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A Double Blessing Romans 4:1-8 |
May 16, 2004 Pastor Tom Marcum |
You've probably noticed that, just before the end of our worship services each week, I slip out of the auditorium ahead of the crowd and station myself in the courtyard where I can speak briefly with some of you before you head for home. The volume of people is such that long conversations are not possible, but I genuinely enjoy even the brief encounters that we're able to have. And you'd be amazed at the range of comments that are made to me.
--People share prayer requests.
--They tell me about great things that happened to them during the previous week.
--I get introduced to friends and family that are visiting from out of town.
--I get a lot of requests for appointments.
And, not surprisingly, I get lots of comments about the days' sermon. "Great job!" "Really helpful." "I'd never thought of it that way." And so forth.
Interestingly, as I look back across the last 15 years I find that two of my very favorite post-worship service comments came from complete strangers. One fellow introduced himself to me and said, "Well, I heard something today that I never thought I'd hear." I said, "Really? What was that?" He said, "A rational Baptist preacher."
And my all-time favorite comment, also from a complete stranger, came from a guy who walked over to me and said, "Wow, I'd heard you were really good but I wasn't impressed at all." I was momentarily taken aback but quickly recovered and said, "Well, wait till you get to know me…then you'll really be disappointed."
And, nearly every week someone will say something that stays with me all week long. Some little comment that God will sear into my mind and use to grow or teach me in some significant way. And it happened, again, last Sunday when a woman shook my hand and said, "I'm starting to get it." We've been studying the book of Romans since January and after 4 months of trudging through the first 3 chapters her comment is, "I'm starting to get it." The more I reflected on her comment the more I realized how on target it was.
These are deep waters that we're sailing through in the book of Romans. The full ramifications of the theological concepts with which we are grappling are absolutely mind-boggling. These last couple of weeks, for instance, as Paul has been revealing insight upon insight into the way that God has worked through Jesus to make it possible for us to be made right with God it's become abundantly clear that we could ponder these truths for a lifetime and still have more to comprehend.
--But, as challenging as this journey is I sense that God is pleased with our willingness to make it.
--I sense that God is with us in the midst of the journey.
--And while we may never have it all figured out I am feeling incredibly blessed just to be able to say, "I'm starting to get it. Thank you, Father, for all that you've done to set things right between you and me. What an amazing plan You put into place. I've got a long way to go, but I'm starting to get it."
And, folks, I am praying as we make our way through this incredible book, that you are beginning to experience that same blessing as well. That you're seeing things you may not have seen before, that you're understanding things more clearly than you have before and that your gratitude to God continues to grow as you take the time to reflect on all that He has done to set things right between you and Him.
And this is exactly what's on Paul's mind as we move, today, into chapter 4. Paul is going to prompt us to still further reflection into the amazing truth called, "justification by faith." The mind-boggling notion that our standing before God is not dependent upon anything that we do, but rather is solely dependent upon our willingness to put our faith and trust in what God has done for us through Jesus. And here in chapter 4 Paul is going to prompt us to further reflection by focusing our attention on two of the giants of the Old Testament: Abraham and David.
He begins with the example of Abraham writing in VERSE 1, "What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter?"
The phrase, "this matter," refers to Paul's ongoing discussion of the process by which we can be made right with God. Specifically, is it by faith or is it by works? Do we get right with God by faith or as a result of doing the good things and avoiding the bad things identified in the law that God gave us? So, what Paul is basically saying to us here is this: "All of us would agree that the Old Testament scriptures make it clear that God declared Abraham to be a righteous man. The question is, on what basis did God make that declaration-was Abraham declared righteous because of his faith or was Abraham declared righteous because of his flawless obedience of God? What did Abraham discover in this matter?"
And as we move on to VERSE 2, Paul gives us just a little bit more to think about before answering the question he's just raised. He writes, "If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about-but not before God."
I like the way this verse is paraphrased in The Message. It says, "If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story."
Folks, that provides us a wonderful insight into the key distinction between justification by works versus justification by faith. If God justifies us on the basis of our works it makes us look good because it's a statement about our achievements. But if God justifies us on the basis of our faith then all of the honor and glory has to be given to God because now our justification has become a statement about what He has done for us.
Now, as we move to VERSE 3 Paul quotes Genesis 15:6 to answer the question he raised about what Abraham discovered about all of this. He writes, "What does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.'"
Again, I like the way The Message expresses his verse. It says, "(Abraham)…trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own." In other words, even Abraham…as good and obedient to God as he was…even Abraham was justified by faith, not by works.
And in VERSES 4-5 Paul continues to deepen our understanding of how this process of being justified by our faith works, by speaking specifically to his statement about God "crediting" righteousness to Abraham. In VERSE 4 he writes, "Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift…(or, more literally, 'according to grace')…, but as an obligation."
In other words, if God only justified those people who deserved it as a result of their own efforts then that wouldn't be a gift; that wouldn't be an expression of God's grace, God would simply be paying them a wage. God would be giving them what He owed them. So, the point is that if Abraham had been made right with God because of anything that he had done then the scriptures couldn't say that God "credited" righteousness to him, rather they would have to say that God paid Abraham the righteousness that he was owed. That God settled His debt with Abraham. But that's not what the scriptures say. The scriptures say that Abraham's righteousness was credited to him; that is, given to him as a gift from God.
And VERSE 5 explains why. "However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness." I want to call your attention to two key phrases in this verse.
Let's begin with the phrase, "…to the man who does not work but trusts God…" Folks, that phrase tells us something very important about being justified or made right with God by faith. And here's what it tells us.
If I have to work to be made right with God that means that I have to go through a process that unfolds over some period of time…that period of time when I am working to get right with God. So, even if I were to decide today that getting right with God was the most important thing in my life and that starting right now I was going to work as hard as I could toward that goal…even with all of that desire and dedication I would know that it would still be some lengthy period of time, probably a very long period of time, before I would actually be right with God.
I mean, think about this, folks. How long do you suppose that you would have to work to convince God that He owed you a declaration of righteousness? How long do you suppose it would take you to live such a good and righteous life that God would simply have no choice but to forgive every wrong you'd ever done, wipe the slate clean and declare that everything is now made right between you and Him? How long would you have to work to pull that off? I did a little reflecting on that question myself this past week and I came to the undeniable conclusion that, in my case, I don't have that many years left!
I'm so glad that God justifies those who don't work, but simply trust Him. You see, while work has to happen over a period of time, trust happens in an instant. And that means that you can get right with God in an instant. The moment you trust Him, you will be justified and God will declare you are right with Him.
Next, let's look at that phrase, "…God who justifies the wicked…" or, as other translations say, "the ungodly." Here's the point. When we finally come to that moment of trusting God to make us right with Him…when we finally come to that point in our life where we are willing to acknowledge our need for a savior and we are ready to say, "Yes, I believe that by trusting Jesus as my Savior I can be right with God… when we are ready to stop resisting or ignoring God and just say, "Yes, Father, I believe" …in that moment we are still ungodly, unrighteous, wicked sinners. The initial statement or confession of faith that we offer to God is being made by a person with a track record of unfaithfulness and disobedience, a person with a long record of pursuing their own sinful desires, a person who still behaves in ungodly ways, in short, a sinner in need of forgiveness. That's the way we all begin our journeys with God. And that means that if God was unwilling to justify the wicked, the ungodly, the sinful…we would all be in a hopeless predicament.
Folks, here's the point I'm trying to make: it's not the quality of our faith that makes us right with God. It's a loving God acting in grace to receive the sincere confession of faith of an ungodly sinner that makes it possible for us to be right with God.
--Thank God that He justifies the ungodly.
--Thank God that He credits righteousness to the wicked.
--Thank God that He welcomes the confession of faith that comes from sinful people.
Thank God. Thank God.
Finally, now, as we move to VERSES 6-8, Paul is going shift our attention from Abraham to David and he does this to help us see a double blessing that God accomplishes in our lives through this process of being justified by faith, rather than by works. Quoting from Psalm 32, here's what he says.
David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him." Romans 4:6-8
Up until verse 8, Paul has labored to help us understand how very blessed we are when God credits His righteousness to us. The righteousness that we could never have achieved through our own effort, God grants us by faith. What an amazing blessing.
But now as we come to verse 8 Paul calls our attention to another related blessing that he's not yet talked about at all, namely, that in this process of being made right with God, God also chooses not to count our sins against us. In fact, the word translated here as, "count" is the same Greek word translated earlier as "credit." So, when you put it all together, this is what you get:
When God justifies us by faith and declares that we are now right with Him, He gives us a double blessing.
--First, He credits His own righteousness to us and
--then He doesn't credit our sins to us.
We come to Him with sin and He not only gives us His righteousness but He also takes our sin away. We are doubly blessed.
So, what happened to our sin? Christ took all of our sin onto Himself and paid in full the penalty for our sin on the cross. Christ died so that we could know the blessing of being totally secure in our right standing with God. And the reason we can be secure in our standing before God is because it is not based on anything that we have done but rather in our trust in the sufficiency of what God has done for us through Christ. We are justified by faith.
So, I have a question for you, Are you starting to get it? Are you beginning to see something of the enormity of all that God has accomplished in making us right with Him by faith?
--Can you imagine a more precious gift than this?
--Is there anything in the entire world that you would take in exchange for this?
Folks, if you have been blessed with the security of knowing that by faith you are right with God I hope that you will take some time, right now, to say thanks to God.
If you don't yet know that you're right with God that can change today. And you don't have to do anything. You simply have to believe that Jesus has already done for you everything that has to be done. I hope you will.
© Copyright 2004 Pastor Tom Marcum