. As we sing in the old hymn, my faith has found a resting place.

The chorus goes, I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. Have confidence in Christ. No matter the circumstance. You can take that to your grave and you will rise again.

Hebrews 10 .35 says, therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. But increasingly, American evangelicalism has been rewarding doubt. They consider doubt to be something virtuous.

It's actually bad. They'll say it's arrogant for you to have confidence in your belief. You know the Bible says it. That settles it. I believe it. Well, that's arrogant of you to believe something like that, to say something like that.

They'll go as far as saying that you don't really have faith. If you have all this confidence in what you believe, you must have doubt in order to truly.

Have faith.

Stephen Furtick is pastor of Elevation Church, one of the largest and most lucrative churches in America. Right now, this morning, churches all across America are singing praise and worship songs, and the vast majority of the songs that are being sung in churches across America today are from one of three sources, or from all three places.

Bethel Church in Redding, California. Hillsong Church, which the main church is based in Sydney, Australia. Or Elevation Church, out of Charlotte, North Carolina. In a sermon on faith, Furtick defined faith for his church according to Hebrews 11.

He said, Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

That's true.

It's the Bible. The Bible says it. That settles it. But then, Furtick went on to further explain faith. Right after he quoted that verse, he said, Let's play a game. What's the opposite of good? And the congregation responded,.

Bad.

Okay.

What is the opposite of light? Everybody said,.

Dark.

And then he said, What's the opposite of faith? And you heard a smattering of answers. The two leading answers were doubt and fear. And he said, I want to suggest a third option. You tend to think sometimes that if you have doubts, you don't have faith.

That the presence of doubt indicates the absence of faith. But one priest said, The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. Which exactly contradicts Hebrews 11 .1. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.

Furtick just exactly contradicted what the Bible said. He quoted it and then in his very next statement contradicted it. Now for him to say that the opposite of faith is certainty, if I were having a conversation with him, I would have replied, Are you certain about that?

I mean, it's basically agnostic to say that you can't really know anything. You can't be certain of the promises of God. Then you may as well just give up and become an agnostic. That thought commits suicide, though, to say that you can't be certain in anything.

If you're certain in that statement, then you've just defeated your own argument. Now the priest that Furtick was quoting was Richard Rohr, who has admitted all kinds of heresies into American evangelicalism.

I even brought up his name last week in our Sunday evening service. He is a self-admitted panentheist and universalist, meaning that he believes that God is in everything and there is no hell. Everybody's going to go to heaven.

He disbelieves in the inerrancy and the sufficiency of Scripture and this heretic does not want Christians to be confident in anything God has said. He wants them to love and embrace doubt. That is the enemy talking.

Satan wants you to believe doubt is a good thing, but doubt is not a good thing. The Bible says so. In fact, Scripture is very serious about what God thinks of doubt. James 1 .5 says, "'If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.

But let him ask in faith with no doubting.'". So the question that was posed before, what is the opposite of faith? I heard somebody say it. It's unbelief. Yeah, the opposite of faith is no faith. It's not having faith at all.

So if you come before God, ask in faith and ask with no doubting. For the one who doubts, James says, is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.

He is a double-minded man, unstable in all of his ways. Did Abraham doubt? Abraham and Sarah may have laughed,.

But did they doubt God?

Abraham believed. And you see the evidence of that belief. James argues this in James 2. You see the evidence of Abraham's faith and that he was continually faithful. It wasn't a conversion moment, or at one time and in one statement, he said he believed God, but he believed God, it was credited to him as righteousness, and then we could see by the example of Abraham how that faith was seen in his life.

However limited Abraham's mind may have been to grasp the incredibleness of the promise of God that he gave him, nonetheless, Abraham believed what God said. And so we come back to this statement in verse 22.

And Paul also made this statement in verse three. So you kind of have these bookends here in Romans chapter four. It was said in verse three, it's said here in verse 22, that is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.

And as we've been hearing it argued from chapters three and four, and it will continue to be argued even when we get into chapter five, it is by faith that we are saved. It is by faith that we are justified, not by any works that we do, but the work that God has done for us and credited it to us by faith.

John Gill says the following, not because his faith was strong and he had a full assurance of it, but because it was right, resting on the promise of God and relying upon his power and faithfulness to perform it.

The righteousness of faith is not imputed to any sort of believers, not to mere nominal ones, but to all such as have true faith, though it may be weak. For faith as to nature, kind and object, though not as to degree is the same in all true believers and the same righteousness is imputed to one as to another.

So you may think that you don't have as much faith as I do, or I may think that I don't have as much faith as you do. Perhaps your faith has been perfected in a way through certain trials that I've never been through, yet we have the same righteousness.

The righteousness of Christ has been imputed to both of us. When God looks at us, he sees us as righteous, clothed in the righteousness of Christ that we've been clothed in by faith in him and it's been counted to us as righteousness.

Counted to Us Who Believe in Christ's Death and Resurrection

And so number three, this brings us to the final point in verses 23 to 25, counted to us who believe. We see these things have been counted even to us as read in verses 23 and 25. Look at verse 23. But 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. So it was counted to him. It was counted to Abraham.

It is likewise counted to us who believe by faith. It was not for his sake alone. It is also for ours. The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, that when you look at the unfaithful in the Old Testament, let this serve as a warning to you that you would not lose faith, that you would not waver in your trust in God's promises.

For they disbelieved God and perished in the wilderness. And though we may have had a season of our lives in which we said we believed God, if we don't continue in that faith, it was never really genuine faith.

And we will perish just as they did in the wilderness. We will give over to sin and temptation, the passions of our flesh because we don't believe God, because we don't trust him. But we don't just have these negative reminders in Scripture.

Look out for them and what they did and don't follow their example. We also have these positive reminders. Here are the examples to follow. Last couple of weeks, Brother Allen has been reading from Hebrews 11.

We have the hall of faith. Abraham being one of those that's mentioned there. So that we likewise, we would look at the faith that they exhibited, the reward that they received for their confidence in God.

And we likewise would hold fast to the truth of the promise that has been given to us in God's word. And we see here what is said that not only was Christ given for us to die for our sins, but he was also raised for our justification.

He was delivered up for our offenses in order that he might atone for them. If he was raised for our justification, that justification might take effect on us. So we often talk about how Jesus was crucified for our justification.

We believe in him, he died, that atoned for our sins, but we don't often think about how his resurrection, his rising from the dead, was for our justification as well. That we might be declared innocent before God.

And Charles Ellicott notes, quote, the atoning efficacy lay in his death, but the proof of that efficacy, the proof it was really the Messiah who died, was to be seen in the resurrection. The resurrection, therefore, gave the greatest impulse to faith in the atoning efficacy of the death upon the cross, and in this way, helped to bring about justification.

So what does he mean there by that? Well, as we read in 1 Corinthians 15, 17, if Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain, and you are still in your sins. Without the resurrection, you have no guarantee that your sins have really been remitted.

If the death of Christ was not followed by his resurrection, then it would have been implied by the death of Christ that it was just merely the death of an ordinary man, without any special saving power in his death.

I don't know if you're familiar with the movie Ben-Hur, I'm talking about the real classic Ben-Hur, starring Charlton Heston. Yeah, there was a remake that was done a few years ago, it was awful, don't look for that one.

But this was an epic film, and Jesus is not the main character in this movie, but he does make appearances in the movie. You actually never see his face, it's always from behind or from a distance, but Ben-Hur, Charlton Heston's character, comes across Jesus for the first time when Jesus shows him compassion and gives him a drink of water.