Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has
for us here today.
We're going to be in the book of Romans.
If you have your Bibles, turn there with me.
Romans, chapter four.
We're going to continue our study.
Looking at the topic.
Theology matters.
What we believe matters.
What we believe about God matters.
What we believe about what he has done for us matters.
Why?
Because what we believe about him dictates how we respond to Him.
What we believe about what he has done for us dictates how we live
our lives.
And so the Bible says that if our heart and our minds are set on
certain things, that's what our life is going to be pointed to.
So if I'm in love with money, look, everything that I do in my
life is going to be based on trying to get more of that.
If, if I love my health, right, I'm going to do everything
that I possibly can within what I'm thinking about and what
I'm doing, what I'm investing in to put it all into my health.
I was talking to our study today, our Bible study this morning,
and I said, you know what?
We can see a Christian's priorities by their schedule.
Some of you have your schedule on your phones, some of you have
your schedules in an old school notebook.
However, you have your schedule.
Some of you say schedule.
What's that?
Okay, I understand.
But for me, I have my whole schedule right here in this phone.
My schedule dictates my priorities.
My bank account dictates my priorities.
What am I spending my money on?
My.
My house dictates my priorities.
If someone spends some time with us, it doesn't even have to
be that long.
People can tell what our priority is.
And if our priority is not putting Jesus Christ first, if our
priority is not based in the truth of God, we're going to be all
over the place.
We're going to be.
We're going to be scattered, we're going to be confused, we're
going to be in doubt.
And so the reason why we need to study theology is not so that
we just become smarter Christ.
It's not so that we can quote Bible verses.
It's not so that we can display to other people how much
we know.
It's so that we can live a life of faith so that we can live
a life of security, so that we can live a life knowing that even
though the circumstances of my life will change, God doesn't change.
Knowing that, hey, you know what?
The world can be difficult, the world can be confusing, but the
word of God is sure, the word of God is secure.
The word of God is, is truth.
And so when we go to this idea of theology, we're not just saying,
hey, we need to know more about God so that we can be impressive
to other people around us.
Knowing about God allows us to rest in him and trust in him and
believe in Him.
And so Romans, really, the whole book of Romans speaks to this
idea.
The first half of the book of Romans deals with this idea of salvation.
Why we need a Savior.
What type of salvation does God extend to us?
What does it take to be saved?
And then we see there's a middle part that speaks to the nation
of Israel and their future.
And then we see the end, really in the book of Romans is dealing
with how we practically apply those theological truths.
So for the first half of this study, we're going to see this is
what God says about this.
This is what God says about that.
But then we get to the place in the end of the Book of Romans
where we start to put that to practice.
What does that look like within the church?
What does that look like within our ministry?
What does that look like within our homes?
And so we're going to ultimately see that through this
study.
But here In Romans chapter 4, Paul somewhat shifts gears through
the inspiration of the Spirit and says, okay, I've been talking
to you about the need for a savior.
Romans 1, 2 and 3 is all about the need for a Savior.
Our problem, and what is our problem?
Our problem is sin.
We are in a sin cursed world and all of us have been marred by
sin.
The Bible tells us In Romans chapter 3, verse 10, as it is written,
there is none righteous.
No, not one.
Then it says in verse 23, for all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God.
And so what Paul is trying to describe to the reader is this.
We all are in need of a Savior.
We cannot save ourselves.
We go back all the way to chapter one, Romans chapter one,
verse 16.
He says, For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.
He says, the answer to all of our problems is the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
Why?
For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.
To the Jew first and also to the Greek, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith.
As it is written, the just shall live by faith.
And so Paul starts with the gospel.
He explains why we need the gospel.
And now he's going to talk about here in Romans chapter four,
what type of salvation, really, what type salvation does
God extend to the believer?
And it's a salvation through faith.
And that's what we're going to talk about here this morning.
Are we going to try to win by works?
Are we going to trust in faith for our salvation?
Look at verse number one with me.
Paul is going to ask another question.
He says, what shall we say then that Abraham our father, as
pertaining to the flesh have found.
Fourth, Abraham were justified by works he hath were of to glory,
but not before God.
You say, what is he talking about there?
Why does he bring Abraham into this?
Because essentially what Paul is doing is he says, if anyone could
be saved by their works, it would be Abraham.
Why?
Because they all look to Abraham as their father.
Abraham was esteemed by the Jewish people as the father of their
nation.
They looked at Abraham as the top guy, like we do in our country.
We look at George Washington, right?
George Washington is esteemed by our culture.
We say, wow, he was the first president.
He was a wonderful president.
And we look to him as a cultural hero.
Think about that on the scale of 100 more.
And that's who Abraham was.
And so what Paul is going to do is he's going to say, hey, you
know what?
You cannot save yourselves.
You cannot work your way to salvation.
And you know what?
Even if Abraham, even if you think Abraham could, he couldn't.
And so he says, what shall we say then?
That Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, meaning,
did he earn salvation through the flesh?
And so he's building a case here.
And so in answering the question, Paul looks to Abraham,
who was, like I said, the most esteemed man among the Jewish people
of the day, and he says, even, even Abraham could not save himself.
This would have been really alarming for the people because what
they were taught, and what many people are taught today was
that people in the Old Testament were saved through their
works by following the law, by.
By committing all these sacrifices and trying to atone for
their sins.
And so, like, you know, Abraham worked his way, Abraham followed.
And he says, no, no, no, Abraham did not get justified by
his works.
Why?
Because we know that the Bible says that none are justified by works,
none are saved by works.
Hebrews chapter 11 tells us that Abraham was saved by faith.
We're going to look at a few different passages of scripture that
point to that.
And the reason why I want to do that here this morning is because
I want us to see that the Bible exclusively says that every
single person from the beginning of time has been saved
by faith.
We're going to talk about two words here this morning.
We're going to talk about the word justification.
You should be familiar with that word by now.
Justification is a declaration of righteousness.
It essentially describes what happens in our salvation.
God looks at a guilty sinner, but because of the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ and because of that sinner's faith in Jesus Christ, he
now looks upon us and no longer sees the sin on our account.
He now says, you know what?
That is someone who is saved by the work of Jesus Christ, saved
by grace.
And so we're going to see here this morning that Abraham was saved
the very same way.
So if anyone could be justified by works, it would be Abraham.
But if Abraham could be saved, then he could boast.
But what does he say here in verse 2?
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath wherewith the glorier
he has a reason to boast.
Now, now we know the Bible says In Ephesians, chapter 2, verses
8 and 9, for by grace are we saved through faith.
And that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest
any man should boast.
So what we see here this morning is that the Bible says there
is no reason for any person who has been saved to.
To boast about what they have done.
I, I think a lot of times what happens is that we often think that,
you know what?
I am a good person.
I came to Christ on my own accord.
I cleaned up my life and now I'm going to trust in Jesus.
And so you know what?
I'm a pretty good person.
The, the focus here this morning is this.
None of us have earned this.
None of us can boast, not even Abraham.
It's a gift of grace.
And so this boasting is nothing before God, because even
works, even if works could justify a person, all of us fall
short of the glory of God.
That's what verse 23 says.
And so he says, if Abraham were justified by works, he hath
whereof to glory, but not before God.
No one can glory before God.
Boasting is nothing before God, because why everyone has fallen
short of the glory of God.
And so the Bible tells us very clearly that Abraham was justified
or saved by faith.
Now if you question that, if you say no, I Think all the Old Testament
saints were saved by their works.
Well, let's go back and let's look at Genesis chapter 15, because
Genesis chapter 15 tells us exactly how Abraham was justified.
And so we're going to go all the way back to the book of Genesis
here this morning.
And we're going to look at Genesis chapter 15 and we're going
to see what the Bible says about Abraham's salvation.
We're going to see how God accounted righteousness to Abraham.
And it wasn't through his works, it wasn't through his efforts,
it wasn't through his.
His good outweighing his bad.
It was through, as we're going to see here this morning, faith.
And so Genesis chapter 15.
Some of you know the story Abraham has had at this point.
He's Abram, and ultimately he's gone through a lot so far.
He's had an opportunity to hear from God already.
God has given him a promise.
But here in Genesis chapter 15, we know that God has promised
Abraham that he will have a son.
And not only will he have a son, but he will have a great nation
that comes from his family.
And we see in verse number six, it tells us exactly how Abraham
was saved, says verse six.
And he believed in the Lord right there.
He believed in the Lord, faith.
He believed in the Lord, and he, God, counted it to him, Abraham,
for righteousness.
So essentially, what we're seeing here in verse number six is
justification by faith.
Now, Abraham obviously was looking towards the Messiah.
Abraham was looking toward what God was going to do.
And ultimately having faith in God.
In that regard, we as believers today have the opportunity
to look back to what God has done through Jesus Christ.
But ultimately, what we know through Hebrews chapter 11, what
we know through Genesis chapter 15, what we know through
Romans chapter 4, is that everyone throughout all of history
has been saved because of their faith.
Their faith in what?
Their faith in God and ultimately through us.
In the New Testament, in the, in the church age, we look to Jesus
Christ.
The Bible says in John 14:6, I am the way, Jesus is the way, the
truth and the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
And so to know God is to know Jesus.
To know his salvation is to know the sacrifice.
To know his forgiveness is to know him in faith.
And so what we're seeing here in Romans chapter four is that Paul
is using an individual who everyone is familiar with and making
the argument that if Abraham could not save himself, you cannot
save yourself.
Your religion cannot save you.
Your good works cannot save you.
Your giving cannot save you.
Your.
Your associations in this world cannot save you.
Nothing can save you.
You say, pastor, why are you railing on this?
Why.
Why are you going over and over this topic of salvation by faith
alone, justify justification by faith alone?
The reason being is that we as humans, in our flesh, in our natural
state, are prone to think that it's something that we have to do.
Have you ever heard someone say, is it that easy?
Is it just that easy to believe in God?
The Bible says very clearly that, yes, it's about putting our
true faith in Jesus Christ, authentic faith in Jesus Christ,
and that is it.
Now you would say, well, what doesn't that mean?
Does that mean I can just do what I want to do for the rest of
my life?
No.
Paul addresses this later on in the Book of Romans.
But essentially, if we think at any degree that it's something
that we have done, it's something that we have earned, well,
it's because I'm a member of Middletown Baptist Church.
That's why I'm going to heaven, folks.
If any of us say, it's because I'm a member of Middletown Baptist
Church, we're missing the mark.
If someone says, well, it's because I'm a pretty good person,
we're missing the mark.
If someone says, it's because I read my Bible every day, we're
missing the mark.
If it's someone that says, well, you know, I take all the sacraments,
it's missing the mark.
The Bible says that all those things follow salvation, but those
things cannot save us.
And so we go back to Romans chapter four, and we see that Abraham
was not justified by works.
He has no reason to boast.
We cannot be justified by works.
There's no reason for us to boast.
Look at it in verse number three, he references what we just
read for what saith the scripture.
I love that question there.
What does Paul do?
He says, let's appeal the scripture.
You guys believe the Old Testament.
Now, Paul wouldn't have called it the Old Testament at that point.
Paul would have said, you believe the Scriptures.
What do the Scriptures say?
I think, by the way, let's stop here.
I think that's what we should do with every issue of belief, every
issue of theology, instead of saying, well, I think we can get
into a lot of trouble within the church, within our own lives,
when we start to talk about things of God and we start to talk
about our opinions.
I believe, I feel I've always been taught these are all precursors
to false teaching, heresy.
Because I'm going to tell you that there's some times in my life
where I feel differently than what the word of God says.
I feel like saying that, you know what, that makes a lot of sense,
to accept that or to lean this way or to do this thing.
And so what we see here this morning is that Paul says, well,
let's go to see what scripture has to say about salvation.
And these people would have appealed to the book of Genesis and
understood.
Exactly.
Or what it would have said.
And Paul says, let's look to what scripture says.
Verse 3.
Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
So.
So he says, let's look at what the Bible says.
Let's look at what Scripture says.
And very clearly, the Scripture says that Abraham believed
Abraham had faith, and then it was accounted to him for righteousness.
And so Paul makes it so clear that Abraham's righteousness did
not come from performing good works.
And therefore, by extension, our righteousness does not come from
performing good works.
What brings us righteousness, it's belief in God.
It's faith.
And so it was the righteousness obtained through faith.
Some people teach this as something called imputed righteousness.
Now, I don't want to go over your heads this morning, but essentially
when imputed righteousness is this.
God takes his righteousness and imputes it or gives it to us,
transfers it to us, and so therefore we can live as righteous
believers.
That doesn't mean that we're going to be sinless, but what it
means is that there are.
There are none righteous.
No, not one in our flesh.
But we can have righteousness of God given to us through faith
in Jesus Christ.
I want you to see another passage of Scripture that explains
that I believe very sufficiently.
And that's Second Corinthians, chapter five.
Some of you know this because not too long ago we went through
the book of Second Corinthians.
I'd like you to see multiple places in Scripture when it comes
to this idea of imputed righteousness.
Second Corinthians, chapter 5, verse number 21.
Same concept, same principle.
You cannot be righteous in on your own.
But when you trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior, you have righteousness
imputed or given to you.
2 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 21.
For he hath made him to be sin for us.
That's Jesus being sacrificed for us who knew no sin.
Okay?
This speaks to the perfection of Jesus.
This speaks to his holiness that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him, in him, in Jesus.
So two things you need to note here.
One, the righteousness is not our righteousness.
The righteousness is Jesus Christ's righteousness given to us.
But at the same time it means this.
We are to be characterized by righteousness after salvation because
again, there's a.
There's what we would call today cheap grace.
Todd Cheap grace is this.
I'm saved.
But really at this point, I'm just a human.
I can do what I want to do.
I'm going to sin, so I might as well sin.
No.
Paul addresses that and says, no, you are given righteousness,
but that righteousness is not earned by your good works.
It's not earned by your status.
It's given to you in grace by a loving God who has shed his grace
upon us through the sacrifice of his Son.
And so we see there, going back to Romans chapter four, he says,
what does the Scripture say?
Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
Now this is where he's going to get a little bit further in the
discussion.
He says now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned
of grace, but of debt.
So he says, if we could work our way to salvation, it would not
be grace.
Right?
Grace by definition is a gift given to us that we do not deserve,
that we cannot earn.
So he says, if you could buy it, it would not be grace.
And we have to understand as believers that everything that we
have is by grace.
And so therefore Paul says, if you want to trust in grace, you can't
trust in your works.
If you want to appeal to the grace of God, we have to throw our
works out at the front door.
Because our works will never, never account with what we see in
the grace of God.
We can never outweigh the grace of God.
God's grace is abundant.
God's grace is infinite.
Our works are so limited.
I'm going to tell you here, you could say here today.
Well, you know what?
I'm going to read my Bible an hour a day.
Okay, we'll read it two hours a day.
Why can't you read it two hours a day?
Why don't we read it two hours a day?
Well, why can't you read it three?
You see what I mean?
Works.
Works would be a never ending pit.
We can never win by our works.
What we see here is that he says it's only by grace if we continue
to trust in our works.
What will it be?
He says there in verse number four, It'll be of debt.
It'll be a debt we cannot earn our way.
And so the idea of grace stands opposite to the principle
of works.
Grace has to do with receiving something that we did not earn.
Works has to do with earning some kind of merit before God.
And so when we look at this word grace, we have to understand
that everything that we have in our faith, everything that we
have in the gift of God, everything that we have in our salvation,
everything we have in our spiritual growth process, comes through
that word.
Grace comes through the gift of God, not of works.
Because when we talk about those works, we talk about the debt
that we owe.
And none of us want to talk about the debt that we owe.
All of us owe the greatest debt.
And the Bible says for the wages of sin is death.
We're going to talk about that in Romans, chapter six.
And so what we can ultimately see is that going back to verse number
three, Abraham believed God.
He had faith, and it was counted.
That word counted is an amazing word.
It's a word that basically says that someone has debts on their
account, and someone comes in and blots that debt out, removes
that debt, takes that away.
And so when we say that we are saved, we're saying that not only
did God just make our life better, even though salvation does
make our life much better, it's that God comes in and he sees
that debt that we have through our own works.
By the way, the Bible says that our works are like.
Our best works are like filthy rags.
And he comes in and he takes all of that debt that we have and
he wipes that away.
He blots out our transgressions.
He forgives us of our sins.
And so that's the beautiful picture of that.
When you think about when Jesus is on the cross, he says a
phrase.
It's actually one word in the Greek.
In the English, it's.
It is finished.
In the Greek, it's the telesti, which means it is finished.
It's paid.
The debt has been paid.
All of us earn a debt with our works, even our good works.
But the Bible says that Jesus comes on the scene, he pays the price.
Telesti, it is finished.
It's all taken care of.
And so what we can see here in this passage of Scripture is that
Paul is emphasizing the gift of grace and showing the danger of
our works.
Verse 5.
But to him, that work, if not so, the person who doesn't justify
themselves by their works, but believeth on him, that justifieth
the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
So since you want to be Like Abraham, you want to be like the
one who understands God's grace, who rests in God's grace.
Don't be the one that tries to work your way.
Be the one who, as it says there, trust in the Lord, believeth
on him.
And then there's this interesting phrase here, says justifieth
the ungodly.
Think about that verse and put your name there on the ungodly, because
that's me, that's you.
We're.
Before we come to Christ in faith, we are the ungodly.
A lot of times we often think about the person that was listed
there in Romans chapter one with all these heinous public sins.
And certainly that person would be considered the ungodly.
But the Bible very clearly teaches that all of us, before we
come to Christ, are ungodly.
Which means basically we're the opposite of what God wants us
to be.
We're the opposite of righteous.
We're failures in that regard.
And so what does he say?
He says, don't trust in your own works.
That will bring you debt, that will bring you brokenness, that will
bring you hopelessness.
Verse 5.
Trust in the Lord who justifies the ungodly.
And that person's faith is counted for righteousness.
So you want to be like Abraham, follow Abraham's example.
Not in every way, because Abraham was a failure in many ways
in his life.
He was a sinner, he was not perfect, but he was saved through
faith.
And so it isn't as if God is just saying here, it doesn't matter.
Works don't matter.
What is he saying?
He says works aren't what saves you.
What saves you is faith in Jesus Christ.
And so we're gonna build on that here for a few moments.
And so just as Abraham was granted salvation, so we can be granted
that same salvation.
So then he goes on a little bit further here.
So he's used Abraham as an example.
The now he's going to use another character of scripture that
you are familiar with.
And his name is David.
I think all of us to some degree will, would admit that David
was not perfect.
But at the same time, David holds a huge place in the culture
of, of Israel, right?
I mean, he was, he was the king.
And, and certainly we know that the Bible says that he was a
man after God's own heart.
So if anyone could earn their salvation, it would be Abraham and
David.
But we're going to know that even David understood his salvation
not to be because of his works, but because of his faith in
Jesus Christ.
So look at verse number six, it says, even as David also describeth
the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputed righteousness
without works, so he says David understood salvation to be
this way, verse number seven, saying, blessed are they whose iniquities.
We see that word iniquity.
We're speaking of sin.
We're speaking of, of missing the mark, even whose sins or iniquities
are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
And so on contrast, we see that this idea that God imputes righteousness,
when God imputes righteousness upon us, when he gives that righteousness
to us, he then withholds the guilt of sin.
We are not imputed sin, we are imputed righteousness.
And so what he essentially does here is he quotes a passage
of Scripture.
He quotes from the book of Psalms.
He quotes Psalm 32, if you want to turn there with me, I want
you to see that he basically just says, hey, even David, the one
you trust, the one you look to as an example, the one you really
lift up as a cultural hero, he says the same thing.
He says that the word of God is consistently true when it says
that we are saved through through faith and faith alone.
So Psalm 32, we're going to look at this, and we're going to
see exactly what Paul is referencing here.
Then we're going to get to our concluding thought and the application
thereof.
Psalm 32.
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose
sin is covered.
Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, in
whose spirit there is no guile.
The, the idea here that David is portraying is the same idea that
Paul is portraying is that we are blessed in grace when God does
not account our sin, but when God accounts the work of the Savior.
So David speaks of the blessedness, the joy of knowing that
we are justified through faith and not by works.
And so this is the centerpiece of the teaching of the Gospel, that
it is completely a work of God.
We are responding to his gift of grace.
And through that response, we have salvation.
Think about David.
Think about what David was saved from when he came to his sin.
I mean, if anyone needed to pay for their sins, it was David.
One time I was struggling with, I was like, you know what?
I'm just not enough.
I'm, I failed.
I, I, I've sinned, and I just don't know if I can even forgive
myself.
I don't know if any of you ever gone through that.
You're like, you know, how could God forgive me?
I just.
I'm struggling with that.
And I had a pastor friend of mine, he was like, hey, let me tell
you a quick story about this guy that really received forgiveness.
I was like, okay, yeah, tell me about him.
He goes, yeah, he was.
He was.
He was a spiritual leader.
He was.
He was leading a lot of people, having a lot of spiritual
victories, having a lot of people that were really looking up
to him.
And eventually he went down a path of.
Of sin, and he kind of drifted from the Lord, and eventually he
wasn't where he needed to be in his life, and he was looking upon
a woman, and eventually he had an affair with her and.
And had a child with her, and then eventually tried to cover it
up by murdering her husband.
I'm going, like, I've heard this story before.
And eventually.
You guys know where I'm going with this.
He.
He's describing the life of David, and he goes, you know what?
If David can find forgiveness, you can find forgiveness.
If David can say, hey, blessed is the man who God doesn't hold sin
accountable to.
Hey, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose
sins are covered.
So we should say, man, I. I am.
I'm blessed.
And a lot of times we.
We cheapen our salvation down to, well, I heard a message one time.
I didn't want to go to hell, so I prayed a prayer.
And you know what?
I'm just.
I'm going to heaven now.
And.
And we.
We reduce it down to such a minute thing.
But, folks, when you really wrap your minds around the grandeur
of what God has done for you and your salvation, it's so much
more than just a ticket to heaven, though it is.
Though it is an opportunity to know everlasting life.
It's so much more than that, because a lot of Christians think
like, well, I've.
I've trusted in Jesus.
Now I just have to live a life that's miserable.
Now I have to live a life of pain and suffering and just trod
my way along and get there.
But, folks, the Bible says that God has given us life and life
more abundantly.
God has poured out grace upon us.
And though there's times of difficulty, though there's times
of brokenness, though there's times of confusion, ultimately as
a believer, we have hope and we have confidence.
And not only does God love us in the moment of our salvation, but
God loves us from the moment of our salvation all the way through.
And he's there with us.
The Bible says that he's never going to leave us nor forsake us.
And so what is David doing here?
Essentially, Paul is recounting David, recounting what
God has done for him and his salvation.
Folks, when you're tempted to doubt the love of God, go back to
what he did for you in salvation.
We've already described it.
He saved us when we didn't deserve it.
He didn't hold us accountable for the debts that we have essentially
put on our own account because of our sin.
He, he imputed righteousness to us.
So it's not just about taking away the bad, but he's now given
us the good.
And, and he's infused into our life grace.
He's infused into our life gifts.
He's infused into our life an opportunity, a purpose.
One of the things that I was trying to stress to our teenagers
on Thursday of camp we have something called family reunion.
And family reunion is that they, all the campers, all the teens
from specific churches come back and meet with their sponsors
and you have a time of treats and snacks.
But ultimately it's a time to talk about decisions that were made
and the truth of camp.
And one of the things I was trying to stress to our teenagers
was finding Jesus brings us purpose.
Everyone's looking for purpose in this world.
Even people that are not Christians would say that it's important
to find a purpose for your life.
For some people, their purpose was, well, you know what?
Make a lot of money.
The one who dies with the most toys wins.
You've heard that statement before.
For me growing up, I'll just be honest with you when I say this
now.
Some of you will laugh because you know me now, but if you knew
me then, it wouldn't have been so funny.
But when I was growing up, my goal, my purpose was to become a
professional baseball player.
I wanted to play baseball.
I thought that I was gonna make it.
And there was these little moments of revelation in my life
where I started to realize that that's not probably going to
happen.
I started realizing that I was just a medium sized fish in a very,
very small pond.
And I started realizing that's not gonna be what's gonna happen
in my life.
And you know what would happen when that realization would come
into my life?
I would start to lose my purpose.
Well, why?
Why do I need to go out and do anything?
I'm not going to become what I wanted to become.
And we see that happening in a lot of people's lives.
They put their purpose in all of the wrong things.
And they say, well, you know what?
My whole life is going to be wrapped up in this.
And when that fails, and by the way, every purpose outside of
the purpose of God in our life will eventually crumble.
Will eventually fail.
And when that purpose eventually crumbles, what happens?
We lose our hope, we lose our joy, we lose our confidence, we lose
our excitement.
And what we can see ultimately as a believer is that we have such
a reason.
And that word there.
If you go back to verse number eight in, in Romans chapter four,
blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
That word blessed means joyful.
You could even say it this way.
Gifted, graced.
We as believers are so gifted in what God has given us to us in
salvation, but yet we are still tempted in our lives to complain.
We are tempted in our lives to doubt.
We are tempted in our lives to question.
Folks, what I'm going to tell you here this morning is something
that I have to do as much as everyone in this room has to do.
If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, we have to go back to really
understand the grandeur, the depth, the, of the salvation that's
been extended to us, to live in the joy of our salvation.
Even, even the psalmist, even David said, restore in me the joy
of my salvation.
Some of us have lost the joy of our salvation because we've lost
the understanding of truly what Jesus Christ has done for me.
And if you look at verses 1, 2, 3, 4, all the way down really
to verse number eight, you realize that, hey, as a believer,
all I have to boast in is what Jesus Christ has done for me.
There's a lot of teaching out there today that says, you're enough.
You are, you are so special.
And what's happened is, is in our American society, specifically
within our American society, we've individualized and really changed
the direction away from what God has done in salvation to the
fact that it's a work of him to It's a work of me.
Church is about me.
Church is about what people can do for me.
Church is what I can be entertained with.
Church is my Christian faith is what.
What benefits me.
If you think about it from the perspective of scripture, it's the
other way around.
What benefits the Lord?
What's the purpose of a believer?
Some of our junior campers here this week heard, what's your
purpose?
My purpose is to have fun.
No, as a believer, your purpose is to glorify God.
It's the chief Goal of man to glorify God, not glorify self, not
promote self.
If it's about me, if salvation is about me, I've missed the point.
Salvation is a work of God that brings him glory to God, be
the glory, great things he has done.
And so what we can see here this morning is that Romans, chapter
four, verse, what Paul is doing is saying, you need a savior,
you need salvation.
And this is what true salvation really is.
I'm going to say something here this morning, and I know that
if you take it at face value, it will offend some people here.
But I don't want to offend you, so hear me out.
Salvation is not just saying a prayer and reading words.
If I got up here this morning, I said, okay, how many of you want
to go to heaven?
Me.
Well, just say these words.
Just repeat these words after me.
But you understand that you could repeat those words and mean
nothing in your heart.
It's not because that the Bible doesn't say, say this prayer.
You go to heaven.
The Bible says it's faith.
Now, will faith produce a confession with your mouth?
Yes, definitely.
But what we have to see this morning is that salvation is not
just, hey, I signed a card 50 years ago and I'm saved.
No, salvation is based in what you believe about Jesus Christ, what
you believe about his work on the cross, what you believe about
his resurrection, what you believe about that meaning in your
life.
What does that mean for you?
Is he your Savior?
Go back to verse number six.
Even as David also described the blessedness of the man unto whom
God imputed righteousness without works.
Is that you this morning?
Are you trusting in God not just to make your life better, but
to save you from your sin, to forgive you of your sin, to give
you hope and to give you grace and to give you eternal life with
him and a purpose.
I had mentioned something about complaining when we were driving
back.
We, we.
We were driving two vans back from North Carolina, and I just got
done telling because one, there was someone complaining about
something and I was like, guys, complaining is not going to
change anything, okay?
When I complain, all I'm doing is just showing my bitterness of
my heart.
I was like, complaining is not going to change anything.
And I was wanting to give back.
And all of a sudden I look up and there's just a bunch of brake
lights and I'm going, oh, man, that's not good.
So we, you know, slow down, and all of a sudden we're just stopped,
we're not moving, and 20 minutes passes by.
30 minutes passes by, we're still not moving.
And you see people getting out of their car.
People are talking.
I heard it's going to be like a three hour wait.
And I'm going.
I just got done telling someone.
Complaining is not going to change anything.
And I was ready to start complaining.
I was like, complain.
I'm just like, this is terrible.
This is worst case scenario.
This is so bad.
I, I need to get these kids back.
I need to get back.
And, and so, but then as, so about an hour and a half or so hours
past, finally the traffic started moving.
There's a lot of stories that we could tell with that.
Maybe for another time, we'll share that maybe next week.
But we started moving and we got up to the accident scene and
there was a big tractor trailer that had flipped and turned
off the road and was all smashed up.
And one of the, one of the teens in the back said, wow, that
could have been us.
We were right behind that.
You know, the moment I started thinking, I was like, you know what?
I was sitting there complaining because my plan was not
coming to pass.
And I was thinking of it from a very selfish perspective.
Like, I'm stuck here with a bunch of junior campers and teens
for 14 hours.
I do not want to be here right now.
That was my flesh saying, I, I want to complain.
Like, why?
Why?
But for a young person to teach me the perspective on things
that could have been us, hey, so what, we were an hour and a half,
two hours late.
We're here, we're taking in breath, we're still serving the Lord.
And I think that's something that we have to think about when
it comes to our Christian walk.
Yeah, we could sit here and complain about a lot of stuff.
We could sit here and complain about, well, you know what?
I don't have, what that person has.
You know what I don't have in my life, the same gifts that that
person has.
I, I, I, I want to be more or I want to have this.
But at the end of the day, when we think about what God has
given to us in salvation, what we have obtained in grace, folks,
there's no reason to complain, there's no reason to doubt, there's
no reason to question, there's no reason to get to our place in
our life where we have lost our focus, we have lost our hope.
And so let's look at verse number nine.
We're going to go down and end this passage here this morning.
It says, cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision
only.
So he says, only the people that are Jewish that have had the
circumcision, that have followed all the tradition, he says,
is that the only people that have been blessed with this or upon
the uncircumcised also.
For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.
So he says, is it just for one person?
Is it for these people?
Or is it for everybody?
Abraham was saved by faith.
Abraham was reckoned to righteousness because of faith.
How was it reckoned?
How was it then reckoned when he was in circumcision or uncircumcision,
actually, if you go do the research in the Old Testament, in
the Book of Genesis, this was before the circumcision, by the way.
This was before the law.
This is before the Mosaic law.
So what we see here is that there was no way that Abraham was
saved because of the law, because the law hadn't been imparted
yet.
It wasn't circumcision that saved him, because circumcision hadn't
been given to him yet.
And so it says here very clearly that it wasn't those things,
it wasn't those external things that caused salvation.
It says in verse number 11, and he received the sign of circumcision,
a seal of righteousness, of faith which he had yet being uncircumcised,
that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they
be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed unto
them also.
And so what is he essentially saying?
Paul's essentially making the point that it's not anything that
we do externally.
It's no sign, it's no group of people that are exclusive to salvation.
It's a salvation to faith.
Those that are in faith, verse 12, and the Father of the circumcision,
to them who are, are not of the circumcision only, but who also
walk in the steps of that faith of our Father Abraham, which
he had being yet uncircumcised, verse 13.
For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not
to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the
righteousness of faith.
He says, you want to receive the blessing of Abraham.
You want to receive the gift of God.
It's not through the law, it's not through circumcision, it's through
faith.
For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void.
If we could earn it through the law, faith is empty, Faith is
useless.
We don't even need faith because we would just preach the
law.
We would preach some action and the promise made of none effect.
Meaning this God would not be someone who kept his word.
There would be no need for a God if we could earn our salvation.
But that's whole.
That's Paul's whole point.
We're in desperate need of someone better than us.
We cannot save ourselves.
We've tried that.
Every culture has tried to save themselves.
Every person to some degree has thought about the fact that,
hey, you know what?
I think I can do this.
But ultimately, at the end of the day, we're honest with ourselves.
We all fall short.
Verse 15.
Because the law worketh wrath.
What does the law do?
It always brings us to a place of failure.
It always brings us to a place of brokenness.
It always brings us to a place of hopelessness.
For where no law is, there is no transgression.
And he ends his.
He ends his thought right here in verse 16.
Well, he continues on a little bit further.
But this is the thought for today.
Therefore, it is a faith.
It is a faith that it might be by grace to the end.
The promise might be sure to all, the seed, to everyone, not to
that only which is of the law.
Not just the Jews, but to them also, which is of the faith of Abraham,
who is the father of us all.
So the idea would be this.
You want to be saved, be saved the same way Abraham was?
Well, Abraham was saved through the law.
No, he wasn't.
Abraham was saved through circumcision.
No, he wasn't.
Abraham was saved through his work.
No, he wasn't.
The same way that Abraham was saved is the same way that we get
saved today.
Through faith.
What is faith?
Well, simply speaking, faith is believing in something we don't
see.
Faith is trusting.
Faith is completely giving ourselves over to the work of God.
Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 6.
We'll.
We'll end with this specific thought says it's impossible to please
God without faith.
So we go back to what do we say?
The junior campers learned it this week.
What is the purpose of our lives?
To glorify God.
To bring joy to our Lord, to please him.
So if our purpose is to please God And Hebrews chapter 11, verse
6 says it's impossible to please God without faith.
How do we please God?
Through faith.
Through faith in our salvation, through faith in our sanctification,
through faith in our struggles, through faith in our trials,
through faith in our joy, through faith in our family.
The list goes on and on.
It's living a life of faith.
What Does a person look like who's living a life of faith?
A life of trust in God and not themselves?
A life of trust in God and not the economy.
A life of trust in God and not their job, their health, their family,
folks.
We can place our faith in all of these things.
But what the Bible says is that ultimately the only faith that
matters is do we believe in God?
Do we trust in His Word?
Do you trust in His Word today?
Truly, you trust in His Word?
Not.
Well, I believe what he says is true.
I, I, I know that most of you here today, if not all of you to
a degree, will say, I believe the Word of God, I believe the Bible.
I believe that this is really His Word.
But a lot of us will intellectually adhere to what the
Bible says, but our lives don't match that well.
I believe God's got me, but all week I'm stressing about this
problem that I have, and I don't think he's going to handle
it.
I believe that God is never going to leave me nor forsake me.
But you know what?
I just really feel alone today.
And I'm going to believe that I'm alone today because there's days
where we feel alone.
But what do we have to do when we feel a certain way?
When we feel a certain way that is contrary to Scripture, what
do we do?
We go back to what we know about the Word of God.
We don't go to how I feel.
Sometimes there's days where we wake up and there's joy.
Some days we'll wake up and that joy is not as easy to find.
But what would do we, what do we do to find our joy?
We don't find our joy through circumstance.
We find our joy through the truth of Jesus Christ.
The joy of the Lord is my strength.
And so what we can tell here this morning is this God is not only.
I would say here, I would venture to say here that God is not
only concerned with what we do, what we think, but what we believe
in and what we trust in.
So theology does matter because what we believe about God
is what we are believing in.
So sort of, for example, if I believe that God is good, I'm going
to live my life and trust in the fact that God is good.
What about when something bad happens to me?
What about when I'm held up in traffic?
What about when I get that bad news from the doctor?
Well, now I don't think God is good anymore.
That's called weak theology.
That's called theology based in my own mind.
And you know what?
If our theology is based in what we can understand, we're going
to be struggling because there's things that God does that
we cannot understand.
There's going to be things that God does that are beyond our
thoughts, beyond our comprehension.
But all we have to do is we have to go back to understand what
Paul says here in this passage, that it's through faith.
Everything that we do in our life is through faith.
And so here this morning, what I would ask you is this.
If somebody asked you the question today, are you a person
of faith?
Most of you would say, yes, I'm a person of faith.
But then let's say that same person said, okay, we're going to
follow you all week to see if that's true.
How many of us would get nervous?
We would say, oh, I don't know about that.
Well, the truth is, is that just saying that I am a person of
faith does not make me a person of faith.
What makes me a person of faith is someone who places my faith
in something specifically in the word and the truth of Jesus Christ.
So here this morning, a couple of questions.
Number one, have you put your faith in Jesus Christ to save you
from your sin?
Very simply for all have sinned to come short of the glory
of God?
Have you put your faith in Jesus Christ?
Have you put your faith in his work on the cross?
Have you put your faith in the fact that he conquered death through
the resurrection?
Have you put your faith in the fact that he and he alone can save
you from your sin?
The answer to that question is anything other than completely yes.
This morning is the warning that you can take care of that you
can say, no.
I don't want to put my faith in my works.
I don't want to put my faith in the fact that I'm a good person.
I don't want to put my faith in the fact that I'm a part of a
church.
But I want to put my faith in the fact that Jesus Christ died on
the cross for my sins.
He conquered death through the resurrection, and he's ruling and
reigning today.
That is the gospel.
So here this morning, if you need to trust in Jesus Christ as
your savior, like some of those teenagers did this past week,
we're going to have an opportunity here in a few moments
as the music plays, for you to come forward and we can show you
in the Bible what it means to put your faith and trust in Jesus
Christ.
But for all of those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as Your Savior.
You can go back to a time in your life where you know without
a shadow of a doubt that you have trusted in Jesus Christ and
him alone for your salvation.
How many of us have been tempted through the circumstances
of life to drift in our area of faith when it comes to the day
to day, when it comes to the fact that yes, he has my salvation,
he has my eternal destination.
Settled.
But I'm not settled in my struggle today.
Some of us lack in the day to day faith.
Maybe today you need to come forward and you need to say, you
know what, Lord, I want to believe that you're going to keep
your word.
I want to believe that you have me.
And the Bible says that faith is simply just trusting.
It's.
It.
The.
The way that the Bible puts it in the New Testament is childlike
faith.
I don't have to sit there with Silas.
I did this with Micah, and I do it with Silas and I did it with
Nora.
Nora didn't trust me as much, but I.
When.
When we first moved here.
I know I'm rambling, but just bear with me.
When we first moved here to the church, I would put Micah on
this first step.
I say, jump to dad.
Jump, jump.
And he would get nervous and he would jump, catch him.
And as he would incrementally trust me, he would get here on this
step, he would go here.
Now he's getting a little bit bigger, but he would run from the
top step and jump to me, doing the same thing with Silas.
Trust Dad.
Now I didn't have to sit here and tell Micah, son, you know your
father loves you.
You know that I pay for your food and your clothes and put a roof
over your head.
So.
So don't doubt me.
No, he.
He trusted because he knew that dad had him, right?
I didn't have to sit there and he didn't have to sit there and overanalyze
all the statistics of, well, dad might drop me one out of a thousand
times, so maybe I shouldn't jump.
No, it was.
It was complete faith.
It was childlike faith.
And that's the type of faith that we have to have in the Lord.
A lot of times we think, well, Lord, maybe you'll.
Maybe you've got me, maybe you don't have me.
And we overanalyze and we start to use our own wisdom and why
we should trust the Lord or why we shouldn't trust the Lord.
It's going back to saying, lord, I trust you.
You're my dad.
Abba.
Father, I know you have me.
I know you trust me.
So maybe here this morning it's a matter of trusting him in
the big and the little.
Maybe some of us have lost the joy of our salvation.
Maybe we've forgotten what what David said is, blessed is the
man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
David didn't say, blessed is the man who's saved and also has
a bunch of things he doesn't say, blessed is the man who has been
forgiven of his sin.
Plus he has all the the good news and everyone likes him.
And no, he says, blessed is the man who who is saved who is forgiven.
Some of us are wanting more, folks.
There's sufficiency in the gospel.
It's all we need.
And so here this morning, maybe you've lost that simple faith
and excitement and joy in what God has done for you.
Come forward and restore that joy here this morning.
I'm gonna ask if you're able to just stand every head bowed, every
head closed as the music plays.
I've already given you the invitation.
It's time to respond.
You need to follow here this morning.
I encourage you to do so.
Lord, I pray that you be in this time of invitation working hearts
and lives.
We thank you for your love and your grace.
Jesus name.
Amen.
As the music plays some have already come.
Follow as the Lord leads here this morning.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
You would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch
dot com if you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and follow
along for future podcast and updates.
Thank you so much.
God bless.
Have a wonderful day.