1. "God accounts Abraham righteous with a righteousness that is not inherently his own. It didn't come from Abraham."

2. "Friends, sometimes the difficult circumstances of your life are not part of God's ill will toward you. They're turning the spotlight on God himself and the fullness of his ability to provide at the right time."

3. "Now, this faith, of course, isn't mere assent to the factuality of something; it includes that. But it's more. This is the kind of faith that is a trusting, it's a relying."

4. "Faith is like that window. Faith itself is of no value whatever. Faith only has the value of what it looks out on."

5. "Faith alone in Christ alone saves. But the very reason that James quotes this same verse is to show that this saving faith, which alone saves, is never alone. This saving faith, if it's real, true Christian faith, is living faith that is not alone. It shows its life and vitality in producing good works."

6. "We understand baptism, like the Lord's Supper, to be a sign and a seal of true living and saving Christian faith already possessed and evidenced. That's why we don't baptize you here if you're a 6 year old and you say you believe in Jesus, or a 12 year old and you understand yourself to be a believer."

7. "Those imperfect fruits in our lives don't save us, but they give testimony to the fact that we are saved through faith in Christ, which alone saves us. If we trust in God, we will act increasingly like we trust in God."

8. "Our justification, our being declared right, our salvation, our forgiveness, our being accepted by him, comes only as Christ's own righteousness is accounted, imputed to us by means of the empty hand of receiving the gift of Christ's own righteousness. Our faith is that beggar's empty hand reached out. Christ and his righteousness is the treasure given to us, placed in our hand."

9. "Our justification precedes our sanctification. We are counted holy and then we're made holy."

10. "In order for us to be blessed, Christ was cursed."

Observation Questions

1. Read Romans 4:1–3. What question does Paul raise about Abraham in verse 1, and what specific statement from Scripture does he quote in verse 3?
2. In Romans 4:2, what possibility does Paul consider about Abraham being justified by works, and what would that have given Abraham a reason to do?
3. According to Genesis 15:1–3, what concern does Abram express to the Lord, and how does he describe his situation regarding an heir?
4. In Genesis 15:4–6, what does God promise Abram about his offspring, what visual illustration does God use, and how does Abram respond?
5. In Romans 3:21–24, how does Paul describe the way the “righteousness of God” has now been manifested, and who receives this righteousness?
6. Look at Romans 4:5 and 4:7–8. How does Paul describe the person whom God justifies, and what blessings does he list for that person?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it important that Paul argues from Scripture (Genesis 15:6) rather than from Jewish tradition when explaining how Abraham was justified (Romans 4:3)?
2. What does it mean that Abraham’s faith was “counted” or “credited” to him as righteousness, and how is this different from Abraham earning righteousness through his obedience?
3. How does the timing of God’s promise in Genesis 15 (to an old, childless couple) highlight who God is and what He is able to do?
4. How does Paul connect Abraham’s faith in God’s promise of an offspring to faith in Christ, the ultimate “offspring,” as explained in the sermon (see also Galatians 3:16)?
5. The sermon distinguished between faith as merely believing facts and faith as relying or resting on Christ. From Romans 3–4 and Genesis 15, how would you describe the kind of faith that justifies?

Application Questions

1. Where are you currently tempted to trust human voices (media, friends, experts) more readily than God’s Word, and what would it look like this week to reverse that pattern in one specific area?
2. When you think about standing before God, do you instinctively point to your own spiritual efforts or to Christ’s righteousness credited to you—and how does that show up in your emotional life (guilt, fear, peace, joy)?
3. If true faith is “living faith” that produces observable change, what is one concrete area of your life (speech, relationships, use of time or money, purity, etc.) where you need to act more consistently with the trust you profess in Christ?
4. How might the truth of imputed righteousness (Christ’s obedience counted to you) change the way you handle failure or ongoing struggle with sin this week in your prayers, self-talk, and interactions with others?
5. Thinking about the sermon’s comments on baptism and public profession of faith, what would be an appropriate next step for you—whether exploring the gospel more seriously, seeking baptism, renewing your commitment to a local church, or encouraging a younger believer?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Genesis 15:1–6 — Abram hears God’s promise of an heir and innumerable offspring, believes the Lord, and has it counted to him as righteousness, providing the Old Testament foundation for Romans 4:3.
2. Romans 3:21–31 — Paul explains how the righteousness of God comes apart from the law, through faith in Jesus Christ, supporting the sermon’s emphasis on justification by faith alone.
3. Galatians 3:6–16 — Paul again uses Abraham as an example to show that the gospel was preached beforehand to him and that the promise ultimately focuses on one “offspring,” Christ.
4. James 2:14–26 — James also quotes Genesis 15:6 to show that genuine faith is demonstrated by works, illuminating the sermon’s teaching on “living faith.”
5. 2 Corinthians 5:17–21 — Paul describes the great exchange in which Christ is made sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, echoing the sermon’s focus on imputed righteousness.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Facing the Question of Trust in Everyday Life and Abraham’s Example

II. Who He Is (God Is God)

III. What He Is Like (He Is Trustworthy)

IV. The Amazing Message He Has for Us (God Is Gracious)

V. Encouragement to Embrace God’s Righteousness by Faith

Detailed Sermon Outline

How do you know who to trust? That's a question we face every day.

When we watch a person on YouTube or we read an opinion piece in the paper, when we face it in election time, as we listen to different candidates say one thing and this other one something else, We face it in our personal lives. When this boss tells us something we don't want to hear, or this doctor tells us something that we do want to hear. Why do we trust mom or dad, but not this salesman or that friend? This morning we come to a time when someone heard a promise that was one of the most significant promises ever made in human history, and one of the most unbelievable. And it still is today.

Open your Bibles to Romans chapter 4, Romans chapter 4. This chapter that we've been carefully studying this summer, if you're using the Bibles provided, please turn over to page 941. Page 941 in the Bibles provided. We're particularly looking at Romans chapter 4, verse 3.

For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

You see what Paul is saying here. He is anticipating that Some will object to his assertion that we are, as he said back in chapter 3 verse 28, justified by faith rather than by observing the Law. And he suspects that such religious objectors would very likely begin their objecting with Abraham, the father of their religion. The Jewish traditions that were current in Paul's own day that he was trained in, taught that Abraham was a model of obedience. As we mentioned last week, the popular memory verse in Vacation Torah School was Genesis 26:5 where the Lord says to Abram's son Isaac, and in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and my laws.

So many of Paul's Jewish hearers would very naturally throw up exactly the question that Paul presents here in the beginning of chapter four. What about the example of Abraham? That's why here in chapter four verse one Paul brings up Abraham. What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? What had Abraham gained or found in his own life?

And then Paul jumps to the point with verse two. If in fact Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. So works, Paul is saying, are a right grounds for boasting. Well, did Abraham have such boastable justifying works? And Paul, with that last phrase there in verse 2, anticipates his answer, Not before God.

If you look back in chapter 3, verse 27, you see that boasting is excluded with faith. But again, when he says that, that people would wonder, but what about Abraham? And Paul has a ready answer for them, as he gives them the text from Genesis that he will expound for the rest of this chapter. It's the text that Stella read to us earlier, particularly Genesis chapter 15 verse 6. So if you're not used to looking at Bibles, I'll be referring to chapter numbers, those are the larger numbers like you see here in four in Romans, the verse numbers are the small numbers that occur after that.

So if you look here again in Romans at chapter four, verse three, this is our special text for this morning. What does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Paul turns immediately to scripture. Very significant, we thought about this last week, that he turns not to tradition, but to Scripture.

Even though it was common at the time for the rabbis to turn to tradition, and you can say there's kind of humility in turning to tradition, that's a proud tradition when the tradition disagrees with the Scripture. And if you have no category for Scripture and tradition disagreeing, then you haven't meditated much on Galatians chapter 1.

So go away and think about what Paul said there, how he warned about the misleading nature of even apostolic witness if it disagrees cognitively with that which you already know has brought you salvation. So Paul here does not turn to tradition. He turns, in fact, to very ancient Scripture. If you want to think more about the truth of the Scriptures, you can listen to the sermon from last week online. Anyway, here's a summary of what we're really finding here.

God accounts Abraham righteous with a righteousness that is not inherently his own. It didn't come from Abraham. Now, Jewish interpreters in Paul's day had presented Genesis 26:5 in the light of Abraham's obedience. Especially in regards to his offering to sacrifice even his only son, Isaac, in Genesis 22, in that well-known story to many of you. And truly that was amazing obedience.

But Paul here is reasoning that reading Genesis 15 in light of Abraham's later obedience in Genesis 22 causes the readers to miss the point of what's stated in Genesis chapter 15. Paul puts the verse back in its historical context. Abraham's righteousness wasn't something he earned, but it was something from outside of himself that was credited to him or imputed to him. So back to our introductory question. How do you know who to trust?

Let me suggest three simple considerations for you when you're wondering who they are, what they're like, what they're saying, who they are, what they're like, what they're saying. So simple. And I pray that as we consider Abraham's response to this amazing promise, you'll come to understand God and yourself better, and the promise that He still holds out.

And really, I pray that you'll come to know God better today.

Why trust God? Three reasons are resident right in this one verse that Paul quotes here below. First reason, who he is. God is God. We've got to begin here.

Who was it that Abraham was believing? Look at verse 3. God, God is the sovereign Creator. This isn't just any being who's making this promise to Abram. This is the very one who made him and his wife, Sarah.

This is the one who created all mankind indeed, all the world. This is the God who opens and closes the womb, the God who brings life from the dead. This is the God who's Lord of heaven and earth. This is the Lord of history. This is the one who rules all things.

He is the one whom the apostles addressed as sovereign Lord who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them.

We sang earlier this morning, Deep in unfathomable minds of never-failing skill, He treasures up His bright designs and works His sovereign will. God is the sovereign Creator and Ruler of all. I wonder who the last person was who promised you something.

I wonder if you believed them.

Were they more believable? Than God?

Consider who God is, who speaks this promise. It's here in the Bible, it's where we find out about God. It is God's Word. If you want to learn more about who this God is, read the Bible. It's His revelation of Himself in His own words to us.

If you want to know more about how you can do that, talk to one of the pastors at the doors on the way out about how we can help you read the Bible yourself and understand more of who this God is personally. So there is the one true God and on the other hand then we have Abraham. And though Abraham was the father of all the faithful, as the old saying goes, even the best of men are men at best. Abram, we saw at the end of our study of the earlier chapters of Genesis last month, was the son of Terah. He and his family had been called out of Ur up to Canaan.

Got halfway there, they settled in Haran, and there the Lord called Abram on to the Promised Land. And so Abram journeyed on. He went through the famine, so spent some time in Egypt, which didn't necessarily show Abram at his best. He and his nephew Lot split up a portion of the Promised Land, Lot settling in one portion, Abram in the other. Abram had to go to rescue Lot from a local coalition of tribes that opposed him and had captured Lot and his family.

Abram won that battle in the name of God. And in all of this, and you can read this if you want this afternoon in Genesis 12 and 13 and 14 in those chapters. We find both Abram's faithfulness to follow the Lord and yet we also find some of Abram's moral failings. This Abram was not a perfect man. And yet this man Abram, in Genesis 12, received God's almost incredible promise.

It's the one that Stella read to us a few minutes ago. If you look over there in Genesis chapter 15, the very first book in the Bible, Genesis chapter 15, After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, this man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir. And the Lord brought Abram outside and said, Look toward heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them. Then the Lord said to Abram, so shall your offspring be. What you find is if you read the chapters around this one, Abraham was 100 years old. Sarah was 90.

They had never had a child.

So now this fallen and sinful man, always childless, decade after decade, and now elderly, would have a son. We read later in Genesis 17:16, I will bless her and moreover I will give you a son by her. Okay, so that's the promise. So let's say you're Abram. What do you do?

Do you believe God when He makes such a promise to you? At such a time, in such a way?

It is God.

It is an almost incredible promise.

And so, Of course, you would really like what He says to be true. You desire this. But we don't believe silly things just because we long for them, even if we ache for them with all of our hearts. And yet you believe this most amazing promise, Look toward heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them, so shall your offspring be. It's almost as if God put Abram and Sarah in that position just to emphasize who it is who is making this promise.

Friends, sometimes the difficult circumstances of your life are not part of God's ill will toward you. They're turning the spotlight on God himself and the fullness of his ability to provide at the right time. This is God. He certainly has the power to be able to fulfill even such an extraordinary promise. He couldn't have given them an heir when they were in their thirties or in their fifties.

We have to always remember the difference between the Creator and every single one of His creations. Even we humans, specially made in God's own image as we are, God is perfect. And it was this God who determined to bless Abraham and to bless the world through Abraham. And He revealed this to them when they were old and childless to make it clear that the work was His. God alone is God.

Believe Him in His Word because of who God is.

But there are more moral reasons to believe God. Not only is God in Himself able to do this, believe God because of what God is like, because He is trustworthy. His Word is to be believed. Just as the Scriptures say that Abram did here. What specifically did Abram believe?

Well, it's right there in Genesis 15. In verses 4 to 6, the word of the Lord came to him, 'This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.' and he brought him outside and said, 'Look toward heaven and number the stars, if you're able to number them.' Then he said to him, 'So shall your offspring be.' and he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. So God promised Abraham a son to be an heir, and then in Genesis 15:5 he promised innumerable offspring would come from Him, just as God had earlier promised, that all the world would be blessed through Abram. Remember, it was this belief, this faith that Paul had just been celebrating in the letter to the Romans, in the chapter just before this in Romans chapter 3. You see in Romans chapter 3, look back at chapter 3 of Romans, verse 20.

For by works of the Law no human being will be justified in His sight.

Since through the Law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting?

It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Justified by faith apart from works of the law. And so now Paul reaches for Abraham as a prime example of this. Of being saved through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Abraham had such faith. Now this faith, of course, isn't mere assent to the factuality of something, it includes that, but it's more.

This is the kind of faith that is a trusting, it's a relying. That's what Abraham did here on this promise God made to him. He not only thought it was true, extraordinary as that was, but he lived like it was true. He began to act on the basis of it being true. He leaned into it and relied on it.

The writer to the Hebrews says, Therefore from one man and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. And yet Paul also noted the significance of this promise coming through the focus of one offspring. In God's promise of the provision of offspring, yes, Isaac, his immediate son and heir, and through Him all the others who would come, it would also come through the one man, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man and Son of God. In Genesis 2218, God said to Abraham, In your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. The Lord showed Abram the truth by showing him that through his offspring singular, all nations on earth would be blessed.

And in Galatians 315, Paul makes quite a deal of the fact that the promise of God in Genesis was not for offspring plural, though many would come through him, but ultimately of one offspring. That's the significance finally of the promise being made in the singular. And so Abraham believed this promise that God gave him. Abraham believed ultimately in the promised coming Messiah, Jesus. In that sense, By faith Abraham, as Jesus Himself taught in John 8:56, saw my day and was glad.

John 8:56.

Now when Jesus taught that, none of the Jewish listeners of the day would object to the idea that Abraham knew about the coming Messianic age. They would all assume that that is part of what it means for him to be Father Abraham, that he was a kind of prophet whom the Lord told the future too. What would have scandalized Jesus' hearers is when he called the Messianic age my day. When Jesus made it clear once again that he was claiming to be the Messiah and that Abraham had seen his day. But he had.

Abraham believed savingly in the promised one of God. Many things we could say about his saving faith here. But three things I want us to particularly note about it. Number one, It is only faith that saved Abraham. Salvation came by faith alone, not by works.

Paul does not recount here the list of Abraham's law-keepings that God mentioned to Isaac in Genesis 25. He goes back further to Genesis 15 to show that even more fundamentally to understanding the Scriptures correctly was the very truth that Jesus had taught. Friend, as you study the Scripture more and more, it is fascinating to find Rabbi Paul talking to his fellow rabbis and correcting them in their understanding of Moses by going to Jesus and showing that Jesus more accurately taught Moses than the rabbis of the time did. No, he goes back to Genesis 15 to show that even more fundamentally in understanding the Scriptures correctly, was the very truth that Jesus had taught. Remember Jesus says in Mark 1:15, that first words we get, Repent and believe in the gospel.

Or John 3:16, For God loved the world in this way, He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. Or as Jesus later said in John 5:24, Truly, truly I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Or again in John 6:40, For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. Friends, we could go on and on about Jesus teaching this note that Paul here in Romans 3 and 4 is picking up and expounding.

Paul was showing here in Romans that Jesus was the rabbi accurately teaching Moses. That salvation came only by the way of faith. But we should also understand that this saving faith, second, it's saving faith only, but it is Christian faith. This is faith in Christ. There is a definite object of the faith, Jesus Christ.

It's not so much that we're saved because of our faith, but through our faith. We know that we're right with God not because we have faith, but because through faith we have Christ. It is through our faith that Christ is united to us. Christianity never teaches that we're saved by faith in and of itself, apart from the reference to what that is faith in.

My wife and I love to vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We love to look out a great window and see tree-covered mountains receding off on the horizon, ridge after valley after ridge. But imagine me talking about the beautiful view this window had and some friend surprising me by somehow going up to the owner of that house and buying, literally, that pane of glass and bringing it down to me, wrapping it up and giving it to me as a gift, as if that very pane of glass carried with it the view of the mountains. But of course, all that glass does is you see whatever you see through it. The glass, the window, is entirely dependent on the view that it looks out on.

Friends, faith is like that window. Faith itself is of no value whatever. Faith only has the value of what it looks out on. Faith, in that sense, is like a ladder. It's only as strong as what it's leaned up against.

Faith in faith is only what you see in the popular media. It's against what you see in the Bible. The Bible never has any idea of our faith itself being a kind of force or a strength that generates truth and goodness and right. No, it depends entirely on what we have faith in. No, no faith in all the world will save anyone.

Except for faith in Jesus. That is the true Christian faith that will save anyone that trusts in Christ. Consider what it was exactly that Abraham was believing here in this promise. Old Testament scholar Meredith Kline suggested that to believe the promise of the birth of an heir from dead sources was the faith equivalent of believing the gospel of justification and kingdom inheritance. Through the resurrection of Jesus, our sacrifice from the dead.

Our faith is Christian faith. Saving faith, Christian faith. One more thing we should understand about saving Christian faith. Number three, it is living faith. It is living faith.

Faith alone in Christ alone saves, yes, that is true. But the very reason that James quotes this same verse, Genesis 15:6 in James chapter 2, is to show that this saving faith which alone saves is never alone. That this saving faith, if it's real, true Christian faith, is living faith that is not alone. It shows its life and vitality in producing good works. Now we must not misunderstand this.

Those works of ours, as partial and imperfect as they are, can never save us. They atone for none of our sins. They hide none of our transgressions. But good works do show the work of God's Spirit in remaking us. They testify to the fact that God is in fact at work in us, as Paul says to the Galatians in Galatians 5:22, Love?

Joy, peace in the Christian? Don't testify to our innate virtue. No, there Paul calls them fruit. And they're fruit not of ourselves or our own making, but they're fruit of God's own Spirit at work in the believer. Indwelling the one who believes, God's Spirit unites us to God Himself, and so His character begins to be produced in and through us.

So those imperfect fruits in our lives don't save us, but they give testimony to the fact that we are saved through faith in Christ, which alone saves us. If we trust in God, we will act increasingly. Like we trust in God. In just a few minutes, we're going to witness some baptisms. A couple of them are teenagers who have been brought up in this church.

We rejoice in that. And I want to take opportunity just to point out that this is a different situation than what some Christian churches do when they baptize newborn infants of believers. In hopes that these will grow up to trust in Christ and so be saved. As we look at our Bible, we see no warrant to do that. So though we rejoice in the many, many, many infants that are born to this congregation, we don't baptize any of them.

We do our best to find childcare volunteers for them, but we don't baptize them. We understand baptism like the Lord's Supper to be a sign and a seal of true living and saving Christian faith already possessed and evidenced. That's why we don't baptize you here if you're a six-year-old and you say you believe in Jesus or a 12-year-old and you understand yourself to be a believer. You may be a believer and we hope you are, but we're concerned about great numbers of people who have made sincere decisions to follow Christ, but they don't follow through on them. And so without meaning to lie at all, they've said, Yes, I follow Christ, and with great excitement when they're six or eight or twelve, I want to be baptized.

And yet it's clear by the time they're 22, they're no different than anyone else. They just hadn't faced the things that you begin to face with maturity. Friends, there's a reason why you go to a different doctor when you're 22 than when you're 12. You've changed, and then you go to that same doctor the rest of your life, even when you get to be as old as me.

We recognize that by driver's licenses, by the ability to vote, the ability to get married or serve in the military, in countless ways, we recognize that it's wise to see the distinction between a minor and someone who is mature. We as Christians do that also. When we follow Christ's command to be baptized, and yet we don't baptize children who are not subjected to the world, the flesh, and the devil as they will be as they mature. So children, we pray that you are encouraged by the testimonies that you are about to hear. We pray that you won't wait one day, not even one hour to follow Jesus.

We pray that you will follow Jesus right now, today. You can. You do not have to wait to be an adult to follow Jesus. But experience and prudence shows that generally wisdom would encourage you to wait to publicly profess Christ as your Savior through baptism and the Lord's Supper till your own discipleship becomes more visible to those outside your home or work, those rather with whom you work or you're in school with, especially those who don't follow Christ. This sign of baptism, this sign of following Christ is wonderful, but it will never make a person a Christian.

And if a person who isn't a Christian is baptized, it makes the truth of their spiritual state more hidden to the church around them and even to themselves as they grow up and mature. Because ten years later they say to their Christian friend at work who's witnessing to them, oh no, I'm a Christian. I did that. And they think they understand what it means to follow Jesus when all they did was make a sincere but mistaken decision when they were immature. No, we want to practice baptism and church membership carefully so that we help you, you nine-year-olds and you fourteen-year-olds, more than we hurt you.

That's our desire. And something of the reason for our practice. We're trying to embody recognizing only living faith, distinguished from all counterfeits. So even if someone desires to be baptized with the best of intentions, we elders may conclude that it's simply at an age where it's too early for the congregation to give any real counsel or consent. We can normally give counsel much more easily and naturally to a 25-year-old adult.

Whose life displays answers to all the normal categories of choices a mature human being is faced with that a young person hasn't faced yet. I wonder what your faith looks like to the non-Christians around you. If you're eight or you're 12 and you understand yourself to be following Jesus, ask yourself what do your friends around you think of your Christian faith? What do they think it consists of? So saving faith is only faith.

It's not faith in works, and it is Christian faith, and it is living faith, faith which works. The question you need to ask yourself is, do you have this faith? Abraham showed that faith in God because of what God is like. He's trustworthy in all His ways.

And so Abram could believe Him. So we believe God because He is God and because He has shown Himself to be trustworthy, but we also believe God because of the amazing message that He has for us. God is gracious. He gives us what we in ourselves have not deserved. Abraham's faith was counted to him as righteousness.

You see, all this language about being saved by faith is true and only sort of true. Faith, our believing, is the way that salvation comes to us. But it's not in itself saving. Saving faith is trusting in another. Faith is the street upon which our rescuer must come.

If we're to be saved, it must be by works, but not our own works, but Christ's work, because we need real genuine righteousness. Without holiness, no one shall see the Lord. So righteousness is what we need. That's what Paul mentions here in verse 3. You see that word, righteousness, the last word in our verse.

What is righteousness? It is godliness. It is what our moral actions, our character, our hearts' loves should be because we're made in God's image. But part of the reality of the fall of our first parents means that none of us are like this as deeply and fully as we should be. To think more about this, just reread these first three chapters of Romans before this.

What we should be is not standing at cross purposes with God and His work. We should be in good standing with God. We should be always upright. We should be morally right in everything, good and not guilty in God's sight.

But this very righteousness that we lost in our first parents in the garden is exactly the righteousness that who has. God has. Christ has perfectly. He is perfectly holy and good. He is the arbiter and truth-sayer of all that He is.

He is perfectly innocent of any wrong, good in Himself and in His dealings with all other beings, always upright, always consistently just. He does only and always that which is good and right and loving only and always that which is good and right. And the most amazing news of all for us. And here, friends, I have buried the lead. I have done what you should not do.

But here is the lead in this verse. In fact, in this letter, in fact, in the Bible. Here it is: this righteousness can be counted to us. The perfect righteousness of Christ, His own holiness, can cover and cloak our own poor lives. That's the idea of this verb that Paul uses here, counted.

He uses it 11 times just in this chapter. We'll run into it again and again. And isn't it interesting that the first time in the Bible we have believing mentioned is also the first time in the Bible that something being counted as something else is mentioned. Galatians 15:6. Another word in English meaning the same thing is counted would be reckoned.

It's a financial term of accounting in which something from one person's account is accredited to another's. It's accepted in the place of something else. It is considered something which in the end of itself it is not. It is calculated, taken into account as if it were perfect virtue and goodness, true righteousness of ourselves. When it is perfect virtue and goodness, true righteousness, but not of ourselves, but of another counted to us.

This is Christ's righteousness, not infused, where His righteousness is put into us and we are made righteous. Though certainly the Holy Spirit sanctifies us, that's a continual process in this life. No, but this is speaking of Christ's righteousness, not infused but imputed, not transplanted into us that transforms us, and so on that basis we're reckoned righteous, but rather it is imputed to us, accounted to us, even though we are still ungodly. As Paul puts it in verse 5, Just look down in Romans 4, we're going to get to that in verse 5. This is the heart of the great good news.

That which is earned by Christ is given to us by God's grace. Yes, we're united to Christ by faith. We're indwelt by His Holy Spirit, increasingly transformed into His likeness. But our justification, our being declared right, our salvation, our forgiveness, our being accepted by Him comes only as Christ's own righteousness is accounted imputed to us by means of the empty hand of receiving the gift of Christ's own righteousness. Our faith is that beggar's empty hand reached out.

Christ and His righteousness is the treasure given to us, placed in our hand. Our salvation is no achievement of ours. But of Christ's. The glory, that's why we sing, is all to Him for our salvation. Christians have referred to Christ's passive obedience, that is His substitutionary suffering in our place, the penalty that our sins have deserved, but also to Christ's active obedience, counted to us, His obedience of all of God's laws, His the fulfillment of all of His Father's will, His perfectly completing the work that His Father had given Him to do.

Read the prayer in John 17, a beautiful statement of the Son saying to the Father, I have done all that you've given me to do. This active compliance is set down then to our account. It's credited to us. So not only are we no longer in debt, If we're believing in Christ, by means of our belief coming along Faith Street, as it were, is the full and never ending parade of the complete righteousness of Jesus Christ for each and every believer. All for us, for all of us, and all of it.

That's the amazing news that Paul rightly sees in this sentence written by Moses so many centuries before him about Abraham. So Abraham and Moses confirm the very truth that Jesus taught, that salvation comes by faith alone in Christ alone, as His righteousness is accounted by means of the poor, outstretched, empty hand of our own faith, of our believing, of our trusting.

Friends, when you have all this in mind, You find that our church's own statement of faith beautifully reflects this economically, briefly, in summary, article after article. Listen to just a few of them. Article 3 of the Fall of Man, We believe that man was created in holiness under the law of his Maker, but by voluntary transgression fell from that holy and happy state. In consequence of which all mankind are now sinners, not by constraint, but choice, being by nature utterly void of that holiness required by the law of God, positively inclined to evil, and therefore under just condemnation to eternal ruin, without defense or excuse. Article 4 of the Way of Salvation, we believe that the salvation of sinners is wholly of grace, through the mediatorial offices of the Son of God, who by the appointment of the Father freely took upon Him our nature, yet without sin, honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and by His death made a full atonement for our sins.

That having risen from the dead, He is now enthroned in heaven, and uniting in His wonderful person the tenderest sympathies with divine perfections, He is every way qualified to be a suitable, a compassionate, and an all-sufficient Savior. And five of justification, the best of them all. We believe that the great gospel blessing which Christ secures to such as believe in Him is justification. That justification includes the pardon of sin and the promise of eternal life on principles of righteousness, that it is bestowed not in consideration of any works of righteousness which we have done, but solely through faith in the Redeemer's blood, by virtue of which faith His perfect righteousness is freely imputed to us. Of God, that it brings us into a state of most blessed peace and favor with God, and secures every other blessing needful for time and eternity.

You see what this is saying, this is saying that the single meritorious cause of my salvation is nothing I have done, but it is Jesus' righteousness transferred by faith to me. Our justification precedes our sanctification. We are counted holy, and then we're made holy. My non-Christian friend, this is the message that has been preached from this pulpit for almost 150 years now. Other religions chop and change.

Often other denominations, even other particular congregations, chop and change. These were the words adopted by this group of people that met here on this corner 150 years ago.

And we have to bring forth as our hope the glad tidings that they believed 150 years ago, and we believe them still. This is still the great good news that we have for every person on the planet, that there is a God, He is perfect, He has made us, we have sinned against Him, our only hope is what He has done for us in Jesus Christ. Through Him we can be forgiven, and have new life in Christ. Oh friend, you want to know that life. You want to come to know that God.

Please, if you don't, speak to one of us at the doors on the way out afterwards. Understand something more of your need, of the blessing that God has provided in Christ for all who will believe. That's how you're gonna be able to find peace and favor with God today and tomorrow and forever. That's how you'll be able to be forgiven of all of your sins. If Christ's perfect righteousness is freely imputed to you by God by way of you simply believing in Christ.

Does this sound like good news to you this morning? Friends, this is the best news I've ever heard. It was when I first grasped it almost 50 years ago, and it still sounds freshly and even more deeply like the best news I've ever heard. As I say, speak to any of us at the doors on the way out if we can help you in understanding this for yourself. Kids, speak to your parents or your Sunday school teachers.

So you will understand this more for you. If you want to know more of what this means for you in your life right now, this year, this month, this summer. My friend, if you're here today as a Roman Catholic, and because we're in the District of Columbia, lots of Roman Catholics and this congregation of this size always a lot of Roman Catholics. Let me just say that this is the part of Christianity that I fear you are most in danger of misunderstanding and missing out on entirely. We are not saved by Christ's righteousness infused in us, but imputed or accounted to us.

If you're the studious type, you want to look more at this word reckoned or counted here.

In verse 3. So Christ's righteousness is given to us, and in this exchange, our sin is borne by Him. This is what was described by one Christian in the second century as the sweet exchange where we give Him our sin and He gives us His righteousness. That's what we know in coming to Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:21, For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Someone had to die in Calvary on our place for us to be saved. Someone had to be cursed as one who was guilty of every sin you can ever think of. Jesus Christ had to suffer this for us, suffering physically and worse as he carried our sins and he became a curse. He was made sin for us. That's why David will say what he does in Psalm 32 that Paul quotes just a few verses down.

If you look in Romans 4, look at verses 7 and 8. He's just quoting Psalm 32 here. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Friends, you and I are covenant breakers and so we should suffer as such.

But the only covenant keeper, Jesus Christ, instead suffered for all of us covenant breakers who would believe in him. Jesus carried the curse that we deserved so that we might be blessed. In order for us to be blessed, Christ was cursed. Do you see this? In order for us to be blessed, Christ was cursed.

Psalm 75:8 says, For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup of foaming wine, well mixed, and He pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. That's the cup of God's wrath that Jesus drained for us if we believe in Him. O my friend, believe God. Trust Him as someone who has brought to you this almost unbelievably good news. We've already sung, what language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend, for this, Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end.

O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be, Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee. On what else today would you build your hope? What would be more be better than Jesus' blood, His passive obedience as He suffered in our place and righteousness, His active obedience as He fulfilled God's law, as He lived the life of perfect trust in His heavenly Father that God has deserved and that we should have lived but haven't? But Jesus has for us. So His righteousness can be accounted to us if we, like Abraham, will believe God.

How gracious is our God to give people like us such a promise and at such a cost. Let's trust the one true Almighty and gracious God in all His promises to us, but most especially in this promise of His righteousness given for us. Let's pray.

Lord God, we pray that yout'd make this gospel clear and evidently true to each one here today. Do that, we pray, for our good and for your glory. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.