1. "Better examples are so important for us in our learning. That's why God gave me a wife like Connie, because he knew I would not learn some lessons any other way than by closely studying her and her following of Him."

2. "Friends, this is the good news of Christianity. This means that you can come into a relationship with God that you do not by your own nature possess. Because of what God has done in Christ, you can be brought to know and love this God and to be in fellowship with Him."

3. "Follow the older tradition. Follow the teaching of Jesus, follow the apostles, do what the apostles did and reach back to the Old Testament. Go to the Bible. It is God's word."

4. "Pride hides God from us. Pride is the root of sin. It is distorting and deceptive. You realize that everything you have today is a gift. Our days at work and at home are shot through with pride."

5. "Christianity is not a book that whitewashes. The Christian Bible is not a book that deceives. David is presented as one of the greatest people ever and the greatest of Israel's kings and as a great sinner. Christianity is the best way to read the world around us. It is the realistic way. It is the truth."

6. "Our sins must be dealt with. They must be put away. They must be borne by someone."

7. "Jeff Bezos 30 years ago could start Amazon and he could build a company as big as Amazon in 30 years. But in 30 years you cannot justify yourself before God. The most fortunate, gifted, blessed, rich person in the world cannot affect his status before God."

8. "The only thing that we contribute to our salvation is the sin that we need to be saved from."

9. "So anyone who's going to be saved then or now will be saved only by grace, through faith in the work of the Messiah, whether his work was anticipated or already accomplished, not trusting in our own strength, but trusting in the strength of another."

10. "You see, you've been thinking. All of this is about us, the sinners. No, no, no, no, no, no. All of this is about God. This is God displaying what he is like to his creation. It is for God to make his name great."

Observation Questions

1. Read Romans 4:1–2. What question does Paul raise about Abraham, and what possible basis for boasting does he mention?
2. According to Romans 4:3, what exactly did Abraham do, and what does Scripture say was “counted” to him?
3. In Romans 4:4–5, how does Paul contrast the one who “works” with the one who “does not work but believes,” and what is “counted” to each?
4. In Romans 4:5, how does Paul describe God and the kind of person He justifies?
5. In Romans 4:6, what “blessing” does David speak about, and how does Paul summarize it in his own words?
6. In Romans 4:7–8 (quoting Psalm 32), what three things are said about the person whose lawless deeds are dealt with by God (what happens to their lawless deeds, sins, and sin in general)?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that Paul uses Abraham (Romans 4:1–3) and David (Romans 4:6–8) as his two examples when arguing that righteousness is counted apart from works?
2. How does the wage/gift contrast in Romans 4:4–5 clarify the difference between earning something from God and receiving righteousness by grace?
3. What does it mean that God “justifies the ungodly” (Romans 4:5), and how does David’s life story (as recalled in the sermon) help us understand that phrase?
4. How do Romans 4:3 and 4:6–8 together help us see that justification involves both the counting of righteousness to us and the not-counting of our sins against us?
5. In light of the sermon’s explanation of “imputation,” how does Romans 4 connect to the broader New Testament teaching that our sins are put on Christ and His righteousness is put on us?

Application Questions

1. Where do you see yourself most tempted to “work” for God’s approval—relying on your performance, knowledge, or reputation—rather than resting in the righteousness counted to you by faith?
2. The sermon highlighted David’s serious sins and God’s full pardon. How does David’s example challenge the way you think about “who” can really be forgiven and used by God?
3. Pride was exposed in David’s census and in our love of “numbers” and strength. In what specific areas of your life (work, ministry, relationships) do you most need to turn from self-reliance to active trust in God this week?
4. Because God has shown us mercy “apart from works,” how should that shape the way you respond to the sins and failures of others in your family, workplace, or church?
5. When your conscience accuses you, what would it look like, in concrete terms, to preach Romans 4:5–8 to yourself and to move from fear to the “blessing” of confident access to God in prayer?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Genesis 15:1–6 — Abraham believes God and his faith is counted as righteousness, providing the foundational Old Testament pattern Paul uses in Romans 4.
2. Psalm 32:1–5 — David describes the blessedness of forgiven sin and the relief of confession, which Paul quotes in Romans 4:7–8.
3. 2 Samuel 11–12 — The account of David’s adultery and murder, and God’s confrontation and pardon through Nathan, shows the depth of David’s sin and the wonder of God “putting away” his sin.
4. 2 Samuel 24:1–17 — David’s sinful census and subsequent repentance illustrate the pride God exposes and the mercy David casts himself upon, reinforcing the sermon’s treatment of David’s later life.
5. Ephesians 2:1–10 — Paul teaches that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works, echoing and expanding the same doctrine of justification by grace alone found in Romans 4.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Value of Examples in the Christian Life

II. David as Paul's Second Witness to Justification by Faith (Romans 4:6)

III. David: A Man of Great Faith Who Sinned Greatly

IV. What God Does with David's Sin

V. The Blessing of Being Counted Righteous by Faith

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Examples come in all different shapes and sizes. I can learn about being a pastor from the Puritan Thomas Hooker, or enduring in ministry through trials from Francis Grimke, from right here in D.C., or from George Truett in Dallas, Texas, or more recently from men that I've known personally like John Stott. I can be challenged to persevere in following Christ through loss as I look at the continuing devotion of Johann Sebastian Bach through suffering and grief. Or the example of Lottie Moon giving her all, going to China. I can be inspired by those I've known for a long time here, but who are younger than me.

Like many of you that I've watched over the years now, I've gotten to see who've worked hard to help this witness for Christ endure on the hill and be sustained like the Barrons', or the Couvres', or the Dunlops', or the Heinrichs', or others who sit in the balcony of the main hall.

Believe it or not, I'm even inspired by ministry partners that leave this place.

Because they love to follow the Lord whom they love even more than this place, like the Rejus or the Jamisons or the Hargraves or the Johnsons. Those encourage me in following the Lord. Their examples call me on to follow the Lord better. Examples are so important for us in our learning. That's why God gave me a wife like Connie, because He knew I would not learn some lessons any other way than by closely studying her and her following of Him.

That's why He in His providence allows the trials in my own life that come, some from my own sin or folly, others from no fault of my own. That's how he makes even me an example for others today.

Paul knew this, the importance of modeling or exemplifying in fulfilling his ministry of teaching and training others. To the church in Corinth, which was in danger of falling apart due to a wrong following of other people, Paul wrote the statement, Be imitators of me as I am of Christ. Even in that way of teaching, this creating a culture of following examples, personally discipling. Paul was following the example that the Lord Jesus himself had laid down. Paul specifically told the Thessalonian believers that he had labored to make himself a model which they could follow.

So Paul lived not a perfect, but a deliberately exemplary life.

He wanted to live in such a way that people could learn from how he lived.

I wonder, have you learned anything from someone who's imperfect?

Paul knew that the Scriptures were there to provide more examples for us, especially in this great matter that he's been discussing in his letter to the church at Rome, the matter of how sinners like you and me can be declared right before a holy God. In 1 Corinthians 10:6, Paul turned to the bad decisions that the Israelites had made in the wilderness after the Exodus and said that these things took place as examples for us. So good and bad, the lives of others here in this room and in the Bible stand as examples for us, for our use, for our instruction, for our learning. And that's why they're there. So far in these first three chapters of Romans, Paul has been making a radical argument that we sinners can be declared all right by a perfectly holy God.

Now that is a radical argument. Sins pardoned, fellowship enjoyed, even union with Christ as we are filled with His very spirit, all by God's gracious imputation of our sin and guilt to Christ and Christ's righteousness, His right living, His right suffering for us, all accredited to us, all now regarded as ours, simply by believing in Christ, by having faith in Him. Friends, this is the good news of Christianity. This means that you can come into a relationship with God that you do not by your own nature possess because of what God has done in Christ. You can be brought to know and love this God and to be in fellowship with Him.

If you want to know more about what that means for you to believe in Him, listen to this sermon, listen to the hymns that we sing, Listen to what we say at the table. Talk to any one of us at the doors on the way out. We would love to help you think more about what it would mean for you to repent of your sin, to turn from it, and to believe in, to have faith in Jesus. Knowing that this might sound far-fetched to some hearing or reading this letter, this message that Paul's giving, he imagines common objection to this news. So open your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 4.

Romans chapter 4. If you're using the Bibles provided, that's found on page 941. If you don't have a Bible of your own that you can read, take that copy away as a gift from us to you. Read it, use it, make yourself familiar with it. If you're not used to looking at a Bible, the large numbers are the chapter numbers, the small numbers are the verse numbers.

We're in chapter 4 today. Here in chapter 4 he's been showing his readers that this is what the Scriptures had always taught. And he's educed a surprising example of the famously righteous father of the nation, Abraham. And now in our verse for this morning, verse 6, he supplements this with the much more complicated example of Israel's greatest king, King David. Look at our passage.

I'll read the first six verses of chapter 4, but we'll be concentrating on that last verse, verse 6. I'll start reading with verse 1.

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to Him as righteousness. And now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.

And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. So let's jump in, just scan down the chapter for a moment at the next few verses. You see what Paul is doing here, he's going to get back to Abraham. What he's doing, he's citing a second authority to agree with the example of Abraham to prove that justification is by faith alone in Christ alone. And here in verses 6 to 8, Paul is showing that David agrees with what Moses said of Abraham.

That righteousness and justification before God is ours not by works, but is credited to us, or counted to us, or imputed to us. So here in our verse, verse 6, specifically Paul says that David agrees that righteousness is credited apart from works. So Paul is showing this is not just the case with Abraham, but with even the great King David, agreeing that righteousness is not by works, but is something credited or counted or reckoned or imputed to us. Verse 6, Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. So David agrees that righteousness is credited apart from our works.

And that righteousness being credited to us is summarized in Christians with the word justification. It's credited to us. We are treated by God, we are declared by God to be righteous. Let's just step back and appreciate what Paul is doing here, his method of teaching. He was citing two witnesses for his positions, Abraham and now David.

Paul is proving that this message that he had brought to them as an apostle from the risen Christ was biblical. Justification is by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. So Paul's main example here is Abraham, whom he's going to return to. But Paul was a well-trained rabbi. He goes for confirmation of that from later in the Scriptures.

So he wants two witnesses. He has one from the Law, that's the books of Moses, that's Abraham. Now he's going to take one from later, the writings of the prophets. And for that, he'll grab King David. He employs his practice of Gezerah Shavah, equal category, literally, where the interpreter would link different passages that have the same word or phrase.

Well, the shared idea is the same word in the Hebrew of these two verses that are cited from Genesis 15 about Abraham and from Psalm 32:2. They both have this word translated here as counted. Paul again is reaching back to the Scriptures to correct current misunderstandings of the tradition that were there in his day. He's a good model for us in following Jesus by going to the source, not relying on traditions. So since many of you are in your 20s and 30s, and I have noted in your generation a desire for tradition, I want to give you this warning.

Whether or not you'll heed it is up to you. But before God, I will be guiltless now having given you this warning. Don't be fooled by traditions. Don't be fooled by traditions. Traditions let you think you can relax.

Somebody else has the authority. They'll take care of it. Well, those traditions are various and they change over time. The Church that's most famous for claiming that is changing even before our very eyes these days in its moral teaching. And they've been changing the entire 60 years I've been alive.

They had a massive change at Vatican II. Friends, the traditions even that our Eastern Orthodox friends will refer to, we'll go back to John of Damascus, but the traditions we would urge you to follow are older than those. Follow the older tradition. Follow the teaching of Jesus. Follow the apostles.

Do what the apostles did and reach back to the Old Testament. Go to the Bible. It is God's word. Tradition is not worthless, but tradition itself is not self-interpreting. It is not a reliable guide apart from the clear teaching of Scripture.

So what Paul is doing here is taking a pair of examples from the Scriptures to consider, to back up his teaching. The example of the famously virtuous Abraham and now the example of David who was just as famously flawed as Abraham was virtuous. So David was striking for his sins. David clearly stood in need of God's grace. Next time we'll consider David's words here in verses 7 and 8.

This morning we simply want to consider David the man of great faith.

Who sinned greatly. And then we'll see what we can learn from what God did with David's sin. So first today we want to look at David and then we want to consider what God did with David's sin. And as we study this verse, I pray that you will learn by David's example to see what you can understand about God and about your sin. So, let's first look at David.

David is one of the most written about figures in the Bible. He's most of the book of 1 Chronicles and he is most of the books of 1 and 2 Samuel. He's one of the most complex as well. Because on the one hand, there is David's faith. David is the sweet psalmist of Israel.

Did you know that almost half of the 150 Psalms, 73 of them, are written by David. He was also Israel's greatest king. Not only that, but we read the prophet Samuel's description of David as a man after God's own heart. He was best friends with King Saul's son, Jonathan. David was anointed king by Samuel first.

We read in 1 Samuel 16, the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. As someone described David to Saul in 1 Samuel 16, he said, the Lord is with him. The Old Testament books of 1 and 2 Samuel are filled with his deeds. There's the famous story of David with great faith in God facing the Philistine warrior Goliath. He survived years of Saul's jealousy of him.

He got married, left the country for a while, had the faith to wait on the Lord's timing. Though he repeatedly had opportunities to kill the king who was pursuing him, Saul, he didn't. He was a great warrior. He survived Saul. 2 Samuel tells of David's more public anointing as king over the house of Judah as well.

And Saul's son and heir was murdered. David was publicly anointed king of all the Israelite tribes. And then we read in 2 Samuel 5:7, David took the stronghold of Zion. That is the city of David. That's why Jerusalem is called the city of David.

Because he is the king who led in its capture. Jerusalem had been in the possession of the Jebusites. David brings the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, and in 2 Samuel 8-10 you see victory after victory listed there of David over his enemies. The remaining chapters of 2 Samuel get, as I say, more complicated. To end this brief note on the greatness of David, let me simply point out to you the last page of the Bible.

Just go on and turn there. You can find it easily. It's right before whatever indices or maps you have. Revelation chapter 22. You'll find in verse 16 that the last human in the Bible to be named other than the incarnate Son of God Himself, Jesus Christ, is David.

If you look at the last chapter, Revelation 22:16, here you find the risen and reigning Lord Jesus pronouncing His seventh and last blessing in the book of Revelation, and how does He identify Himself? He says, I am the root, that is, I'm the one He came from, and I am the descendant of David. I love the way, even in that short description, Jesus is, is, is presenting himself as a conundrum to any who would see him just as a human teacher. He precedes David and he is from David. How can he be both at the same time?

He is the root and descendant of David. Jesus identifies himself to his people by means of how he is related to David. Can you imagine?

A greater compliment being put down for you than on the reference of the Son of God, him to put down you as a recommendation? You know, David, yeah. You know who David was? Yeah, well, I am. I'm with David.

For Jesus to present himself like that shows something of the esteem that David is held in in the Word of God.

So much for the sunny side of David.

There is more. Paul has chosen to point out an example of someone who is also marked by his sin. And I think it's fair to say that David was a man of many sins, including at least a few enormous ones. For one thing, David took many wives. When David was anointed king of Israel in 2 Samuel 5, we read in verse 13, and David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem.

He shouldn't have done that. Back in Deuteronomy 17, God had specifically laid out laws through Moses for the kings who would surely come in Israel. And they say in Deuteronomy 17:17, and he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away.

2 Samuel chapters 11 and 12 constitute perhaps David's darkest hour. His adultery with Bathsheba, and his effectively arranging for the death of her husband, Uriah, who was himself a soldier loyal and devoted to David. Friends, those two chapters, 2 Samuel 11 and 12, and Psalms 32 that Brandy read, and 51 would be great for you to look over this afternoon. If you want to do a little more digging in this topic, let me suggest you look at these two chapters in 2 Samuel, 11 and 12. And then those two Psalms, Psalms 52, sorry, 32 and 51 this afternoon.

The other great sin of David recounted in the last chapter of 2 Samuel is that of David's calling for a numbering or a census in order to see the size and strength of his army. You see, David was proud and it seemed to come out especially later in his life once he was in power. We see that clearly in this taking of the census as recorded in chapter 24 of 2 Samuel. Now this is a little harder for us to understand. We understand what's bad about adultery and bad about murder.

We don't understand why taking a census is so evidently evil. We're not suggesting as a church that you should be disciplined if you work for the Bureau of Census, you know, the Census Bureau. We're not saying that's wrong at all. No, but what's going on here in 2 Samuel 24 is David wanted to know how many soldiers he had, how strong he was. But the problem with that is the number of his soldiers had never been the source of David's strength.

Never. The very exercise was an exercise of misunderstanding and misleading. It's like Jonathan had said back in 1 Samuel 14, Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few. Here though, David, was relying on his own strength rather than the Lord's. So is it wrong for us to take a census or to count things?

Does this necessarily imply a lack of reliance on God? No, I mean, there's a whole book called Numbers where, you know, there's a census taken and then another census taken. But there, if you look at it, it seems to be to show at least a couple of things. One, that the Israelites had largely survived the wilderness over a generation, but two, that all those the Lord said were going to be dying off because of their sin of lack of faith had died off. That also demonstrates, really, the smallness of Israel compared to the tasks that they were about to undertake.

So here, if anything, that numbering showed smallness, but David's and David's time, this was encouraging the people to boast about their strength and to rely on themselves. Why this chapter does not terrify more leaders of God's churches today who love numbers, I don't understand. Why this doesn't raise questions about judging ourselves on what our numbers are like? I don't know. If you reflect on why this is so terrible, why it's such a great sin, then I think we have to ask questions about what we rely on.

We shouldn't miss the seriousness of this. Friends, pride hides God from us. Pride is the root of sin. It is distorting and deceptive. You realize that everything you have today is a gift.

Our days at work and at home are shot through with pride.

Can you see it in yourself?

If you just reflect on your normal way of being, on maybe in your last week or two, we Christians can even be proud of our knowledge of the Bible. How ironic is that? This book that says, I'm so bad I deserve hell, I know it really well.

Okay? Friends, the ability of the fallen human heart, even when redeemed, to take pride in something is sick and distorting, and it's in all of us. You probably see it more clearly in people around you than you do in yourself. That's part of the nature of pride. You know, that's why you want to be in a church, because other people who can see it can help you know, oh, by the way, that right there, Mark, that's pride.

Oh, I hadn't seen that. Thank you. That's the kind of relationships that we need to cultivate if we're going to understand the truth about ourselves spiritually. David says in 2 Samuel 24:10, I have sinned greatly in what I have done. I have done very foolishly.

So David does come to see that his sins are heinous.

I wonder if Paul picked David specifically because of his sins. And I wonder if that's what Paul had in mind when he said in that phrase we looked at last week in verse five, God who justifies the ungodly. I wonder if he knew he was just about to reach for the example of David. So he said, God who justifies the ungodly, by which I mean David.

If you're here today and you're not a Christian, may I simply point out that one of the distinctions of the Bible is its concern for truth. Even its greatest leaders are presented, as Cromwell said about his portrait, warts and all. They're presented honestly. This is the book that tells us of Moses' anger. And Peter's cowardice, of Saul's disobedience, and Judas' betrayal, and Paul's own previous persecution of Christians.

Christianity is not a book that whitewashes. The Christian Bible is not a book that deceives. David is presented as one of the greatest people ever and the greatest of Israel's kings and as a great sinner.

So what about you? What about your pride? Are you confident of yourself spiritually because of the things you do or because of the things you haven't done? You'll find Christianity is an honest religion. It doesn't flatter, it doesn't pretend.

It's that two-eyed trait I've noticed before I've pointed out. So, friend, if you're here and you're not a Christian, the way I would gently, cognitively kind of give you a little shove it would say you probably tend to either be very cynical and skeptical of everybody or to be kind of like optimistic and think it doesn't really matter and everything's gonna be okay. And Christianity would say there's some truth in both of those, but either of those by itself is a distortion. You need both an understanding that everyone is made in the image of God, so bad, bad people can do good things. And even the best of people like David, sin.

So even the best of people can sin. Christianity is the best way to read the world around us. It is the realistic way. It is the truth. Well, friend, that's David.

The question is that really Paul presses on us here, what about God? What will God do with someone like David? Someone made in His image who, yes, has virtues, but who is themselves sinful. What will God do with such a person? What will He do with David's sin?

Well, the first thing to note is that by God's grace, He confronts David in his sin. God used various people to do this, most famously Nathan in 2 Samuel 12 about David's sin with Bathsheba and Uriah. He also used Joab to confront David about another sin we haven't mentioned yet.

When he was over grieving in 2 Samuel 19. And then he used both Joab and a prophet named Gad to confront David about his sin of pride in numbering the people in 2 Samuel 24. A couple of things to note here about when God does confront David. When Nathan confronts David, David confesses his sin. In 2 Samuel 19 when Joab confronts David, about forsaking his duty to the people, David immediately repents.

And then in 2 Samuel 24, with the numbering of the people, Joab confronts David. But we read in 2 Samuel 24:4, But the king's word prevailed against Joab. He wouldn't be told no on this one, even though he was confronted, no, he was going to go ahead. But then later, We read in verse 10 that David was personally convicted of the sinfulness of what he'd done. Now the language used here is his heart struck him.

Do you know that feeling when your heart strikes you? That's the conscience. God has put that in all of us. It's not perfect, but apart from the Word of God and godly people around you, it's the best you've got. So you want to listen carefully to the conscience.

So now when David was confronted a second time after his heart's been struck, this time not by Joab, but by Gad, David immediately repents and he accepted the consequences of his sin. So God confronts and convicts David, but still then what's to be done with his sin? This brings us to the second thing that God does with David's sin. He puts it away. That's the phrase that Nathan the prophet uses.

In 2 Samuel 12:13. And we'll think about this more next time when we come to the language of Psalm 32 in verses 7 and 8. But that seems to indicate that there is forgiveness and pardon now for David. Our sin must be dealt with, they must be put away, they must be borne by someone. Just one note about this.

Are we ourselves beneficiaries of God's overlooking our sins, and will we not overlook the sins of some others around us? It would be good for us to consider carefully when we should and when we shouldn't do this. And here we need both discernment and grace. Our lives are filled with such mixed experiences. We often need the kind of first-person wisdom we find in David's Penitential Psalm 51, where we remind ourselves of what the Lord delights in and we ask Him to purge us.

I pray that God will make our church more and more marked by humble confession of sins and the joy and gladness that come to us when our sins have been repented of and put away. But friends, as of yet we've not come to the main thing that Paul tells us here through David's example. That God does with sinners like David. He not only confronts us in our sins in Acts to put them away, but Paul is telling us more about how it is that God does this. And this is the main thing that we find here that God does with David.

The Lord counts David righteous. The Lord counts David as righteous. We see that in verse six. To whom God counts righteousness apart from works.

Now having considered afresh exactly who David is, let's see how Paul takes his idea that Moses has recorded about Abraham and that Jesus also taught about those who believe in Him having eternal life. Let's see how Paul sees this going on in David's case. And there are three aspects of God's saving work that we should especially notice here in David's case. Three aspects.

Imputation, grace and faith. Imputation, grace and faith. Let's consider each one as we find it in Scripture's testimony about David. First, imputation. This is done by God.

God imputes righteousness, as we've seen in verses 3 and verse 5. This is what Nathan was pointing to with that language about the Lord has put away your sin. This is what David prayed for after he had numbered the troops. He prayed that God would take away the iniquity of your servant. That doesn't mean that God rewinds time and all of a sudden those events never happened.

But it means God treats David in that regard as if that's the case, at least when it comes to his guilt before him.

What righteousness is this that would be accounted to David? Is Paul saying that God regards faith as a kind of substitute for real righteousness? Well, it couldn't be that. Paul has already said that none are righteous. Okay, then if God counts Abraham as righteous, it must have been on the basis of some real righteousness, but whose?

Well, Paul had said back in chapter 3, look at chapter 3, verse 22. Turn back, chapter 3, verse 22. It's the righteousness of God, His righteousness, through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Paul then explains in verse 25, Christ's death as a propitiation, a meeting and assuaging of God's wrath for sin. And he writes of our having faith in His blood, in Jesus.

So this imputation, this accounting has two aspects to it. First, our sins are imputed to Christ. He bears them. We can read about this in Isaiah 52 and 53. But second, Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, and that's in view here especially.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1, Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Christ's righteousness imputed to us is both His passive, that is His suffering obedience, and His active obedience, that is, His obedience throughout His life. So not merely are our sins taken away, though they are that, by being our sin-bearing substitute, but Christ's righteousness, that is, His always living in trust of His heavenly Father, is imputed to us, is accounted to us. So the justified person is, at the same time, as Martin Luther famously observed, righteous and a sinner. Friends, that's why you're observing your own sins don't need to make you doubt your salvation.

Because in this life, you will sin. That doesn't mean that any sin is inevitable and that any sin is excusable, but it means the very presence of sin should not, spiritually speaking, to use the Greek here, freak you out.

Because until we are made perfect, In that glorified state, we will all of us continue to struggle with sin. We will none of us be perfectly righteous. So our hope, our joy, our confidence when we sing is not reflecting on our own weeks how good we've been. It's staring at Jesus and knowing that His righteousness is counted for us. His righteousness by faith is ours.

And then, yes, there is the confirming work of the Holy Spirit sanctifying us progressively all the time. That's also happening. But that's not the basis of our joy and our resting. Friends, are you here today wanting other blessings from God? Maybe you want your health to be better or your relationships.

Maybe you want some certain blessing in money. Friends, the blessing Here in verse six is the blessing most to be desired. Jeff Bezos 30 years ago could start Amazon and he could build a company as big as Amazon in 30 years. But in 30 years you cannot justify yourself before God. The most fortunate, gifted, blessed, rich person in the world cannot affect his status before God for that You need God Himself to act, as He has acted uniquely through Jesus Christ.

What could any of us do with our own sins? Friends, this is God's work. It's not ours. He imputes. That's the second aspect of God's saving work here that Paul uses the example of David to underscore.

It's God's work. It's gracious. That is, it is done by grace.

That's implied in those last three words in our text, apart from works. Oh, we saw that in verse 5 about the one who does not work in this sense, he does not labor to earn his own salvation. So David, we see, was forgiven apart from any of his own works. These works are actions we would do to commend ourselves to God to gain His approval. But here we see that God counted David righteous apart from such self-justifying work.

So this is God's answer to our problem. It is God who puts us right with Himself, isn't it? The only thing that we contribute to our salvation is the sin that we need to be saved from. My Christian brothers and sisters, we considered last week that those who've known mercy show mercy. We said that last week.

I wonder how this week has been for you. Looking back on this week, Would people around you who live around you or work around you, would they say that from you they've known mercy? That it's typical of you to show mercy?

If your justification, you're being declared right by God, has come apart from works, come from God's grace, then pray that you can be regularly displaying small examples of this in your own interaction with others.

My non-Christian friends, this is particularly good news for you. In an old Christian classic named Pilgrim's Progress, the person wanting to gain access to God again, Pilgrim, goes on the way and at first he thinks, I can obey my way to God. And he starts to go up a hill named Mount Sinai. And as he starts to go up the hill, it seems a gentle slope underfoot and he can easily do it. But as he keeps going, he finds it gets steeper and steeper.

And finally, so steep it almost seems to curve back over on himself so that there's no way he can go forward. Friends, that's an illustration of the spiritual truth that you need to know, and it's good news. That your own effort to obey your way to God will fail. Completely and entirely that bridge is out, that ship has sailed. You need another way.

And that way is Jesus. It is his righteousness given as a gift to all who believe. That's what we find here. This verse that we're studying today confirms that. And you can rejoice knowing that God has made a way of salvation that is open to anyone.

Is that you today? Friend, why would it not be you today? Do you want to be pardoned for your sins and welcomed into God's presence forever? Again, talk to any of us at the doors on the way out. We would love to talk to you about what it would mean for you to know God, to love Him, to serve Him entirely.

Young people, are there some people that you've seen become Christians that have kind of surprised you? You're thinking, huh, what's he doing claiming to be a Christian? Why did she get baptized? Why did that person join our church? Did I read about this person being a Christian?

That's a great conversation for you to have with your parents if they're Christians or with some adult Christian that you know. Bring that up. Help them understand what would be strange to you, what would be confusing. This justification being counted as righteous being saved. It's not something we earn, and it's not something that Abraham earned or David earned.

It's not something that any of us can earn. It's only by God's grace. And that sometimes brings some surprising people to church. Look at how Paul put it up in chapter 3, verse 24. And are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Or as Paul will argue down in chapter 4, verse 16, that is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace. And that brings our attention to the third aspect that we see in those first words of verse 6, just as... just as. So we remember that Paul is producing David here as another witness in a case that he was already pressing, that is, by faith that Abraham was counted as righteous was justified. So here too we see that David, like Abraham before him, is justified by grace through faith, just as we've been treated in Christ.

And this is not just what Paul wrote to the Romans, this is what Paul had preached elsewhere. In his sermon at Pisidian Antioch we read in Acts 13. He said, Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. Friends, the benefits of the sacrifice of Christ for our sin are obtained only by faith in Christ. So as we've been noticing, this is not faith in faith, or even faith in Christ as itself a justifying good deed, but rather Paul argues throughout the first part of this letter that it's faith in Christ.

And His redemptive work that's being reckoned and counted as righteousness in the sense that our faith is the empty hand that receives the righteousness of Christ that's counted as ours. Maybe this seems complicated to you. Kids, maybe this seems too simple. You're like, you can't be serious. All I need to do is trust in Jesus and I'm okay?

That sounds way too easy. I think if you're thinking it sounds too easy, you might be more close to understanding it than the people who think it sounds too complicated. It's really amazing that we trust in Jesus and that God then credits to us Christ's righteousness. Does it seem like you should have to do more? Prepare yourself?

I love the way Spurgeon meditated on this once. He said, I wonder how long a man would need to spend in preparing himself for coming to Christ. When he had done it all, what would it be worth? Preparation for coming to Christ is simply this: if you are empty, you are prepared to be filled. If you are sick, you are prepared to be healed.

If you are sinful, you are prepared to be forgiven. But all other preparation is out of the question. This is what Paul has been arguing so far in this letter. It is being justified by faith, trusting in Christ. Romans 1:16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

Or chapter 3 verse 21, 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. In Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. Paul is going to write triumphantly at the beginning of chapter 5, Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This is such great news. This is what Paul writes about all the time.

If you look at his other letters, this is what he's going on and on about. He writes to the Philippians in chapter 3, saying, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. Friends, Paul was teaching the same thing that Peter taught the Cornelius in his household in Acts 10, where he said about Jesus to him, All the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name. The disciples of Jesus all taught this because Jesus taught this.

This is the message of Christianity. So anyone who's going to be saved then or now will be saved only by grace through faith in the work of the Messiah. Whether his work was anticipated or already accomplished, not trusting in our own strength, but trusting in the strength of another, which, by the way, brings us back to David, because that sounds like what David did again and again. When he first goes out there as a young boy to face Goliath, have you read that speech that he gave in 1 Samuel 17?

David confronts Goliath. Yeah, I said that. David, the little young guy, confronts the giant. And he says, you, come to me with a sword and with a spear and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord God of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head, and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and He will give you into our hand.

Friends, faith in God is what would have led repentant David after his sin with Bathsheba to seek God on behalf of the child, as we read he did in 2 Samuel 12. Faith in God is what would have led David to have turned to God the prophet announcing God's judgment on David for his prideful numbering of the fighting men and choose to fall into the hands of the Lord, because as David said, For his mercy is great. David knew the Lord. He knew what he was like. He had faith in God.

Brothers and sisters, trusting Christ will involve confessing your sins to God. Confession is more than simple admission of derogatory facts about yourself. It's the acknowledgment of how God views your sins, how He understands your actions, and that will then lead you to trust in Christ and His works rather than your own. So to sum up all this wonderful truth, we are justified, that is, counted righteous before God. We have our sins forgiven, pardoned, remitted, not because of what we ourselves have done or have deserved, but apart from our works, like Paul is saying here, only for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake.

You see, Christ's whole obedience and satisfaction are imputed, they are, to use this word here, counted to us. We rest all of our hopes in Christ and His righteousness only by faith. Brothers and sisters, What a comfortable doctrine this is. Do you see how this administers comfort in days when your conscience would just go crazy and take true facts and distort their significance and prosecute you? This is where we find comfort.

David's strength was relying on God's strength, and that can be your strength today too. While we could list many distinctions between Abraham and David, this they had in common, that they believed God and His Word, His promises. This meal that we turn to in a few moments shows that we all who partake of this meal have this same reliance. We rely on this One who has provided Himself for us. In Him we find our righteousness, only in Him.

We should conclude. So what will God do with your sin? With my sin? With all who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God?

As Paul writes in Romans 11, At the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise grace would no longer be grace. Or as he writes in Ephesians 2, For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing.

He knew there would be people out there who would say that faith is a work. No, even this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. To Timothy he wrote specifically that Jesus Christ saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of His own purpose and grace. And to Titus, but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

So have you been justified by God's grace? As you stare at your own sins, that's the question you need to answer and answer accurately. Have you been justified by God's own grace?

I hope that David has given you some encouragement in this. Because David doesn't only give testimony to it in Psalm 32, but he himself is an example of God's gracious salvation, of justifying his own by faith alone, so that any sinner can be counted righteous. As David testified in Psalm 25 verse 11, For your name's sake, O Lord, pardon our guilt, for it is great.

That's weird. For your name's sake, pardon our guilt? How does that follow? You see, you've been thinking all of this is about us, the sinners. No, no, no, no, no, no.

All of this is about God. This is God displaying what he is like to his creation. It is for God to make his name great. That's why, did you ever wonder why David in Psalm 51 famously prays against you and you only have I sinned when Uriah is dead? And Bathsheba had a child by him.

How could he say that? The chutzpah. You know, why would he say against you and you only have a sin? Because he knew he'd sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba and others, the whole nation in some ways. But he had especially, mainly, supremely, and in its heart, sinned against God, because all sin is uniquely against God.

When you come to understand your sin, the vertical aspects of it, The horizontal aspects don't recede, they're all there, but even they are given their significance by your understanding the vertical nature of it. That all of our sins are fundamentally against God. All of our actions are taken in light of who God is and who we are, every single one of them, and that includes our sins. God is the one we are loving or rejecting by our actions. And it is God who has tied up his name with our blessing.

You see how Paul here notes that David begins by calling someone blessed. And this is not just in the general sense, you know, blessed. No, I mean, this is not just a sense of you're happy or you're driving a new car. No, this is specifically blessed in having Christ's righteousness imputed to us as our very own, being counted as forgiven by God. When we can name real sins we have committed, And once forgiven, we now have fellowship with God, along with all that that entails.

And friend, it's not just for you individually. So Vince, I'm glad if you know this, Alice, I'm glad if you know this, Amy, I'm glad if you know this, Christian, I'm glad if you know this. It's for a room full of people here. Look at all these people, hundreds of people here, sharing this same experience of knowing this God, having His Spirit in us. We have known this great blessing of coming to God through the righteousness of Christ.

Apart from our own works, we're about to participate in this symbolic meal as a picture of this very full provision for each one of us. Not just something that the priest does in front of everybody else, showing that I will do this and I will have this virtue. It's something that we all participate in, all of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ. Friends, open up that great Wesley hymn on page 16 in your bulletin. Look there.

Certain words begin to pop when you have these ideas very clearly in mind.

Arise, my soul, arise.

Arise, my soul, arise. Shake off my dusty veil. Thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears. Before the throne, my surety stands.

Before the throne, my surety stands. My name is written on his hands. Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary. They pour effectual prayers. They strongly plead for me.

Forgive him, oh, forgive they cry. Forgive him. Oh, forgive they cry, nor let that ransomed sinner die. The Father hears him pray, his dear anointed one. He cannot turn away the presence of his Son.

His Spirit answers to the blood. His Spirit answers to the blood and tells me, I am born of God. My God is reconciled. Praise the Lord, my God. His parting voice I hear.

He owns me for His child. I can no longer fear, with confidence I now draw nigh, with confidence I now draw nigh. And Father, Abba, Father, cry. Let's stand and sing together.