1. "Self-trust loses everything. If you try to use Christianity basically as a means of self-improvement, you've taken the husk and you've thrown away the fruit. You've misunderstood what's going on."

2. "Friends, God is real. Yesterday is real, last year is real. God is the eternal God. 1914 is as real as 2025. These things are real before the Lord. So there is no way for us to obey our way to God."

3. "Our good deeds will never inherit all the good things that God has promised to his children. That was not what Abraham had found. That is not what Genesis 15 says was the reason Abraham was promised a blessing."

4. "Church is a dangerous place. What's happening is God's truth is being set before you. Whether it's done very skillfully and enjoyably or not, so long as it's done truly, you are being brought face to face with the truth of God for your soul in a concentrated way."

5. "The human heart is an idol factory. And we can make idols out of anything which we think that we can do and hold up to God with a smile."

6. "What can appear to be solid submission to God and His will can really be hollow hypocrisy, wanting to look like what we're not, wanting to be counted as good because of some things we've done, but ignoring lots of other things that we've either left undone or done wrongly."

7. "Pray that God not allow you or me to be self-satisfied. Our religious practices should always drive us to rest entirely on Christ and his righteousness."

8. "I'm not saying, and Paul wasn't saying, that law keeping is unimportant, but that our law keeping is insufficient. It is, spiritually speaking, weak sauce. Even our best righteousness, when you total it up, it's just not much compared to what we need."

9. "Fallen man wants to say, 'Hey, I'm living in such a way that a good God is gonna say I'm on the right side of him.' That, friends, is the wrong way to think. That is a dead end."

10. "The faith that makes peace with God makes war on sin. Friends, true Christian faith is busy and active faith. We are saved by faith alone, only in Christ, but our saving faith is never alone. True saving faith always shows itself in its good working."

Observation Questions

1. According to Romans 4:13, through what did the promise to Abraham and his offspring come—through the law or through the righteousness of faith?

2. In Romans 4:14, what does Paul say happens to faith and the promise if the adherents of the law are the ones who are to be heirs?

3. What does Romans 4:15 say the law brings, and what does Paul say exists where there is no law?

4. Looking back at Romans 4:3 (quoted in the sermon), what did Abraham do that was counted to him as righteousness?

5. In Romans 3:21-22, Paul describes a righteousness of God that has been manifested apart from the law—through what does this righteousness come, and to whom is it available?

6. According to Romans 4:10-12 (referenced in the sermon's context), was Abraham declared righteous before or after he was circumcised, and why does this matter for Paul's argument?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does Paul argue that if inheritance comes through keeping the law, then "faith is null and the promise is void" (Romans 4:14)? What is the logical connection between law-based inheritance and the emptying of faith and promise?

2. The sermon explains that "law" in verse 14 cannot mean simply the Mosaic Law (since Abraham didn't have it) nor just the innate moral law (since everyone has that). What does this tell us about the broader principle Paul is addressing regarding human efforts to earn God's favor?

3. How does Romans 4:15 ("the law brings wrath") explain the danger of relying on one's own law-keeping for salvation? What happens when God's revealed will meets human disobedience?

4. The sermon states that "our law-keeping is insufficient" but "Jesus's law-keeping was perfect." How does Romans 3:21-26 show that Christ's righteousness—not our own—is the basis for our justification?

5. Why is it significant that Abraham was credited righteousness by faith (Genesis 15:6) years before he received circumcision? What does this reveal about the relationship between faith, works, and God's promises?

Application Questions

1. The sermon warns against using Christianity "basically as a means of self-improvement." In what specific ways are you tempted to trust in your own religious performance—church attendance, moral behavior, spiritual disciplines—rather than resting entirely on Christ's righteousness?

2. Paul teaches that the law brings wrath because we inevitably fail to keep it perfectly. How should this truth shape the way you respond when you become aware of sin in your life—do you tend toward despair, self-justification, or running to Christ?

3. The preacher noted that "church is a dangerous place" because hearing God's Word increases our accountability. How does this reality affect the way you prepare for and engage with Scripture teaching each week? What would change if you took this more seriously?

4. The sermon emphasizes that "true saving faith is never alone" but shows itself in good works. What is one specific area of your life—relationships, work, speech, generosity, or service—where your faith should be producing more visible fruit this week?

5. The sermon presents two roads: self-trust that leads to wrath, and faith in Christ that leads to righteousness. If a friend or family member asked you why you don't rely on your own good works to be right with God, how would you explain the difference between these two paths using what you've learned from Romans 4?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Genesis 15:1-6 — This passage records the original moment when Abraham believed God's promise and it was credited to him as righteousness, which is the foundational text Paul interprets throughout Romans 4.

2. Proverbs 9:1-18 — Solomon presents the contrasting invitations of Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly, illustrating the same theme of two ways that Paul applies to law and faith in Romans.

3. Isaiah 53:1-12 — This prophecy describes how the Servant bears the iniquities of God's people, showing the substitutionary basis for the righteousness that is credited to those who believe.

4. Galatians 3:1-14 — Paul makes a parallel argument about Abraham, faith, and the law, demonstrating that the blessing of Abraham comes to the Gentiles through faith in Christ Jesus.

5. Deuteronomy 11:26-32 — Moses sets before Israel the blessing and the curse based on obedience, providing Old Testament background for Paul's statement that "the law brings wrath" for those who fail to keep it.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Theme of Two Roads in Literature and Scripture

II. Context of Paul's Argument in Romans 4

III. The Way of Law: A Path That Leads to Nothing (Romans 4:14)

IV. The Way of Law: A Path That Brings Wrath (Romans 4:15)

V. The Way of Faith: The Path to Righteousness (Romans 4:13)

VI. The Call to Walk in Faith

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then several meandering stanzas later, the poem concludes, I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. Written in 1915 by Robert Frost for a friend and fellow poet, Edward Thomas, Frost meant this poem as a gentle mocking of Thomas's chronic indecision when they would go walking together in the New England woods and Thomas would stand there and take forever deciding which way to go. Thomas was always lingering over and pondering, and then once they would take the path, he was always regretting and wondering what would have been on the other path. He was imagining the virtues of the other way, the way un-taken. Although intended by Frost as humorous musing, the poem's audiences, when it was first read, I think at a college, took it very seriously.

When Frost heard about this, he was upset. The poem quickly, within the poet's own lifetime, became a rallying cry for the significance of individual decisions. If any of you saw the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society, where Robin Williams is Mr. Keating, how about that for a name for a poet-teacher, he encourages the students in their expressive individualism by reading the last three lines of this poem unironically and commandingly.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. Well, friends, that's exactly the opposite of the way Frost meant this poem. But it's the way it's been used. Whatever Frost's intentions may have been, the poem has been used in countless graduation speeches, in valedictory addresses, maybe by some even given by people sitting in this room. To sort of summarize the importance of life's decisions taking us to different destinations.

Also many movies have used this theme. From the 1939 cinematic blockbuster the Wizard of Oz, which featured, you know, one road among others has taken them to their needed destination. The Emerald City, it was the road built with yellow bricks. Follow the yellow brick road. The characters sing on their way.

To the 1986 somewhat more obscure John Cleese comedy, Clockwise, where Cleese, a school teacher, a school head, is desperately attempting to get to an important meeting, but is thwarted by the fact that his driver, every time Cleese goes right in affirmation of conclusion, turns right.

The importance of this theme of keeping on the right road, the right way, is not something new like the movies. It's as old as storytelling. You remember the story of Little Red Riding Hood. She's instructed to stay on the right path going to her grandmother's house. But instead, she's drawn off the path because she sees these beautiful flowers she could collect and give to her grandmother and that leads to a crucial delay in her arrival at her grandmother's house, a delay which is long enough to allow the wicked wolf to do his evil work.

John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress depicts all of life as a matter of staying on the right way. Whatever obstacles or distractions are along it in order to get to the heavenly city. Long before Bunyan and Geoffrey Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales get told tales of different pilgrims as they walk along the road to the pilgrimage center that is Canterbury. And friends, long before even all of this, we find this same image of the divergent ways used by King Solomon in the Bible. You know, in the book of Proverbs, The whole book is really full of brief epigrams containing wisdom and simple comparisons and contrasts.

But the first nine chapters depict two competitors for the young man's attention, wisdom and folly. And this is summarized in chapter 9 where two ways are laid out, the way of wisdom and the way of folly. Lady Wisdom calls out, Leave your simple ways and live and walk in the way of insight. But then there is the folly's call right at the end of Proverbs chapter 9. Let me read that to you beginning at verse 13.

Folly, the woman folly is loud, she is seductive and knows nothing. Listen to this chilling end of Solomon's introduction here. The woman folly is loud, she is seductive and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house. She takes a seat on the highest places of the town, calling to those who pass by, who are going straight on their way.

Whoever is simple, let him turn in here. And to him who lacks sense, she says, stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he does not know that the dead are there.

That her guests are in the depths of Sheol. Friends, that macabre image of all of the people who have responded to Folly's loud call now being dead, dead through their own folly. Solomon then ends his introduction and begins laying out the way of wisdom. As opposed to the way of folly for the young person to hear and learn from. Paul is really employing that same tool in our passage this morning.

If you open up to Romans chapter four, Romans chapter four, verses 13 to 15, I think you'll see this is exactly what Paul is doing. That's found on page 941 of the Bibles provided. You'll be helped if you are not used to being here or listening to sermons like this to have the text actually in front of you. So Romans chapter 4, that's the large number, 13 to 15, those are the smaller numbers after it.

Paul has been arguing that we are justified, we are made right with God, not by our works sufficiently paying for God's favor, but by our faith in what God has promised and has given in His only Son, Jesus Christ, living and dying and rising again for us. He's asserted this strongly in chapter three. And now in chapter four, Paul is dealing with religious objections from some who are wondering if this really undermined the special calling of God's own people, Israel. God's own people, Israel, were especially set aside. Don't the Scriptures tell us this?

So Paul says, fair enough. Let's turn to the Scriptures. They turn to what we call the Old Testament. And what does he find there? Some people who were opposing Paul were thinking, didn't these Scriptures teach circumcision and Sabbath-keeping and various laws about sacrifices and which foods you can eat?

So in chapter 4, Paul has been demonstrating from the Old Testament that Abraham and David actually taught what Paul has been teaching, that we are justified by God's own righteousness being imputed, accounted, credited to us through our faith receiving Christ's righteousness as a gift to us. He's based this all on his reading of Genesis 15:6 in which if you go back to the Old Testament, you find that God credited righteousness to Abram because Abraham believed God's amazing, almost unbelievable promise. But because God said it, Abraham believed it. And it says in Genesis 15:6, and so God credited it to him as righteousness. Paul also here in chapter 4 quotes David in Psalm 32, where David clearly had an understanding of sins that would not be counted against some people because they have been covered.

That idea of counted is what he gets onto. How would they not be reckoned to them? Something has happened to those sins and responsibility for them. In verses 10 to 12 here in Romans 4 that we've most recently considered, Paul points out the fact that Abraham was said to be justified years before he was ever circumcised. So in the great dispute that was happening in the first century Do you have to be Jewish in order to be Christian?

And the Jews were circumcised as part of following the covenant with Abraham. Paul very clearly says no. And furthermore he says, Abraham, who has been your big argument, Jewish friends, to say that we have to be circumcised to follow the Messiah, actually if you read about Abraham carefully, you see he was said to be justified in Genesis 15:6.

Two chapters before, many years before he was ever circumcised. So even in Genesis we see that Abraham was the father of those who had faith and believed and were not circumcised long before he was ever the father of those who had faith and believed and were circumcised. So that's been Paul's argument he's making in Genesis 4 to show that there is Abraham, there is one covenant. He is the father of all of those who were having faith, who were trusting in Jesus. They weren't two different groups.

You didn't have to become a part of the circumcised group in order to have faith. So Paul in our passage here in Romans 4 today, he sets out two ways to live. The way of what he simply calls here the law, or the way that he's been talking about, the way of righteousness, of faith in Jesus. So let's listen to what Paul says here now in these three verses. Romans chapter 4 Genesis 4:13 to 15.

For the promise of Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the Law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath. But where there's no law, there's no transgression. So the question is, what way will bring me to God?

What way will allow me to be in the presence of God, enjoying His presence and His pleasure forever? Paul describes here two ways. So if you're wondering what to do with your life today, Paul is laying out two ways: the way of law, and the way of faith, the way of law and the way of faith. Again and again he's been sounding this message in Romans. He does it here in our verses.

I pray that as we look through this contrast today between these two ways to live, you'll see the difference and you'll choose the right way. In verse 14, Paul explores the way of law.

Look at verse 14. You know, what you want is to inherit the promise made to Abraham. If that's what you want, to inherit the promise, all the good that was promised to Abraham, all of His blessings, is the Law the way to do that? Look at verse 14 again. For if it is the adherents of the Law who are to be the heirs, faith is null.

And the promise is void. Three little words, we have to be a bit classroomy in trying to explain clearly in order to think well about this. And they're all three words that we encounter in Romans, but they're used very specially, and so we need to give attention to them. The word law is the most common word in our passage. Paul has used the law in different ways in this letter, just like it's used in English.

And this is a huge topic in the first half of Romans. In our verses, as in the following verse 16, it's clear that Paul is using law in contrast with, now I don't want you to say it out loud, but fill in the blank in your own mind. Here you can tell what law is because Paul is using law in contrast with Faith. You can tell it. Look at verse 16.

This is why... that's why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring, not only to the inheritor of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. Okay, so we know that this law... this law is the sort of parallel and opposite of faith. This law is something which one is said to be of, of Law, which Abraham could be said to be of, because Abraham is one of these.

The whole thing only works because Abraham is part of this group. And it's something which can be omitted by someone who does share Abraham's faith.

So you can share Abraham's faith and not be circumcised. That's what Paul's just been arguing. So whatever this law is, it's something that Abraham shared, but which you could have his faith and not share this. That means that this law could not simply be Moses' law. So if you read law here as the Mosaic law, that doesn't work because Abraham didn't have it.

So that's not what it means exactly. But given the way Paul here uses law in verse 15 where he says, Where there is no law, there is no transgression, this seems to be something more than simply the innate moral law that each one of us has by creation. Paul's been very clear back in chapter 2 that all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. All who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

Okay, so the law here in verse 14 seems to be something more than simply the innate moral sense because everybody has that. There's no category of people who don't have that law. So it can't be that. But it can't simply be the Mosaic Law because that wasn't revealed until 400 years after Abraham. So therefore, what do you conclude?

Well, law here has to be something in between that. Law must mean God's revealed will and especially that revelation that marked off Abraham and his descendants from others that distinguished them. And this would include the Mosaic Law. That could be described like that, but it's not limited to it. It would include other special revelation like the covenant of circumcision that the Lord had not given to all humanity in the Garden of Eden, but He had given specifically to Abraham as a mark, a sign of his faith and of the promises to come.

So the principle is the same. Paul is exploring in verse 14 the idea of whether people who are marked fundamentally by their own efforts to keep God's revealed will will inherit the promise. And that brings us to the second word that we should understand here, and that's this word, heir in verse 14. Do you see that word? Verse 14, heir, H-E-I-R-S in the plural here.

It's a class of persons. They are those who stand to inherit or receive something. They are those who stand in the position of Abraham who himself was said in verse 13 to be heir of the world. Now that is a grandiose title. Heir of the world.

I mean, where do you get that? Well, nowhere else occurs in the Bible. But it is a way that we know the Jews of the time would often summarize the blessings of Abraham. Why? Well, you have to go back and you have to look back in Genesis and see what it is that God promised to Abraham.

Heirs are inherit, It really is what Abraham does as a type of Christ that is fulfilled when Christ is raised and ascends to the heaven and is there enthroned and he's given, as it were, the whole world. It says in 1 Corinthians 15, God has put all things in subjection under his feet. So the Jews of the first century would summarize God's promises to Abraham to bless all the families of the earth through him in Genesis 12, to give him offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky in Genesis 15, to give him kings and land in Genesis 17. And then when Abram offered up his son Isaac, and this is the kicker that pushes over to all the world, in Genesis 22, or sorry, in Genesis 17, when God promises to Abraham in light of his obedience in Genesis 22, He says, I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand of the seashore, and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.

So in that phrase, possess the gate of his enemies, many commentators of Paul's time had included a kind of worldwide dominion that could summarize all of these blessings together as inheriting the world. Anyway, this is the way Paul is summarizing all the blessings that the Lord had promised to Abram because of his faith. But the question Paul asks here in verse 14 is, who will inherit this? Who is the heir? Who shall inherit the promise to Abraham and his offspring?

That's the question. It's a question he's been asking. Is it the circumcised? Is it the law keepers? And this really defines that third word that I want us to understand here in verse 14.

That's the word what was the promise here in verse 14 that was in question? Well, it's the promise Paul had mentioned up in the previous verse, verse 13, the promise to Abraham and his offspring. Which promise was that? Well, it was the promise that he had said Abraham believed. It was credited to him as righteousness.

Paul refers to it again in chapter 9. But Paul can also refer to promises in the plural. It was the promises that we just summarized as we looked at this idea of air. It's the promise we see in the next verse in chapter 4, in verse 16, that rests on grace. So it's this promise that parallels and includes the promise of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, that Paul had written about so clearly in chapter 3 and that he's now defending here in chapter 4 as completely consistent with what we find in the Old Testament.

It's completely consistent with the Bible. David in Psalm 32 could refer to someone not having their sins counted against them. Abraham could be justified by faith in God's promise before he had received the covenant law, the sign of circumcision. So now with those ideas of law and error and promise, now we're ready to just look at verse 14, hear it and see if it just reads straight through pretty easily for you. See if you hear his argument.

For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null. The promise is void. Paul is saying we know from Genesis 15:6 that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. That's been the basis for everything he's saying in Romans. But now, if actually it's the fact that Abraham obeyed the law, Well, then all of a sudden the very basis that was credited to him as righteousness is gone.

And he says, if that's the case, then it's very clear that you would have to have the law, to a certain extent you have to honor the law, but we know, he's just reflected on this in the first three chapters, that we humans do this very imperfectly and partially. And so what that means is the promise to Abraham just vanishes. If that's what this means, then nobody is going to get any of those blessings. It was given in Genesis 15:6 because of his faith. It's very clear about that.

So if we discount faith now, if we treat it as void of any value of empty and pointless and shift to having to keep the law ourselves, then as Paul puts it here, the promise is void. There's a promise of a condition nobody will ever fulfill. If we go the way of our own law keeping, then the promise we see there in Genesis 15:6 has no effect for us. What's worse, it seems like it's even being set aside, abolished, canceled. So ironically, if people chase the promise made to Abraham by their keeping the Law, they miss it.

They miss it all. They get nothing.

Friends, self-trust loses everything. If you try to use Christianity basically as a means of self-improvement, you've taken the husk and you've thrown away the fruit. You've misunderstood what's going on. Christians, you know what I'm talking about. My question to you would be, what tempts you to do that?

What What do you find in life that tempts you to pull away from trusting in the Lord and tempts you to trust in your own law keeping? Would you try to live to merit God's favor? Friends, it's too late for that. Even if you are perfect from now until your death, that doesn't do anything about the sins you've already committed. Friends, God is real.

Yesterday is real, last year is real. God is the eternal God. 1914 is as real as 2025. These things are real before the Lord. So there is no way for us to obey our way to God.

Our good deeds will never inherit all the good things that God has promised to his children. That was not what Abraham had found. That is not what Genesis 15 says was the reason Abraham was promised a blessing. I was struck in reading this by thinking about Pilgrim's progress. And very early in his journey, Pilgrim, Christian, first sets out, we read, he turned out of his way, there's again that right way, wrong way theme, turns out of his way to go to Mr. Legality's house for help.

Never go to Mr. Legality's house for help. But behold, when he was got now hard by the hill, it seemed so high. And also that side of it was next to the wayside, did hang so much over that Christian was afraid to venture farther lest the hills should fall on his head. And that's the image of trying to keep the law yourself. That's the image of trying to be kept by obedience.

Brothers and sisters, we want to obey God if we're Christians. We want to have good homes. We want to be good employees. We want to be good friends. But we cannot obey our way into God's pleasure.

We need to be saved because we have sinned. What we naturally want to save ourselves won't work. It will come to nothing. So that's what you've got to understand from verse 14, which brings us to verse 15. So if you try to go the way of our own law keeping, you won't get what you do want.

All the promises to Abraham. But you will get what you don't want. Look in verse 15, For the law brings wrath, but where there's no law, there's no transgression. The law brings wrath. What you're looking for are the promises of Abraham that God made and fulfilled, and instead, by your reliance on your own law keeping, because you will fail, Paul's writing very tightly here, very, very condensed, almost poetically.

So what he's saying here is, because you will fail in your law-keeping, what you will get is wrath. The law brings wrath because of our disobedience that Paul has already talked about extensively in Romans 1 to 3. So if you've come here with a rather sunny view of yourself, your own nature, or human nature in general, you could read history or you could read the first three chapters of Romans and you see what Paul has reflected about that. He says here, Where there is no law, there is no transgression. That's simply expressing the fact that sins against God's revealed will don't happen where that will is not revealed or known.

He says a little later in chapter 5 verse 13, Sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. So sin still is bad, sin still is wrong, but it does not have the additional contrast with God's revealed spoken or written law. So here in verse 15, Paul is warning the Roman Christians that the idea that we could win God's favor by our own actions is not only fruitless in terms of our desired end, like he said in verse 14, well then the promise, faith is null and void. But then it will actually bring about a result. The result will be God's wrath against us for our transgressions against His written law.

So again, He's using transgression as a kind of subset of sin. If everything that's wrong is sin, a transgression is specifically that subset of sins which are against something that God has revealed, either verbally or in writing. Friends, the danger of having God's law is not a new idea. The Lord had instructed His people through Moses in Deuteronomy 11, I'm setting before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and the curse if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way, there's that image again, that I'm commanding you today to go after other gods.

Okay, so what happened in the Old Testament? The people did not obey the law. They didn't keep it. So friends, what do our disobediences do? They call down God's wrath on us.

Why do they do that? Because God is really good and we are really not. And God will vindicate His own character. His wrath is His goodness and holiness actively expressing itself finally, eternally against all who oppose God and His rule. So you realize that church is a dangerous place.

You realize that. I mean you come here Sunday by Sunday thinking maybe that you're judging the preacher, you know. Oh, he kept my attention today. Oh, I only fell asleep twice. Oh, you know, I thought that one was pretty good.

Oh, look at that, he got out in under 50 minutes. You realize how petty all those things are. What's happening is God's truth is being set up before you. Whether it's done very skillfully and enjoyably or not, so long as it's done truly, you are being brought face to face with the truth of God for your soul in a concentrated way, in a way that brings you into a certain kind of accountability that is exaggerated from your normal experience. It's a concentrated time, both in your own quietness and attempt to give attention, and in the concentration on the teaching, trying to give you what is true.

And all of that brings an added responsibility. In exposing ourselves to God in His Word in ways we make ourselves more responsible, more accountable for our actions. More culpable for our failures. So just a few minutes ago, when Dan was up here and Titus was up here, and they were taking those vows, what they were doing in part was asking for God's attention to be paid especially to them as they bear important responsibilities in our congregation, as they especially bear the responsibility to teach God's people the truth about God and His will revealed in His Word.

Friends, the human heart is an idol factory. And we can make idols out of anything which we think that we can do and hold up to God with a smile. Look, do you see this? I have not missed church in four months. You know, I have been kind to three different people that cut me off in traffic just this week.

You know, what can appear to be solid submission to God and His will can really be hollow hypocrisy, wanting to look like what we're not, wanting to be counted as good because of some things we've done, but ignoring lots of other things that we've either left undone or done wrongly. Friend, pray that God not allow you or me to be self-satisfied. Our religious practices should always drive us to rest entirely on Christ. And his righteousness. That's what you should think of when you see the baptisms in a few minutes and you see people confessing their sin and their need for new life.

That's what you should see when you take the Lord's Supper. Not that you yourself are deserving of something from God, but rather that his body had to be broken and his blood shed for you if you were to commune with God. Kids, what are your parents teaching you? Are your parents teaching you that you can be righteous, okay with God, just because who your parents are, or just because they bring you to church?

Kids, you need to see very clearly what it is that makes you right with God. If you have questions about that, talk to your parents today when you get home. Talk to me or one of the other pastors at the door.

We want to be clear that our only hope, whether we're a child or an adult, is Jesus Christ. He is our only hope. Ask God to help you understand what it means for Jesus to be your only hope. If you have any questions, pursue them. Listen to the baptismal testimonies.

We're just about to hear and learn from them. Brothers and sisters, this is a good place for me to drop in a little theological education, because it's very practical. The three uses of God's law.

Christians have historically talked about the three uses of the law. This is going to be brief and quick. Number one, the first use of the law is its civil use, restraining evil as the law is publicly known and promulgated. This is chiefly seen in the way the law is used in the Old Testament state of Israel. But it's reflected in nations around the world and throughout history.

The second use is its evangelical use. Leading us to Christ, as we see here in verse 15, convicting us of our sin and therefore our need for a Savior. So this is how you might want to ask if you're using the law this way. Ray Comfort famously does this in the way of the Master kind of evangelism, where he uses the Ten Commandments with non-Christians to show them that they're liars, adulterers, cheaters, thieves, you know, and then says, so is there anything wrong with that? Well, however directly you do it, you might want to think about the holiness of God's law and then how you communicate that with friends when you're talking to them about the good news of Jesus.

And the third use is its moral use for Christians. That is how it instructs us on how we personally are to live. However much good we glean from God's law teaching us about the good, it can never be a ladder. That by obeying it we think we climb out and up to God. It's just not given for that purpose.

Our own breaking of the law only brings God's wrath. That's the result of going the way of the law. So friends, you've got the way of law, that way will not lead to life because you get what you don't want if you go the way of the law. You get wrath. So let's now look at the other way.

And I'm not going to spend long on this way because it's been what every single sermon in this series has been about. It's the way of faith. You want to know more, go to our church website and listen to any of the sermons since June. All right, here we are. This is the other way, the way of faith.

Faith is what you need. Look at verse 13.

Romans chapter 4, verse 13. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Abraham and his offspring would not inherit the promise through keeping the law, as we've been considering. Abraham himself got righteousness not by observing the law, but rather it was credited to him on the basis of faith. Just look up a few verses earlier in our chapter when Paul was talking about this, Romans chapter 4.

Look at verse 3. For what does the Scripture say? And then he quotes Genesis 15. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. 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. And then he talks about David in Psalm 32 using that. So the promise that God gave to Abraham all those years ago is received not by those who have the law, but by those who have the faith in God's promises, whatever nation, Jewish or not, Greek, Gentile. So don't mistake this message. Paul wasn't saying that the promise had nothing to do with keeping the law, simply not with our keeping of the law.

It's like our own statement of faith, it's very clear that salvation only comes by righteousness, but it's not by our righteousness. So I'm not saying, and Paul wasn't saying, that law keeping is unimportant, but that our law keeping is insufficient. It is, spiritually speaking, weak sauce. Even our best righteousness, when you total it up, it's just not much compared to what we need. Paul here is talking about our religious actions.

So our being circumcised, our keeping Sabbath, our being kosher, our making sacrifice at the temple in the first century. But none of those things would make up for your own sins. And fallen man naturally is a self-justifier. Fallen man, it doesn't matter if you're Hindu or Baptist. Fallen man wants to say, Hey, I'm living in such a way that a good God is gonna say, I'm on the right side of him.

Maybe just. But anybody over on this side of me, they're certainly wrong. But just where I am is about as far maybe as God's, you know, kindness and grace would naturally go. That's what everybody thinks on this planet, regardless of our religion. And that, friends, is the wrong way to think.

That is a dead end, according to Paul here. Now, Jesus's law keeping, that's a different matter. Jesus's keeping of the law, was perfect. He, unlike every member of this church, unlike every elder in this church, he did nothing wrong, ever. And it is his perfect righteousness that can be accounted to us by faith, his perfect righteousness.

This is what Paul was glorying in up in chapter 3. Look up in chapter 3.

Just beginning to say in verse 19, so you get the bad news and then you get the good news. Chapter 3, verse 19. Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by the works of the Law, no human being will be justified in his sight, in God's sight. Since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

But now, and this is what Luther said was like the gates of paradise being flung open when he understood this verse, 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. For there's 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 that is, the one who judges and the justifier, the one who accounts righteousness to others, of the one who has faith in Jesus. So friends, we can trust Jesus because He has perfectly fulfilled the law for us.

What is it Isaiah says? He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised and we esteemed Him not. Surely He has borne our grief and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, every one, to His own way. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

So, friend, the question for you is, are you here this morning as someone who has this righteousness by faith. The righteousness of faith Paul writes of here in verse 13. It's not that our faith is itself righteous, it's that our faith is simply our receiving of Christ's perfect righteousness, His perfect goodness in all of Christ's living and loving. This is the way to join Abraham in inheriting the promise, the blessings that God pledged to Abraham and his offspring. When he certified Abraham's believing God as if it were Abraham's perfectly obeying God.

This is what we've been seeing in this chapter, the counting, the being reckoned righteous by Christ's righteousness imputed to us by faith.

Thy bitter passion for my salvation. We sang. God made a great promise to Abraham and his offspring, and God has kept that promise. He has given so many of us that gift of faith so that we, like Abraham, can trust in Him and so be counted righteous. My friend, have you received this free gift of Christ's righteousness?

Accounted to you by simply trusting in Christ. This is how you can be forgiven of your sins today. This is how you can become on good terms with God because of what He has done in Christ for everyone.

You, if you will trust in Christ and His righteousness, and not your own.

This is what you really need. This is the good news that we have. We should never conclude that being saved is not by works but by faith. And if that's the case, then that means that all is peace and quiet in the life of a Christian. You know, when a preacher stands up and preaches this very clearly, Just believe, just believe, There's always the danger of antinomianism.

There's always the danger of people thinking like, Ah, well then, all of a sudden I've just got entire peace on the other side of this. I love how John Piper has expressed it. The faith that makes peace with God makes war on sin. Friends, true Christian faith is busy and active faith. One writer said, Faith gives us reasons to paint the bottom of the chair and clean the unseen corners of a room.

Godliness entails attention to details that no one but God sees. We are saved by faith alone, only in Christ, but our saving faith is never alone. True saving faith always shows itself in its good working. I wonder what yours is looking like this morning. You have saving faith.

How is that showing itself in your life? Thirty years ago this week, before the congregation of the Capitol Hill Metropolitan Baptist Church here in this room in this very pulpit, I undertook some good work in faith. I made some promises. I took some vows. The congregation that Sunday morning was mainly populated by those who preceded me into the Lord's presence.

Mixed in, yeah, I knew this was going to happen. Mixed in with the longtime members of this congregation, Herman and Eleanor Carlson, Jeanette Devlin, Bob and Maxine Zoff, Modena and Johnson, their daughter Gwen taking the pictures, Homer and Marguerite Gill, Bland and Ruby Wright, Charlie and Jesse Trainham, Charlie would want us to sing Victory in Jesus this morning. Jim Cox, Aaron MInikoff, Dick and Pat Rocheford, Bill and Francis Brown, Paul and Alice Huber, Bill Pelt, Carl and Helga Henry, Ethan and Wendy Reedy, Bill and Sadie Ray Parham, and Sadie Ray could cook.

So many others. Next in were other guests.

Harold Purdy, pastor of the church where I grew up in Kentucky. Roger Nicole, my professor of theology, Gordon-Conwell. Good friend, Al Mohler, recently made president of the Southern Baptist Seminary. Bill Kynes, pastor of the Evangelical Free Church out in Annandale. Sir Fred Catherwood, at that time a member of the European Parliament and a fellow elder with me at our church in Cambridge, England, and his wife Elizabeth, a dear friend of our family and daughter of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, and she was the editor of most of his published sermons.

Here I promised to set out on a certain path which this congregation had called me to undertake. And with the Lord's help and Connie's and yours and your prayers, your honor and support. I have imperfectly but sincerely and truly fulfilled these vows. I have continued in the way that was set before me. So today I too reaffirm my faith in Jesus Christ as my only personal Lord and Savior.

I believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, totally trustworthy, fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, the supreme, final, and only infallible rule of faith and practice. I still sincerely believe our church's statement of faith and church covenant contain the truth taught in the Holy Scripture. I've not found myself out of accord with any of the statements in the Statement of Faith or Church Covenant, but I continue to pledge to make the elders aware of any such change in my views should they ever occur. I continue to subscribe to the government and discipline of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church with God's help. I've submitted myself to my fellow elders in the Lord.

I have accepted and exercised this office sincerely for the glory of God and for the spread of his gospel. And so I have tried to be zealous and faithful in promoting all the truths of the gospel and the purity and peace of the church through whatever persecutions or oppositions there may have been. I have been and will continue to be faithful and diligent in the exercises of all my duties as an elder and have tried by the grace of God to adorn my profession of the gospel in my manner of life. By the grace of God over these 30 years, I have imperfectly but sincerely and really attempted to be an example of godliness before this congregation. And so with God's help and yours, I can say that I have taken personal responsibility in the life of this congregation as the pastor to oversee the ministry and resources of the church, to devote myself to prayer, the ministry of the word, and the shepherding of God's flock, relying on the grace of God in such a way that the Capitol Hill Baptist Church and the entire church of Jesus Christ has been blessed.

This has been what I have vowed to do and what I have imperfectly done with God's help. Thank you, congregation, for acknowledging me as your pastor, as the gift of Christ to this church. Thank you for fulfilling your own vows to love and pray for me in my ministry and for working together with me humbly and cheerfully so that by the grace of God we together have accomplished the mission of the church. You've given me all do honor and support in my leadership here among you, to which God has called me, all to the glory and honor of God. And so we pray with Moses, let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us.

Yes, establish the work of our hands. This is the way that we set out to walk and that we have walked and that we intend to continue to walk. Now, friends, there I'm just saying, for me. That's what I've tried to do. What about you?

This sermon will not best serve you if you mainly learn things about me. What about you? What does this faith mean and its activity in your life? Some of Jesus' least popular words are those in which he set out the two different ways that we can take, the two different paths for our life. Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.

For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

I wonder what Jesus meant by that.

Let's pray. Lord God, we desire not confusion, but to think clearly for your glory. We desire to hear and read your Word and to understand it. Lord, we desire our own lives to be accurately guided by your Spirit's work. Oh God, work the truth in our own minds and hearts.

Use each other in our lives here in this congregation to help with that. Continue to build up youp name here through our life together as a congregation. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.