Lesson 12a
Romans 4:1-5 · Mike Doyle · Jun 24, 2018
Romans (2018-21), No. 23
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261910467856

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

chapter 4 of Romans and we're going to work on the first five verses today. I'm going to read them because they kind of have to go together. 4-1 What then shall we say that Abraham our forefather according to the flesh has found? For if Abraham was justified by works he has something to boast about but not before God. For what does scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now to one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness.

So, verse 1 says, what shall we say then that Abraham our forefather in the flesh has discovered? Who is Abraham the forefather of? Just the Jews? Well, let me ask you this way, in this context would you say that it refers just to the Jews? The answer is yes it does. He's only talking about the physical relationship with the nation of Israel because he was the start of it. There isn't any spiritual overtones here, no spiritual connection.

In John 8.39, here's how the Jews thought. They answered and said to him, Our father, which is a different word for father than here, is Abraham. And Abraham is our father, so therefore God is our father. That's how the Jews thought. They were a particular separate nation.

So according to the flesh is synonymous with works. I'll say that again. You see in the Bible according to the flesh, it's a synonymous term that means we're talking about works, performance. So the doctrine of Abraham being the father of all that believe hasn't been introduced yet. It comes later in this chapter. So it's important sometimes to not get ahead of Paul.

So he is the forefather of the Jewish nation. God made promises to him about a nation and then he had a son and a grandson. His grandson was renamed, Jacob was renamed Israel and his twelve sons were the twelve heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. So that's where it comes. Now, this next part, this next question on your, we may continue to answer this question as we go through the rest of these verses, but what I wrote, what was it? Eureka, wow, what did Abraham discover? What did he discover? Your version may say, has found.

It's in the perfect tense. It's important to understand it. What's the perfect tense? I'm standing up here like a Greek geek, which I'm not. But what is the perfect tense? It's a Greek tense that means something happened in the past that has abiding results on into the future.

So this has found is in the perfect tense. Abraham found something in the past that has abiding results going into the future. He makes a discovery once with the results extending all the way to today and forever. He's discovered a principle. What's the principle? It's the way something operates, functions, works, and it works the same every time. Every single time. So he's discovered this principle and he's discovered how important this is.

Now why, think about this, this new principle we're going to talk about that he discovered, why do you think Paul would pick, of all the Old Testament saints, he picks Abraham? He said, let's use Abraham as an example. So he asks the question, What did Abraham find out? Why did he pick Abraham? For the exact reason we've just discussed.

He's the father of the Jewish nation and he's the father of the faithful. What better person could he use, especially with Jews that might be listening, that Abraham's going to discover something that's going to go totally against everything you think is right. For the Jew to find that great Abraham has nothing in his flesh, his humanity, but must be justified by simple faith like any sinner is a great shock to a Jew. I know we've lived for five or six years now in a neighborhood of ascetic Jews and we've gotten to know some. Number two rabbi lived across the street from us for four or five years. It was really interesting to watch their culture. They are performing working bees. But like Donna says, they have so many rules to obey, they can't keep their houses clean or their lawn mowed because they're so busy doing the rules.

There's this wire that goes out two miles in every direction from the synagogue. It's called a Havit. And one guy has a responsibility to drive that two miles every day and make sure it didn't come down. So when the Sabbath happens, you can't go outside of that two miles in terms of walking. So you know what the really smart sort of half serious Jews do? They drive up to the two-mile market out of the car and walk in. That's what they do. The Jews, did they also believe that just because that was their heritage, they were in a favorite position? Yeah, well, I mean, they believed that they were favored because God said they were.

The things that he promised Abraham, he didn't promise any other person on the earth. And he didn't create a whole nation out of one man like he did Abraham. There was no honor or no merit in Abraham's believing the faithful God who can't lie. So I should ask you, what did he find out? What did Abraham discover? What did he get his hands on that just totally changed everything?

Principle of faith. Principle of faith. And the other principle. There are two of them here that he discovered. How about that God is faithful? God is faithful. He honors God. He believes God. And he trusts Him. So the other principle that he found out is that God operates on a grace principle, not a law principle. Understand that? Maybe I can explain this. How did grace and faith go together? That's the way you enter into grace, is through faith. Is by faith.

I was reading this little booklet by Ron Merriman. Some of you guys know Ron Merriman. The title of this thing, The Believer in the Mosaic Law. So I thought I'd just give you some of the five purposes of the Mosaic Law. The first one is, the law was given to stop every mouth. That is, to muzzle every voice that would flaunt self-righteousness before God. You know, God, here's what I'm doing, what do you think? Pretty good, huh? The law was given so that nobody could do that. Every mouth had to be stopped.

The second purpose of the law was to produce in every human being a sense of personal guilt, accountability, and hence a need for God's forgiveness. Every culture in the world has some sort of a system for appeasing a God who they need forgiveness from because they haven't been measuring up. I don't care what culture it is. Their God may have another name, but it's the principle that's there. The third principle of the law in scripture is to provide an objective knowledge of sin for the human race. Paul said, without the law, I can't say that's a sin, that isn't a sin. Let me ask you this. When Cain killed Abel, did he commit a sin? I think he did. Did he violate a law? No, he didn't. There wasn't a law against murder. He did sin, but he didn't. So he didn't have, well, what did I do wrong? Because we think like that. We go to God and say, well, exactly what did I do wrong?

And so what the law is designed to do is say, well, it's number 46 on the list right here. That's what it's designed to do. so that you don't get to dance. The next one is the fourth purpose of the law. It serves as a stern child disciplinarian to bring its hearers to Christ that they might be declared righteous by God through faith in Christ's finished work at the cross. Notice he says its hearers.

The mosaic law was only given to who? only the Jews but that doesn't mean that like in 2018 there may be a someone who grows up in a denominational church and he gets or she gets under the law an example I had a great breakfast with Jim Poole on Thursday morning and we were chatting about what he's doing that kind of thing and he said he grew up we're talking about how he's raising his two boys and how he was raised he was raised under an extremely strict a Christian mosaic system that focused on his behavior, but not on his heart.

And at about 20, he said, I think I'm out of here. And he dove into the world, feet first, head first, totally in, went through a period of where he really, and then the Lord drew him back, but drew him back by grace. So he understands grace. Well, he's a guy who's not a Jew who understands about the law because he was raised under it. Not that the law is beneficial in any way other than it may serve to bring you to grace. I grew up in Catholicism. Anybody who grew up in Catholicism knows what it's like to grow up under a law system.

And the fifth purpose is a restrainer of evil and a perpetual reminder to unbelievers of their moral responsibility to God. The law is categorically not made for the believer." It's interesting to think that the law is not made for the believer. Well, that's one of the things that Abraham discovered. He was declared righteous when he believed God.

Now, why is faith the one thing a man can do without doing anything? It's not meritorious. It's not meritorious. Do you realize that faith is not meritorious? Do you understand what I mean by that? You don't get rewarded for having faith, for believing God. Why not? It's not about you. What's that? It's not about you. Not about you.

There's a value in that equation. God brings us his pronouncements of what his son did. And he says, if you believe me, I will save you. So there is an element here of, if I believe, there are incredible benefits to be derived. But the value in the benefits is where? Not in the fact that I believed him, it's in the one who did it. See that?

It's perfect because it sets up the system where God gets all the praise. So the one thing a man can do that he can't take any credit for is believe God. But by believing God, there's this avalanche of grace that just comes like the dam broke. Grace is not a definable system of do's and don'ts. Grace is actually a whole environment that we live in. As a matter of fact, God won't even respond to you if you go at Him legally today.

Because from His frame of reference, which is the most important one, or the only important one, He's done with the law system because He took care of it on the cross. We have to approach Him in grace. We have to. So are you alright with that? Why faith is the one thing?

So God made a statement. He made a promise. And God undertook to fulfill the promise that he made. Abraham believed in his heart that God told the truth. Now, let's see how many honest people we have in the room. Have you ever gone to the Lord as a super bummy Christian? read the promise that he made to you and didn't believe him? Sure. I got one, two, three, four, five honest people. The rest of you, you might have to go next door. How much effort is there here on our part? How much effort is there here on our part? There's no effort. There's absolute... Faith isn't one of those things No, it's not like that.

Okay, I believe you. I may not understand it completely, but I believe you. I want to say this. Isn't there sometimes a reckoning where you have to... because it seems like there's always two sides. Yes, there is. You know, coming at you. So it does seem like there is... it's not just effortless believing Okay, I acknowledge that this is true, so it's effortless from here on out. Oh, well, no. The very fact that you believe is what's effortless, the result of it. The interesting thing about that is that we are always given, I shouldn't say we're always given, it's in the scenario you described we have the old man and the old nature and the environment we live in yelling in this ear, like Calvin said, The sin nature is like having to wear earphones with CNN blasted in your ear all day long. And then on the other side you have the Holy Spirit and the Word of God who is talking to you about grace. What you find is that if you just believe Him, and that's no effort, there's a rest over here that there isn't over here.

Well, is it like there's a difference between trials and tribulations and effortless? It could be, although the tribulations may be there, even as you walk by faith. The thing is that Miles Stanford had a great saying, one of the first things he ever said that I thought, oh, I've got to remember that.

He said, faith goes from objective fact to love and affection with a person. So as you grow spiritually, what's happening is your affection as you get to know the Lord Jesus Christ has increased. So when he comes along in his word and says, well, how about the next thing I want you to believe? As an example, I crucified you with Christ.

And you think, really? When did that happen? I don't remember that. He just said it. And because you trust him, like Abraham did, you say, okay, I believe you. Well, I can't explain what you mean by that, but I trust you. So can you compare that with people that you have, the name it and claim it? What's at the basis of name it and claim it? What's the premise under name it and claim it, the principle? Me. I'm going to name it so I can have it.

For the new man in Christ or the old man in Adam? Old man in Adam. Old man in Adam, because the new man in Christ He doesn't need to do any claiming. He already has it. Faith is the thing that appropriates the grace. It's there. It's ours. But if we don't believe Him, we don't appropriate it. Do you see that?

So, it's a pretty simple equation and a pretty simple way to go at it. The Christian life is just whatever the Lord says you're okay with. I think it goes back to what you said. Spiritual growth is the key. It's just like child development. A three-year-old doesn't know calculus. You grow in the grace and knowledge and the growing believe what he says in the scripture.

But we don't. Sometimes, yeah. No, that's what I'm saying. We don't. But I think that's the growth period. He walks you through and grows you in this. Because, like I said, why don't we believe everything he says in here? Simple. We don't trust him. We don't trust him. And trust takes a long time in a growth period. of truth and we want to grow in that.

And as we find that out more and more, it's rest, it's peace, it's all these things he's told us in scripture. But it's a growth process. And like I said, it's insane for us not to believe what he says, but he knows we're growing in this. Well, you know, it's interesting. He has this whole system of salvation and justification and righteousness that he's put in play. has a lot of elements to it. Early on as a young believer, as one who does not understand or even aware of what identification is, we pray and God blesses us. Well, who is he blessing? He is blessing me, the person, but I may be asking out of my flesh.

You know, oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz? But, like Courtney says, as we grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus, what do we find out? We slowly discover that, boy, there's an enemy within the camp and it's me, and what did God do about that enemy? Hence, here comes the identification truths. So then we begin to understand, oh, I'm going to have to be kind of careful what I ask Him, because of where is it coming from?

If he puts a trial on me and I don't really understand, I'm going to go plead and beg that he take the trial off. If I really understand what he's doing, my arms are wide open. Lord, thank you very much for the trial. I'm not faking it. You really understand. You really understand he's a sovereign God. You really understand that he's eliminating all of the barriers between him and you so that you can walk with him. And you'll start to find out He has nothing but great, wonderful, loving thoughts about me. He never thinks any other way about me.

Well, that takes a while. See? So the growth part that Courtney's talking about, I mean, you know, get ready for 40 years. That's how long it took him to get rid of all those unbelieving Jews. There's a song that's out, and it kind of goes through that, that the focus becomes I focus more on the healer than the healing.

Yes. Or the giver than the giving. That's right. You know, and that's really the shift. The blesser than the blessing. Right. I mean, your shift, your growth is going from, you know, the giving to the giver. And he loves to do it. Yeah, I mean, but that's the growth period from our focuses. Yeah. The result, which is early on in our Christian life, I think. It is. Is all that. But as we grow in the grace of the Holy Sacrament of 318, we then We're not worried about the healing or what we receive. We're looking at the person in unity. That's the growth, kind of going from that focus to the focus on the Lord.

So Abraham's faith was not a one-time act. It was an attitude that he had because he had met the Lord and his heart was turned completely to God and away from himself. So he trusted him. What did that do? It left God free to fulfill any promise that he made to Abraham. Let him do it. That's what I mean by appropriation. His faith allowed God to do what he wanted to do all along.

I've asked this question a hundred times in class. Let's say that Abraham didn't believe God. Were the promises that he made to Abraham still going to be instituted? Yeah, because God said, here's what I'm going to do, and it doesn't depend on you, Abraham, but I'm going to do it. And Abraham said, oh great, okay. If he'd have said, I don't think so, God still was going to do it. Abraham's faith gave God all the freedom, I would use the word, to fulfill the promises that he made.

And he's still working on fulfilling the promises with the Jews. Faith is neither a meritorious act by Abraham nor is it a change of character or a nature in Abraham. He just simply believed God would accomplish what he had promised. That's it. Our faith is based on what God has already accomplished. That's the difference between what Abraham believed and what we believe. When you get the gospel message, is this something that's going to happen? Nope, it's done. You get the spiritual growth doctrine. Is it something that's going to happen? No, it's done.

My faith is based on facts. Abraham's faith was based on promises. You see the difference? Now, lots of Christians go around saying, well, I'm resting on the promises of God. And every time I see that hymn, I think, you need to change that word from promises to facts. I'm resting on the facts of God. Do you see that? Because there isn't anything, I mean yeah there's some things that he's promised us like a new body and that kind of thing, but the majority of what we believe is something that's already true, not something that's going to be true.

So Abraham's discovery, here's the answer. God said to Abraham, if you will believe on my son, I will count you as righteous forever. He discovered that principle, that if he believed God, God would reward him. Now, notice that the verse says, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about. What could Abraham have possibly done that he might boast about, or that he did in his whole life that he might boast about? There was something. Remember what it was? It has to do with Isaac. He was going to sacrifice Isaac, right? And if he had been able to do that, he could have gone to God and said, hey, look what I did.

But the Word says he's got nothing to boast about. Nothing. Because God wouldn't even let him do that. Right? But he was just simply, and this is a maybe. That's the only thing I can think of. If you follow Abraham's life, the Jews make him a superhero and we kind of think he's wonderful, but if you watch how he functioned for 40 years, not so good. Kind of a loser. Lots of lapses.

What can you look in God's face and say about your righteousness? So here you are, sitting before a holy, righteous God, and you're looking in His face. What can you say to Him about your own righteousness? I would have to say that I don't have any of my own. That's right. The only righteousness I have is because of what Christ did for me. So let's think about this. If you wanted to say, well God, how do you compare things? How does He do that? He compares everything with himself. Everything with himself. So if I'm sitting in front of him and I get into this comparison game, I'm kind of in trouble because I'm not God.

A sinner is anyone that's less than the righteousness of God. Try that one out. A sinner is anyone who's less than the righteousness of God. I didn't say falling short of the mark. If you don't have the righteousness of God, guess what you are? A sinner.

To discover that the greatest saints have no other standing than the weakest saints is a lesson that's difficult for us all. Have you ever come to the realization that the Apostle Paul and you are no different? As far as I can tell, there's no chain of command in the body of Christ. Paul's not a general and I'm a private. He doesn't have greater privilege than I do.

We have the same, because we're sons. I grew up with three brothers. Realistically, all four of us had the same privilege as the rest of us. We were all sons. We were treated different, just because my parents probably got tired by the time my fourth brother came along. No one, no one, no one ever got to be righteous by works or by his own worth. Never happened.

So if you come out of a denomination or if you've been involved in a denomination that has works, so that you can be worthy, you've totally missed the boat. It's by grace alone. So you have to say that righteousness is not by doing right, strange and impossible as it may seem. It is not by doing right. It isn't by doing anything. If faith isn't a doing thing, See that? It's not a doing thing.

So my righteousness before God has nothing to do with me doing anything. It has to do with me believing God. So, to him who casts his deadly doings down, who seeing his guilt and his entire inability to put it away, ceases wholly from all efforts to obtain God's favor by his own doing or self-denying, even by prayer."

That's something out of Newell. Does God look at faith and say, I see faith and so I will count it as righteousness? It's kind of interesting. It's a trick question. Notice the verse says, see if you can pick up on this. Verse 3 says, for what does scripture say?

Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Does anybody else have kind of a different translation, and it was credited to him as righteousness? Counted, reckoned. When you look up that word, It means leading to righteousness. Romans 1.16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it leads to salvation, is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. So here is the question. Does God look at your faith and say, I see faith and I will count it as righteousness? It's kind of tricky, isn't it?

Romans 3.22, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe for there is no distinction.

Romans 10.10, for with the heart man believes unto righteousness. The words eis, is that the word you found? Okay, and with the mouth confession is made, EIS, unto salvation. Go ahead. Well, I feel like I want to say that it depends on what your faith is in. Like if you're a Jew and you're only going to believe God up to this point, but I'm not going to believe in Christ, are you righteous? Oh, good point.

So Abraham God didn't say to Abraham, my son was crucified for you, buried and resurrected. He didn't tell him that, did he? No. Because it hadn't happened yet. So what did he tell Abraham? He made some promises to him. He said, I'm going to make you a great nation. I'm going to bless the whole earth. I'm going to make your descendants as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand in the beach. He believed God, what God told him at the time, and God accounted him righteous.

But that wouldn't save a person today. Because the message is different. The message is now the gospel of the glory of Christ. So what I'm after here is that this verse doesn't say that faith is righteousness. What it says is faith is the condition of righteousness. Does that make sense? The righteousness is there. If you want it, you have to believe. So God doesn't say, well, you've got faith, so I'm going to make you righteous. Well, it's the condition. I don't get the righteousness of God unless I do believe. You see that? But it's specific faith. The object of my faith has to be specific. Yes. And a lot of the Old Testament saints were saved by just believing what God told them. I think Adam and Eve were saved. Do you know why? Because God brought them skins and said, here, cover your body with these. And so they took the philodendrons off and put the skins on. What did God say to them? Cover your sinfulness with my remedy. And they said okay.

I think Adam and Eve are going to be in the kingdom. I'm convinced of it. So a righteous Jew at that period of time would be someone who believed that the sacrifice covered their sins? Yes. Paul said he was righteous once apart from the law. So he understood, he knew, that if he, maybe I put it this way, there's a possibility, like a Jew, that I could think, well, if I do A, B, C, and D, I believe that God will cover my sins. Do they? Yeah, they do. The problem that you have as a Jew, though, is that it doesn't solve the problem. It's a covering.

It's like being a Catholic and going to confession. As soon as you walk out of the confessional and do your penance, within 15 minutes you're doing it again. There's no permanency. So where is your faith? Your faith is in you to keep your soul clean from the time you confess to whatever the next event is. The next event usually was once you went outside the church's doors. Sometimes it didn't even get that far. Are you alright with that?

Faith leads to righteousness. It's the appropriating act on our part that allows God to declare us righteous. He doesn't look at the thing faith. Faith is an active word. It's an attitude. It isn't just a one-time event. You see that? Okay. I would say Well, that's right. Verse 4. We have the first tenant of grace. What is it? Verse 4.

Now, to the one who works, his wage is not credited as favor, but as what is due. Have you guys ever listened to Ron Merriman's, not Merriman, but Chester McCauley's tapes on grace? He has a saying, he said, to the one who works 40 hours, doesn't get paid by grace. He gets paid because he earned it. So on Friday, you don't go to your boss and say, oh gracious boss. No, you go to him and say, here's my 40 hour time sheet, give me my money. I earned it. This verse is saying, the guy who does that doesn't get the grace.

Do you see that? It's critical. And I think as Christians we nod our heads, but there's a learning curve here, like Courtney talks about, there's a learning curve here to learn and to trust in the whole principle of grace. Does God really work this way? Does he just expect me to believe him? Two Mormon guys came and knocked on my door a couple of weeks ago, and so I say to them, the problem with you guys is that you've got to really work hard for your salvation. Christianity is based on the grace of God.

You know what he said to me? What you're telling me is that all you've got to do is believe and you can live any kind of life you want. I said, yep. He said, I can't accept that. I said, so what you can't accept is the fact that if you believe God, that he's going to do what he says he's going to do. He's going to account you righteous. And the second thing you don't understand is that grace itself is an overwhelming motivator in a person's life. If I understand and receive God's grace, I'm not going to run and jump in the cesspool of sin as fast as I can get there.

Do you see that? We all know, because we've been saved by grace, that that grace of salvation motivates us to want to obey God. We want to do it. J.B. Stoney said that with the salvation of Christ comes a taste for the things of God. I love that. Because before you're saved, you don't have a taste. You've got a taste for the things of you. But with salvation in this new life comes the things of God that all of a sudden, Eureka!

I really care about what God is saying and doing and that kind of thing. Courtney. You know, I speak from personal, I'm trying to work through this. But don't we as Christians under grace, God's going to bless me if I'm going down the road believing or whatever, doing good things. If I sin, He's going to beat me up or whatever. And we associate God's grace with our behavior. If we come to Sunday school and we're doing this, He's going to just bless us. But if we're out partying or whatever. Whatever you're doing. Going to bronco games. Going to bronco games, doing whatever.

But I mean, I think we still, as believers, equate God's I don't know. His response to us based on what we do. Sure we do. There's no question we do that. You know, when you sin or something, oh, you know, I'm going to beat myself up and be horrible and all this. God's done with it. Yes He is. He's not going to beat you up anymore because of that. As if you walk somebody across the street or do whatever, do something good, He's not going to be blessing you in advance because of your behavior. Sure.

But we, I think in the Christian realm, We tend to think that way. We get the cart before the horse is what we do. The grace is the horse. Activity is the cart. We still do works in the grace. If I'm good, he's going to bless me. If I'm bad, he's going to spank me. In his eyes, he still sees us only in grace. I think that's part of the spiritual growth. As you come to know Christ, you begin to understand. Wow, this grace thing is something else.

It's totally different than the whole mindset I've had my whole life. It's not predicated on me. It's not predicated on me at all. And by behavior, good or bad. That's right, it's not. Is that the second vow? No. Okay, so we will pick up. We didn't quite get through six, so we'll pick up there. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your new principle. of grace and entering into it by faith, and that we may continue to grow, as you say, in the grace and the knowledge of your precious son, the Lord Jesus. And we pray in his name. Amen.