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Sermon Notes: notes.cornerstonesj.org
Romans 4:13-25
Amen, you may be seated and let's pray. Even so, come Lord Jesus. We know, Lord, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their mind is on earthly things. Their God is their stomach. Their glory is in their shame.
But our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are looking for you, Jesus. We're waiting on you. And my prayer this morning, Lord, is that as we hear your word today, you would increase our faith in the promise and we would live for the promise, not for this world, not for the things of this earth.
Set our minds on heavenly things, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. Help us to live like it might be today. Break the chains that tie us to this world. Break the power of sinful desires.
Remind us of your promise, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Proverbs 22, six says, "'Train up a child in the way he should go. "'Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.'". Many of you probably know that verse, right?
Question, is that a promise from God or a principle, an observation of what is generally true? It is not a promise of God. If it were a promise of God, then every child of a believer would grow up and themselves be believers.
All Christians would beget only Christians, but we know that that is not the case. It is not a promise. It is a general observation about life that when we follow this principle of training our children, it's generally true that they grow up to know the same God that we know.
It's very important that we distinguish between what are the promises of God and what are principles or general observations. The book of Proverbs as a genre is not a book of promises, but a literary form that trains people how to live a godly life.
Turn with me quickly to Galatians 3, 5. This is a parallel passage to Romans 4 where we will spend our time this morning. But in this verse, I would like you to see in Galatians 3, 5, a promise and a principle.
Galatians 3, 5 reads this way. Galatians 3, 5, does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? In this verse, we have a principle and a promise.
Is it promised that every person who is sick or blind or crippled will be healed? Is that the promise if they would just have enough faith? That is not promised in this verse. Look more carefully. To you, the promise is given that the spirit of God would be in you.
He supplies the spirit to you. That is promised to you. But among you, he works miracles. See the difference? In Acts chapter two, we're told everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
Does that apply to everyone? Yes, it's promised to everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord that they will be saved. Peter will later say in that sermon, repent and be baptized on account of the forgiveness of sins.
And he goes on to say there that the promise is for you and for your children and all those who are far off. It is promised that everyone who believes in Jesus, turning from sin, marked by baptism as the outward sign, that these are forgiven of their sins.
That is a gospel promise. But look again at Galatians 3 .5. Miracles worked among you is something that we ought to expect. I pointed out Ray in first service because he's got that eye patch. And this week he's able to open the flap of the window and see out pretty well because his eye is being healed.
He's no longer seeing double as he did before. We praise God for that. But if God left his eyesight cross for the rest of his life, God would still be faithful to every promise he's ever spoken. We expect to see miracles among us according to God's sovereign will.
Now, this teaching is very corrupted in many churches under what's called the health and wealth gospel, which becomes not faith in God's promise, what God has promised to do, but rather, hear this, faith in faith.
People are taught that if they will only believe enough in what they want to see happen, God will do it. The faith is therefore not in a given promise, but in the power of faith itself. We call that fedeism, faith in faith.
A great example of this comes from a guy named Kenneth Copeland. Maybe you've seen him on TV. I see Brad over there laughing because there's a video of him being approached by an investigative reporter and he wags his finger at the reporter and yells at her and then he suddenly catches himself and smiles.
And she questions him why he's buying all these planes, private planes with ministry money. And he says, well, they made that plane so cheap, I couldn't help but buy it. And you're just thinking, wow, this guy is really teaching something very different.
But one of the things he says in his healing crusades is that God will heal you if you can have enough faith. The idea is that it is always God's will to heal. The promise is for healing. And so at his crusade, there's a line of people in wheelchairs and he will lay hands on each one of them and tell them that God has healed them.
They only need to believe it. But the problem is none of them get up out of the chair. In fact, one of them fell back under the so-called slaying in the spirit and he lay on the ground out of his wheelchair until finally four men lifted him back up into the wheelchair.
There was a man that recently went to one of these crusades, a Billy Burke crusade, an associate of Kenneth Copeland. He flew 12 ,000 miles in pursuit of the holy man who could heal him. This poor man had a tumor the size of my fist growing over his eye.
And it had taken the vision of the one eye and the doctor said it was spreading and would eventually cover both of his eyes, which worked fine, but the tumor was blocking the eye. And this faith healer, Billy Burke, proclaimed that God had healed him.
And the man stood in agreement with all this assurance, faith in faith. The only problem was for the rest of the service, this giant tumor was still staring the rest of us in the face. You see, faith is not that the miracle has happened.
Doesn't require, God doesn't ask you to have faith that something which hasn't happened has happened. The issue here is people are being taught to put their faith in faith itself rather in a distinct promise of God.
And there is one promise, which I call the promise, which is the subject of Galatians four. I'm sorry, Romans four. We were at Galatians three, five. Galatians three and Romans four are parallel texts dealing with the same issue, justification by faith.
So turn with me to the book of Romans chapter four. The promise, the promise, that definite article, T-H-E, indicates a very unique, very special promise that has been given unto us. Peter will talk of great and precious promises.
That are given.
What is the promise? Jesus said about Abraham in John 8, 56, that Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus's day. He was promised, Abraham was promised an offspring through Isaac, a singular seed that would bless the world.
This Abrahamic covenant is repeated in Genesis 12, Genesis 15, Genesis 17, and Genesis 22. Do you think it's important? The covenant that God made with Abraham, a promise that the righteousness of God would be accounted to Abraham, credited to Abraham by faith in that promise.
What we learn from Jesus in John 8, 56 is that Abraham was looking forward to Christ. Abraham rejoiced to see my day, says the Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham was 2 ,000 years before Christ, and yet he was looking for the promised seed, the one from God who can forgive sins and credit a person with righteousness.
And so Abraham was looking to Jesus. And that is the promise, the forgiveness of sin to those who believe in Jesus. There's a lot that goes with this promise, and we're about to learn that one of the things is that believers will inherit the world.
Does that sound pretty good? If I could promise you something today,.
How about the whole world?
Does that sound pretty good? Let's read it. Romans 4, verses 13 through 17 to begin with, and then we'll go in two other sections. First, about the promise. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring, pause there, that term offspring isn't here referring to the singular seed, Jesus Christ, but those who like Abraham have faith and who have the faith of Abraham.
So they are children of Abraham. We learned in chapter four earlier in this chapter that those who believe in Jesus are the children of Abraham because we have a faith like Abraham. So the offspring, that's referring to us, which will be confirmed as you read it.
You can tell the offspring is us. Now, what is the promise? That's the first question in verse 13. The promise to Abraham in his offspring that he would be heir of the world. Sound like a pretty good promise?
Heir of the world. It's given to Abraham and his offspring. It did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. That's a big idea. You're justified, you're forgiven, and you inherit the world, not by obeying law.
Verse 14, for if it is the adherence of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null, and the promise, the issue here is the promise,.
That's void.
So if you try to earn righteousness by law, the promise is null and void. For the law brings wrath. Anybody who thinks they can do the law, they have to obey every law perfectly, or else they're under wrath because they're violators of the law.
But where there is no law, there is no transgression. Now, in verse 16, it says 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. That's a promise in Genesis 17. In the presence of God, in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
When Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, he began the Protestant Reformation. And the first serious challenge that the Roman Catholic Church launched against justification by faith alone and grace alone was written by a man named Desiderius Erasmus.
He was the leading humanist scholar of the day and writing on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Pope loved this book. He wrote what was called the Freedom of the Will. Anybody ever heard of that book before?
The Freedom of the Will? The idea of the Freedom of the Will is to say the Reformation doctrine, justification by faith, by grace alone, cannot be true because the human will must be the deciding factor in eternal destiny.
The human will must either accept Christ or reject Christ and God will therefore judge the world based on free will and so he wrote the book Freedom of the Will. But the most important book that Martin Luther ever wrote was an answer to that book.
It was called the Bondage of the Will. The Bondage of the Will, to say that people are so sinful that they cannot in themselves choose God. They're bound to sin because they're dead in sin and that's the point of the book.
But in the introduction to Bondage of the Will, Martin Luther commended Erasmus for one thing. He said, Erasmus, of all my opponents, you alone put your finger on the crucial spot. You touched the hinge upon which the entire Reformation turns.
Martin Luther understood that this was a more fundamental issue than salvation through faith not works. Justification by faith, that is the doctrine we're talking about in Romans four. Romans three, 21 to 31, gave the doctrine and then in chapter four, Abraham is an example.
He believed God and God credited to him as righteousness. So God counts righteousness to the person who believes in faith. David was another example. David didn't earn anything but he wrote Psalm 32 as one who was forgiven of sin.
He came to an end of himself and repented and God credited righteousness to David because of faith. So justification by faith is the issue. But here we are given some very deep teaching. Paul actually tells us why God judges the world by faith and not by works of the law.
And the answer he gives is that underneath justification by faith is sola gratia, grace alone. The sufficiency of grace. Now listen, look at verse 16. God speaking here says that is why it depends on faith.
So faith isn't the ultimate issue. Look at the rest of the verse. God judges the world by faith, not by obedience to the law in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to the offspring.
So what we will learn from the book of Romans is that a base underneath which justification by faith rests is the idea of grace. What is grace? God's unmerited favor, his electing love, his pleasure to extend kindness to undeserving sinners.
In other words, this is the most important part. Here I stand in my sin like David and I bring nothing to the table, no righteousness, but God has chosen in his grace to save people who believe so that all the glory would go to him.
He makes a promise that none of us deserve. And what I'm trying to tell you is that this promise ought to become the most precious thing that you hold. The promise of being justified by faith exists on top of this reality of grace.
Grace is more fundamental than faith. Faith we're told depends on grace. So do you believe that everything you have, including the very forgiveness of your sins is nothing more than God's gracious gift to you?
You brought nothing to the table, no humility greater than your next door neighbor that you would have faith. It all comes from grace. This is the big idea and Paul will expound upon it in Romans eight, seven and eight.
And then from Romans eight, 28, all the way through chapter nine, this idea will be fleshed out. But for now, we need to leave the idea and move on to something a little simpler.
Take a deep breath.
But something that's so relevant. And that is the second point. This promise that we're talking about, the promise of righteousness given to us by faith never grows old. It never grows old. Let's read it.
Verses 18 to 22. In hope, we're talking about Abraham. Abraham 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 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. Guys, I noticed just a couple days ago that I'm becoming a little bit nearsighted. When I look down at the Bible, these words are stark in perfect contrast and I can make them out.
But when I look back there at some of you guys, you're looking a little blurry. And that wasn't always the case. I had 20 -20 vision. I'm becoming slightly nearsighted because I'm growing old. And Ray, you know, you've got the eye issue, right?
What happens when you grow old? Our eyes are not as strong as they once were. But the idea here is that as Abraham grew old, his body almost gone. He's almost 100 years old. Sarah now 90 years old. In hope against hope, he held onto a promise.
Now, what does it mean in hope against hope? You've heard that phrase before, but what does it mean? The idea is that even when there's no logical reason to have hope that something will happen, no outward indication that it's about to happen, hope becomes stronger, not weaker.
Do you follow that?
When everything externally looks impossible, she's 90 and she's been barren her whole life. How will she have a son? And Abraham sees his body growing older. It says that contrary to natural expectations of hope, his hope got stronger.
Do you see this in verse 21? At the end of verse 20, he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God. And then 21, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.
If you have a faith that's growing weaker year by year, it's possible that that faith was never genuine. Genuine faith in the promise of God grows stronger, we're told. Now, that's not an automatic thing.
I wanna show you just briefly, if you'll turn with me to 2 Peter chapter one, that whereas justification involves no human effort, no work, it's entirely the gift of God, righteousness credited because of his grace, to grow in faith does require some effort on our part.
There is a synergism in some way in sanctification. Now, I know Christ is living his life through us, but notice there is something that we have to do. 2 Peter one, verses three to 11. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
He's given us everything we need. Through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. By which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises. So that through them, you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control and self-control with steadfastness and steadfastness with God's grace.
Do you see that these are things that you add to your faith, you supplement your faith with these things. You must progress in these things. Verse eight, also we have brotherly affection and love. Verse eight, for if these qualities are yours and are, notice the word, increasing.
As Abraham's was increasing. They keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Which means it's possible for a Christian to have faith, genuinely be saved, but be rendered ineffective and unfruitful as a Christian.
How does that happen? Verse nine, for whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he's blind. That's pretty nearsighted. If your sight is retreating into you to the point where you're actually blind, you're very nearsighted.
Having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. What has he lost sight of? The promise. And my sermon today is called The Promise because Christians sometimes, attracted by the things of this world, sinful desires, taking hold of the heart, they lose sight of what's far, what seems far.
And this is especially a danger for the young. When you're young, your eyes can't see that far. You think this promise is way off. Nobody expects to die as a teenager. And so the young can be so attracted to the things of this world, sinful desires that they become nearsighted.
They can't see far. That's the idea. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election. So you can't call yourself, you can't elect yourself, but if you have faith given by God, you can confirm it.
There's work that you can do. There are things that you can do. And here, what you're being told to do is to focus your mind on a promise. Verse 10, therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fail.
As old as Abraham got, his faith never failed. Verse 11, for in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The word entrance indicates a future reality.
Philippians 1, 6 tells us that God will complete the work that he began in us. Ephesians 1, 13 and 14 says, when you believed in him, you were marked in him with the seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a guarantee of your inheritance, your future possession.
This future possession is something you will enter into on the other side of that final swim. Anybody here ever watched The Pilgrim's Progress, the movie, or read the book? Christian fights his battles, the temptations of Vanity Fair, the dragon, all of the dangers of this life, but the final and most difficult challenge was to go through death itself.
He had to go through death to make it to the eternal shore. He had to keep his eyes on his journey, while on his journey, upon the celestial city. Every time he looked to the side, he left the path. This is the idea, the entrance into the eternal city.
Abraham is an example of this. In chapter 11, he was looking for a city whose architect and builder is God, an eternal city with foundations. And so he was willing to leave his known world and go where God was sending him.
How often do you think about that day when Jesus comes back? When he sets his foot on the Mount of Olives, Zechariah 14, it splits in two, and he reigns. The promise for the second coming of Christ is when Jesus comes, this dispensation, this evil age in which Satan is a ruler, a principality in this world, when Christ comes, a millennial kingdom is established and you and I will reign with him.
He will be the king of kings in Jerusalem, and we, like vice regents on the earth, will serve under him, and the world will be ours. Look out at the world, do you see how dark it is? Sexual perversion, greed, nations warring against one another.
The world is at war, even if World War III hasn't started yet. Eventually it will. There will be battles in Armageddon, and all of these things will continue on, but there's coming a day, and this is where you must set your hope, the coming of Jesus Christ.
The promise, this has to be valuable to you. If you will hold this promise as more and more important in your life, you can let go of the things of this earth. See, the problem is we become ineffective and unfruitful in ministry because we're not remembering the promise.
We're getting bored with it. Can you imagine? Justification by faith, sins forgiven, you've forgotten that you were cleansed from your former sins. You, like the world, deserve to be six feet under, and yet how many of us walk around like we're victims?
We're ailing because of some physical problem in our bodies, or we don't have what other people have. We're jealous or envious of the possessions of others, and we walk around like victims. When we're heirs, the promise is the world itself belonging to you in the millennial kingdom of Christ.
Why would you fear death? Abraham was growing old. Some here are growing old, and you think it's not too far off. The youngest person in this room doesn't know how many days they have left. It might be less than expected, but death is no fear to the Christian.
To live is Christ, to die is gain. See, this is the idea, and we'll go back and finish up now. In Romans four, there's only three verses left. The big idea, the big concept in verses 18 to 22 is that the promise never grows old.
It's us who get distracted, and we forget that our former sins are forgiven, but like Abraham, we ought to treasure this promise more and more as we grow older. Yes, our physical eyesight begins to fade, but that should correspond inversely with the eyes of our faith.
As we near the end, and each one of us began dying the day we were born, because death is in the world and sin in us and death. It's one day closer every day that you live. It should cause you to pursue, to make your election more sure, to confirm it.
And your faith should be growing stronger day by day as you focus on this promise, not by promises of health and wealth or the next flashy thing. This has to be enough for you. So finally, realize that the words it was counted to him, this is verse 23, were not written for his sake alone.
Who's he?
Abraham.
Paul has been treating Abraham extensively here. But for ours also. Us too. First Corinthians 10, 11, the things that happened to them were an example for us. 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 the big idea here is that this promise that was made to Abraham, Genesis 15, six, it was for you too. That's the point that he makes here in the verse, but Paul will spend more time on it in Galatians three and four.
He gives us a chapter here in Romans. In Galatians three and four, he tells us that back in Genesis 12, three, when Abraham was promised to bless the nations, you are the nations blessed through Abraham.
He tells us that in Leviticus 18, cursed is everyone who does not do everything written in the book of the law. That refers to anyone who's trying to be justified by being good enough. But Deuteronomy 20, 23, Paul says, cursed is the one who is hung upon a tree.
That refers to Christ who became a curse by hanging on the tree on our behalf. And when Abraham, and here's the final analogy, when Abraham took his son Isaac, he was dealing with his one and only son, his beloved son, and yet in faith, he was able to walk up that mountain and God said on the Mount of the Lord, it will be provided.
That was referring to Christ. The true and only son, who would provide salvation for us on that mountain. Why would Abraham be willing to sacrifice his son? Here you have the promise that the world will be blessed through that son, Genesis 17, it had to be through Isaac.
So if he kills Isaac,.
How can the whole world be blessed through Isaac? Hebrews 11 tells us that Abraham reasoned that God is able even to raise the dead. He expected to kill Isaac on the mountain and then for Isaac to be resurrected and come back down the mountain with him.
And so his faith was so strong, he was willing to obey the command to kill his own son. Of course, God stopped him with an angel because Isaac would not be the sacrifice, Christ would. But Abraham is the example for us.
Abraham is your example of what your faith ought to become as you grow. So strong that you're willing to do the most unthinkable thing, maybe leave America and go to Malawi as a missionary and serve the orphans.
Or maybe work hard at your job and raise a family and represent Christ, which is very hard to do in this culture. Abraham is the example. His son, Ishmael, is the example of a son who's not really a son.
There are people who are never Christians who think they are. Isaac is example of a true son because he's the son of promise, right? The one promised who believes the promise like his father did. Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, is an example of slavery.
To be enslaved to sin, the servant woman from Egypt typifies those who are trying to earn salvation by the law. Sarah is an example of freedom. Paul explains all of these types in Galatians 3 and 4. But here in Romans, we conclude with this, that Abraham is the example that we have of one who believed the promise.
Do you believe it? Have you lost sight of it? Are you growing nearsighted and forgetting to look far? If you do that, you'll become ineffective and unfruitful as a Christian. But three things to remember.
The promise has grace at the base. You're justified by faith so that God would get the glory in being gracious to you, not anything in yourself. The promise never grows old. The more you look into the perfect law that gives liberty, the word of God, the more passion is stirred in you.
I love talking about Christ as much now, after 25 years of full-time ministry, as I did when I first began. And every time I open the book to study, to prepare a sermon, I see the riches of the depth of his word.
And you guys have to listen to everything that I enjoyed all week long. But if you're eating that meal all week long, you'll be right there with me. You'll want to hear the deep things of God. And I know many of you, most of you, surely, are doing that.
That's what genuine faith is. It desires to grow. Becomes more and more important to you, not less and less. And then lastly, this promise is for us too. You are credited with righteousness when you believe that Jesus was raised from the dead.
That's how you're justified, through the resurrection of Christ, we're told. And so, we're gonna close in prayer. And if there's anybody here that's not trusted in Jesus Christ, now is your time to ask for the forgiveness of sin.
Put your faith in Jesus alone. But also for us, let's do an altar call for those who do believe and have believed. Let's be reminded to pray for greater faith, increasing faith as you grow old.
Let's pray.
So Father, we do ask for those who have heard this sermon and have not yet believed in the Son of God, that you would open their eyes, that you would work in their hearts to give them faith. They can't stir it up.
They can't force themselves to believe. You alone, God, can open eyes, blind eyes. You can remove tumors over the eye. You can bring crippled people out of a wheelchair. You can raise the dead. And you can give life to a dead heart.
So God, we pray that you would save sinners, bring them to repentance, open their eyes that they may see. And Father, we pray that you would open our eyes as well. Those of us who have seen Christ, have believed.
Help us not to lose sight of the promise, the great and precious promise of things yet future, the coming of Christ, the inheritance of the world itself. Help us then to live for Christ. Help us to add to our faith virtue and to our virtue knowledge, to add godliness and steadfastness and brotherly affection and agape love, that we would be increasing in these things.
Help us to grow. As we grow old, Lord, we ask that we would grow in faith like Abraham did. He used to get entangled in sexual sin with Hagar and in fear in giving his wife to the Egyptian and to Abimelech.
But as he grew old, his faith grew stronger and stronger. Lord, let our faith grow this morning. Turn our eyes back upon Jesus. Help us to cling to the promise and let go of this world. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
