1. "So if you go down law way with your works, you will find nothing good, only God's just judgment."

2. "If we keep score with God, we simply get what we deserve by how we lived, then we all lose. I don't know about you, but I'm not good enough to belong to another religion."

3. "What other group is there out there that requires you to declare yourself unfit, unqualified before they'll allow you to join it? But that's the way it is with this church."

4. "It's not simply a celebratory wet welcome, a fun pool dunking as you come into the family. No, it's a deadly serious public confession that we are so dirty spiritually that every bit of us needs to be washed, every inch of us covered by the clean, cleansing blood of Jesus Christ."

5. "Faith is a humble dependence. Faith is the outstretched arms waiting to be grasped. It is the empty hand waiting to be filled with the provision of another. Faith is true reliance, complete confidence in God's promises."

6. "Faith is not the ground or cause of our righteousness. Faith is not fundamentally about us. It is not a work that merits consideration as righteousness. We are justified by faith or through faith, or even upon faith or according to faith, but never because of faith, never on account of faith."

7. "You realize you're not out there trying to sell religious subscriptions. You've just got good news you're telling others about. And you pray that they'll hear and that they will come to trust in Christ."

8. "Many of you brought in a black cloud with you this morning, brought it right to church. Church is actually a fine place for black clouds. Kind of a great place for them to go to die. You want to look at that black cloud and then you want to think, God is able."

9. "Faith acts as salvation's passport, letting it extend beyond the bounds of Israel into every nation in the world, to whoever would believe."

10. "Faith points to God as our purpose. Friends, we were made in God's image. Faith points us back to Him. We are most at home, we are most at rest when we trust him, when we enjoy him, when we are satisfied in him, when we glorify Him."

Observation Questions

1. Read Romans 1:16–17. How does Paul describe the gospel, who is it for, and what does he say is revealed in it? What Old Testament quotation does he use?

2. Read Romans 3:19–20. According to these verses, what does the law “say” and to whom, and what two results does Paul mention (“every mouth” and “the whole world”)? What does he explicitly deny about the law’s ability to justify?

3. Read Romans 3:21–24. How has “the righteousness of God” now been manifested, and what role do “the Law and the Prophets” play? Through what means is this righteousness given, to whom, and on what basis?

4. Read Romans 4:1–3. What question does Paul raise about Abraham, and how does he contrast “works” with “faith”? According to Scripture (quoting Genesis 15:6), what was “counted” to Abraham, and as what?

5. Read Romans 4:16–17. Why, according to Paul, does the promise “depend on faith”? What does this guarantee, and how does Paul describe Abraham’s role as “father of us all”?

6. Read Romans 4:18–25. What did Abraham believe God would do, and what were the human circumstances surrounding that promise? How is Abraham’s faith described, and in verses 23–25 how does Paul connect Abraham’s experience to “us also”?

Interpretation Questions

1. In light of Romans 3:19–20, why does the sermon say that “the gospel of works is actually no gospel at all”? How does Paul’s teaching about the law stopping “every mouth” shape our understanding of human ability to earn salvation?

2. Comparing Romans 3:21–24 with 4:2–5, why can’t faith itself be treated as a meritorious work? How did the sermon distinguish between faith as the instrument of justification and Christ’s righteousness as the ground of justification?

3. How does Abraham’s story in Romans 4:1–3, 9–11 show that justification by faith, apart from works, was already God’s way of saving in the Old Testament? How does this challenge the idea that there are different paths of salvation for different times or people?

4. According to Romans 4:16–17 and the sermon’s exposition, why does making the promise depend on faith highlight the breadth of God’s mercy to “all who share the faith of Abraham,” both Jew and Gentile?

5. In Romans 4:20–22, Abraham’s faith “gave glory to God” because he was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.” How did the sermon connect this kind of trusting faith with our created purpose to glorify God and find our satisfaction in Him?

Application Questions

1. When you examine your heart, what specific “works of the law” or religious habits (e.g., church attendance, giving, knowledge, rule-keeping) are you tempted to lean on for a sense of being right with God, and what would it look like this week to deliberately rest your confidence in Christ’s righteousness alone?

2. Think of one relationship that has been difficult recently (perhaps with a child, spouse, roommate, or coworker). How could deeper gratitude for God’s unmerited grace to you change the way you speak, respond, or serve in that relationship over the next few days?

3. The sermon spoke of “black clouds” we carry into church and answered them with the truth that “God is able.” What is one current situation in your life that feels impossible, and what concrete step of trust (a specific prayer, an act of obedience, a refusal to despair) could you take in light of God’s ability?

4. Since faith makes Abraham the father of “many nations,” how might you, in the coming month, intentionally build friendship or offer practical service to someone in the church who is different from you in age, culture, or life situation, so that the breadth of God’s mercy is visible in our fellowship?

5. Where are you most tempted to seek satisfaction apart from God (for example, achievement, comfort, entertainment, or human approval), and what one practice could you begin or renew this week—such as time in Scripture, prayer, or gathered worship—to turn your heart toward finding its joy and rest in Him?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Genesis 15:1–6 — Abraham believes God’s promise, and God “counts” it to him as righteousness, providing the Old Testament foundation for Paul’s teaching in Romans 4.

2. Habakkuk 2:1–4 — Here we first read that “the righteous shall live by his faith,” the verse Paul cites as central to his gospel of justification by faith.

3. Romans 3:19–26 — This passage explains how God justly justifies sinners through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, by grace, received through faith.

4. Ephesians 2:1–10 — Paul describes our spiritual deadness, God’s gracious initiative, and salvation “by grace…through faith…not a result of works,” echoing the sermon’s emphasis.

5. Revelation 7:9–12 — John’s vision of a countless multitude from every nation worshiping the Lamb shows the worldwide reach of the salvation by faith promised to Abraham’s many descendants.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Introduction: Theodore Roosevelt and the Question of Faith vs. Works

II. Paul's Theme in Romans: The Righteous Shall Live by Faith (Romans 1:16-17; Habakkuk 2:4)

III. The Gospel of Works Is No Gospel at All (Romans 3:19-20)

IV. Abraham and David as Examples of Imputed Righteousness (Romans 4:22; Genesis 15:6)

V. Why Faith? Six Reasons God Uses Faith to Save Us

VI. Faith Points to Our Own Emptiness

VII. Faith Points to Christ's Righteousness (Romans 3:21-22)

VIII. Faith Points to God's Grace (Romans 4:16)

IX. Faith Points to God's Ability (Romans 4:21)

X. Faith Points to the Great Extent of God's Mercy (Romans 4:16)

XI. Faith Points to God as Our Purpose

XII. Application: Trust in Christ Alone, Not Religious Observances

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Detailed Sermon Outline

I am mighty weak on the Lutheran and Calvinistic doctrines of salvation by faith myself. And though I have no patience with much of the Roman Catholic theory of church government, including the infallibility of the Pope, the confessional and celibate clergy, I do believe in the gospel of works as put down in the epistle of James.

As brilliant as he may be, this Republican president originally from New York City seems to misunderstand some pretty basic teaching of the Bible. And I'm guessing Theodore Roosevelt's not alone.

What is the gospel? What is the role of our own works in saving us? How is salvation by faith? What does the Bible say about this? We read in the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk in Habakkuk 2:4, the righteous shall live by his faith.

In fact, this is the line from the Hebrew Scriptures that seem to be at the core of Paul's letter that we've been studying for the last six months, this letter to the Romans. Please go ahead and turn there now. Turn to the letter to the Romans in the New Testament. You'll find it in the Bibles provided beginning on page 300, I mean 939. If you look at Romans chapter 1, You'll find that Paul presents his theme right there in Romans chapter 1 verse 16.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written. The righteous shall live by faith. You'll even see in the ESV translation that paragraph is set apart by itself, and the title it's given is that phrase from Habakkuk chapter 2. So that's really the dominant theme that Paul has used to write to this early church in Rome.

And he pursues this in the rest of chapter 1 and throughout chapter 2 and into chapter 3 up to verse 20. If you're not used to looking at Bibles, the chapter numbers are the larger numbers, the verse numbers are the smaller numbers. So chapters 1 and 2 and 3 up to verse 20 show that the gospel of works is actually no gospel at all. He concludes there in chapter 3 verses 19 and 20, 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 works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. So if you go down the law way with your works, you will find nothing good.

Only God's just judgment. And so in chapter 3, Paul opens up this way of faith that he signaled there at the beginning by quoting Habakkuk 2:4, the just shall live by faith. After exulting in the salvation provided by Jesus Christ for all who believe, Paul then pauses to consider, is this what the Bible, is this what the Old Testament teaches. To answer that, Paul turns to two of the most prominent figures in the Hebrew Scriptures, Abraham and David. Both these men had a few things in common.

Both had obvious sins. Both encountered this idea of imputation, of counting and reckoning, God not counting their sins against them. And both said that this counting and considering this reckoning and imputing of not our sins, but of Christ's righteousness to us. It's this imputing that saves us and that is by faith. So that is, it occurs by means of our faith in Jesus, as Paul puts it in chapter 3 verse 26.

That's the idea that Paul has been explaining throughout Romans chapter 4. And it's the idea that he summarizes in our text for today, Romans chapter 4.

Verse 22, when he returns for the third time in this chapter to quote Genesis 15:6 about Abraham. He's quoted it in verse 3 and verse 9. Now here he quotes it again in summary, really, in verse 22. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. We've been thinking about this counting, this imputation of righteousness to Abraham by means of his faith so much over these last six months.

Paul here says this is what the very Old Testament itself does teach. When I preached on exactly this verse, when we were in verse 3, we spent our time looking at imputation. At this idea of counting someone else's righteousness being counted for our own. This time, because again, I have pretty much the exact same words, Genesis 15:6, but the difference is the beginning where Paul says, that is why it was counted to him as righteousness. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.

So I want us to turn this time and think particularly Why? Why faith? Why would it be seemly? Why would it make sense for God to reckon a sinner like Abraham or like you, like me, just or righteous because of our faith? Many answers could be given.

I'll try to give six. Don't be alarmed. I myself noted that in our bulletin, there are four blank pages for sermon notes. Did you see that? Listen, that has nothing to do with the length of the sermon.

Well, it might be a long sermon, but these just have to do with the length of the hymns that are in the bulletin that Sunday. So in case you've ever wondered, should I impute much value to the length of the hymns, the length of the sermon notes in deciding how long the sermon's about to be?

No, completely unrelated. Having said that, I do have six ways that I think we can see why faith is an appropriate way for God to use to count righteousness to us, to justify us. And I pray that as we go through these, as we rehearse these, you will be convinced and persuaded to rely on the righteousness of Christ alone for your salvation. Number one, why does God use faith to save us? Because faith points to our own emptiness.

Faith points to our own emptiness. Back in chapter 3, Paul continued his argument with how other people were misunderstanding his message, and he delivered a powerful series of quotations from the Scriptures. If you look there in chapter 3 at verses 10 to 18, showing that all, both Jews and Greeks, are alike under sin. We are morally empty. We are bankrupt.

Our bank accounts of credit with God, based on how we have lived, have been drained dry. And when summoned to appear before Him, we have no sufficient defense of ourselves that we can give. Look at how he summarizes it in 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 works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin, so that no human being, there goes Teddy Roosevelt, there goes every religion around the world that teaches that we need to follow the fivefold path of the eightfold way, or we need to do things ourselves, these things will make us okay with God.

Not according to what we read here. No, there is no way for us in our own righteousness. Our sins have robbed us of our own righteousness. We began already in debt through our father Abraham, and our lives have not advanced our credit morally with God. If we keep score with God, we simply get what we deserve by how we lived, then we all lose.

I don't know about you, but I'm not good enough to belong to another religion. I've had good friends who are Buddhist. I've had good friends who are Muslim, Hindu. Friends, when you, if maybe that's some of you here today, when you tell me about your religion and what your hope is in, you tell me about a way that doesn't allow very easily for mistakes or sins. It doesn't seem like it's realistic with the world that I see and know in my own heart and the hearts of the people here.

That I know and love. My non-Christian friend, if you want to understand why we Christians think of the news that we have is so good, it begins right here with understanding our own spiritual and moral devastation. What other group is there out there that requires you to declare yourself unfit, unqualified, before they'll allow you to join it? But that's the way it is with this church. And so next Sunday, Lord willing, we're going to be having a celebration of baptism.

That's what baptism is. Did you ever think about it? Baptism is not like a wet bar mitzvah or a bat mitzvah. You know, it's not just like a celebration of coming of age. That is not what the New Testament presents as baptism at all.

It's not simply a celebratory wet welcome, a fun pool dunking as you come into the family. No, it's a deadly serious public confession that we are so dirty spiritually that every bit of us needs to be washed, every inch of us covered by the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. It is a public admission, a confession that we are spiritually drowned, needing to be resurrected to new life by Jesus Christ. It's a picture of our old life gone and of a new one begun. So I ask you, are you aware that you have sinned against God?

As you sit here this morning, are the sins of some other person more dominant in your mind than your own? Depending on what they are, you may well need to deal with those. We can be in terrible situations in this life. But, friend, at some point you must turn to yourself. At some point you must deal with your own sins.

You realize you can never un-sin. There's no hope that way.

You can't take it back. You can never unlive that moment, that act. God is an eternal God. He knows the truth. He is all good, all powerful, all just.

What hope does that leave you with? Well, when you're sinned against, when people speak untruth about you, it leaves you with some good hope. But when you're the sinner, then what hope is there in that? Friends, the Bible promised that God will judge the world in righteousness, causes all the earth to tremble before him. Because we realize the truth of what Paul said here in Romans 3 verse 20, By the works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight.

So the faith here that Paul attributes to Abraham is not so much a virtue. This is what people misunderstand about faith. They think it's like one of those nice virtues like mercy or love or justice or generosity. It is not like any of those. Faith is a humble dependence.

Faith is the outstretched arms waiting to be grasped. It is the empty hand waiting to be filled with the provision of another. Faith is true reliance, complete confidence in God's provision. Promises. Some today talk about faith as your own inner desires, about private personal promises that you say God has made to you.

Our own intense desires can seem to us a still small voice deep inside of us that we ascribe to being the voice of the Lord. But beware of doing this, beloved. This kind of aping of true biblical faith which points away from itself. Is not true faith. Faith is not the ground or cause of our righteousness.

Faith is not fundamentally about us. It is not a work that merits consideration as righteousness. We are justified by faith or through faith or even upon faith or according to faith, but never because of faith. Never on account of faith. God's causing us to live spiritually only by faith drives us out of the hovels of our own self-righteousness.

Abraham's faith was counted to him as righteousness because he had none. Faith points to our own emptiness. Second, why does God use faith to save us? Faith points to Christ's righteousness. That's what Paul goes on to argue in chapter 3.

Look back in chapter 3, verse 21. So after that flattening verse 20, Then here's the great hope in 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. God uses faith to save us because our empty hands of faith are filled with the unending riches of the righteousness of Christ. Friends, as we've been considering on Wednesday nights in Colossians, Christ is the perfect one, the Son of God, the object of the Father's unending love in Him all All the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. His every word is true.

His every act is good. He has enough goodness and righteousness in Him to fill all the valleys of the world, all the oceans on earth. Praise the Lord. Friends, unrighteous people like you and I are by birth only understand what righteousness is and why it's so important by understanding our righteous God.

As we are united to Christ by faith in Him, Christ's righteousness is counted as our own. This is our hope. Our confession of sin is the platform of the righteousness of Christ on which His righteousness climbs on and displays something of the fullness and completeness of His goodness and righteousness.

Prince Paul was looking at competing ways people would be righteous. But friends, cutting off your own flesh brings no forgiveness. Your being condemned for breaking God's laws brings you no credit with God. We should all be condemned for how we've lived. But the great good news today is that Christ was cut off for us.

Christ was condemned as a lawbreaker in our stead. Do you remember what Jesus said?

He came to give His life as a ransom for many. Paul says, God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. So that when we come to that final day of accounting, when our Creator rightly demands of us the life lived in His image, reflecting His glory and character, we know He's demanding something that we don't have. But that Christ does have, and that Christ has lived righteously in our place. Psalm 53, God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.

They've all fallen away. Together they've become corrupt. There is none who does good, not even one. But God sent His Son into the world to do good and only good, and to identify with corrupt and fallen, to live among us, and even to receive our deserved fate by dying on the cross in order to make atonement for the sins of all that would turn and believe in Him. As Calvin put it, Faith ought not to look to our weakness, misery, and defects.

By faith we turn from ourselves and point to the one who gave Himself as a ransom for many. That's what we do as we covenant together as a church. We're a group of people who are all sinners, but we're all sinners meaning to trust in Christ, and we help each other in doing that. We are confessing to each other our need and rehearsing to each other Christ's provision. We hear it every Sunday.

Have you already heard it in the songs we've sung this morning? Again and again we've referred to my sins. We referred to the spiritually dead, the spiritually lost. We've sung of our transgressions being borne by Christ. What thou, my Lord, has suffered was all for sinners' gain.

Mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain. Oh friend, you here today can be forgiven by God if you will trust in Christ. Believe that he has borne the penalty your sins have deserved. If you want to know more about what it would mean for you to do that, speak to any of us at the door on the way out. Speak to the Christian that you came with.

Friends, imagine if God simply left us to do the best we could on our own to save ourselves.

Saving, justifying faith is faith in Christ. I love the way B.B. Warfield put it in a quote, justification by faith is not to be said in contradiction to justification by works. It is said in contradiction only to justification by our own works. It is justification by Christ's works.

So Christ's works, His righteousness is the ground, the only ground of our justification, imputed to us, counted to us by God. Faith is but the means, our faith in Christ and His righteousness. So faith points away from ourselves and to Christ, to Christ's righteousness.

Third reason why God uses faith to save us. Number three, faith points to God's grace. Faith points to God's grace. Paul had said this up in verse 16 of chapter 4. That is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace.

He'd just shown that in a paragraph before in 4:11, Paul cited Abraham's example differently than the Jewish teachers of the time tended to. Abraham was very popularly referred to by Jewish teachers of the time, but he was always referred to as an example of obedience. And there's much to point to in Abraham's obedience. But Paul saw in Abraham a more fundamental pattern demonstrated, one of trust of God's promise. And remember there in verses 11 and 12, he points out the order of events, how God counts him as righteous in 15 six, Genesis 15 six, before he obeys the command to be circumcised in Genesis 17.

So it's his belief in God's promise that he specifically says he counted as righteousness. So grace, the gift of God's undeserved favor is one of the themes that unites the Old Testament with the new. And here Abraham is a prime example of God's grace extended in the Old Testament. In the new, of course, the height of God's grace is seen at the cross. Christ's atoning death on the cross made it clear that not only have we not deserved salvation, but we have deserved the contrary.

We have on our own deserved judgment, but God has set forth His Son as a propitiation for our sins purely because of His love. God has a disposition to show mercy to His own. So our faith is no work deserving anything. It certainly is no moral capital paying off the spiritual debt of our sins. Christ's righteousness is neither deserved by us nor earned by our faith.

It is given as a gift of God's grace to us. His unmerited favor, despite our having acted in such a way as we deserved the opposite from him. So this simple Instrument, faith, points to salvation being a gift. And that's why we Christians are so marked by thankfulness. Brothers and sisters, have you noticed that you've had periods of your life where there have been hard things that have happened?

Maybe you lost a job, maybe you've seen a relative die, maybe you've received hard news about your own health, maybe some relationships are getting complicated and bad, and yet, Have you noticed in your own heart an underlying thankfulness that seems to stand regardless of the challenging circumstances? Friends, that's because as a Christian there is a salvation we know that's based on something apart from us, outside of us, only by God's grace. So my Christian brother or sister, gratitude for the unmerited favor you've received from God.

Affects your ability to love others, to love members of your own family. I wonder how thankfulness parents is affecting your own attitude to your kids today. Is there a reservoir of thankfulness to God entirely apart from how interactions with your kids have been going that you can actually use to draw on to be a blessing? To your kids? Do you easily feel that despite the challenges you face, you are a debtor to God's grace?

I wonder how that attitude has shown itself even this past week. How has it savored the flavor of being one who knows yourself to be loved in ways significant and satisfying that you have not deserved? The gracious nature of this salvation gives us ground for confidence. Look again on verse 16, at verse 16, if it's based on God, then we can have confidence. As we read in Philippians, He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

That's so much better a basis for joy than your own religious works. For by grace you've been saved through faith, and it's not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. And this is again why so many of our hymns and songs are about receiving a salvation we haven't ourselves deserved. We are creatures of grace exulting in the God who's shown us such grace.

And God using the simple means of faith fits with our salvation being by God's active and generous and unmerited favor and grace. We have not earned or purchased his kindnesses towards us. They are ours only by His gift. I wonder if understanding that makes it easier for you to share the good news with others. You realize you're not out there trying to sell religious subscriptions, you've just got good news.

You're telling others about it and you pray that they'll hear and that they will come to trust in Christ. Faith points to the fact that we are saved only by God's grace. Number four.

Why does God use faith to save us? Faith also points to God's ability. That's exactly what Paul just said in the previous phrase in verse 21 we were looking at last week about Abraham, that he grew strong in his faith, see that in the verse right above, as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was, what? Able to do what he had promised. Calvin said that faith ought not to look to our weakness, misery, and defects, but should fix its whole attention on the power of God alone.

We pray for God to save us precisely because we cannot save ourselves. We are not able to, we don't have the power to. We are as helpless as Jonah in the fish. But God, He has the power to save us. He is able.

And so we turn to Him in prayer with hope through Christ. Religions of self-salvation are simply delusions. Unless the Lord builds the house, him who labors labors in vain.

Anything we really can save ourselves from is not our most pressing problem. Abraham had a problem of a future with no descendants, and therefore there was no way for God's promises to him to be fulfilled. But God was able to do what He had promised. I agree things were looking very, very, very unlikely for those promises to be fulfilled. Maybe there would be some spiritual way we could consider them fulfilled.

But that's not what God had in mind. God meant exactly what He had said in His promise to them. Friends, faith points us to God's ability to make promises and the most amazing promises. He promises the debtor, the idolater rather, to make a nation of his descendants holy to the Lord. He promises the elderly, childless couple to make them a great nation, in fact, to make them plural nations.

He promises that to Abraham and Sarah that you will bless all the families on earth through them, that is through their descendants. And then when God finally makes good on the promise of a son, that son growing up in young manhood, he calls Abraham to sacrifice that one son, presumably through whom all of God's promises would be fulfilled. But look what Hebrews 11:19 says about Abraham at that point, Hebrews 11:19. He considered that God was Able. He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Many of you brought in a black cloud with you this morning, brought it right to church. Church is actually a fine place for black clouds, kind of a great place for them to go to die. You want to look at that black cloud? And then you want to think, God is able. What does it mean that God is able?

I might not understand everything that it means, but I do know that God is able. That black cloud is not the end of the story. God is able. Faith points us to God's ability to make promises, even the most amazing promises, and to cause these promises to be understood, even though they are so unusual, so counterintuitive, so amazing, God presents a promise that had he not said it, it would never be believed or suspected is true or even possibly being made at all. But so it is that God gets glory to himself by delivering Israel from mighty Egypt, in delivering the great Goliath into the hands of the boy David, in delivering Jerusalem from 185,000 besieging Assyrian troops.

And on and on we could go of how God seems to deliberately allow his people, us, to get in awkward positions, difficult things, things that we cannot on our own get out of. And by getting us in corners like that, guess what happens? He shows that he is able again and again. He allows circumstances in our life to defeat our own hopes, to give birth to his. So he will show what he is doing in our lives and even to be remembered.

Faith holds the words of the promise in mind in order to compare the promise with the events which happen later. And so God has power to cause His promises to be remembered so that He can be recognized and acknowledged as the one who has fulfilled the promise. So here the Holy Spirit had Moses set down Genesis 15:6 for the people of God in all ages to read and know it. Faith points to God's ability here. Faith points to God's ability to cause these amazing promises to be believed extraordinary as they when you are held out an amazing statement.

Like when Jesus was teaching his disciples that he indeed was a long promised Messiah. They expected a conquering general. This guy, we like you. We're following around and listening to you. But you're the Messiah, maybe a prophet.

But the Messiah? How could they believe such a thing? Have you ever wondered that? Do you ever think, I simply can't be a Christian. I can't grow as a Christian because I can't really believe.

I don't have enough faith. Well, I've got good news for you. The chief disciple, Peter, when Jesus asked him in Matthew 16 who he was, Peter said, you, are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And very interestingly then, Jesus did not say, Congratulations, Peter. I knew if I dealt with you long enough and asked it just the right way Socratically, I would have elicited that knowledge from you.

No, he said, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Friends, you'll have faith because it's a gift of God. Ephesians 2:8, Paul referred specifically to the Ephesians saying, Faith in God's promises in Christ is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast. And of course, what does faith do? It points to God's power to fulfill these amazing promises that he has made.

Friends, which promise of God has ever failed. None. You wonder why Christianity keeps going like it does? When it does have all these amazing promises that are made, it's because it's all true. None of them have failed.

I was listening to a spiritual this last week with the refrain joyfully repeated again and again. You can't make me doubt him because I know too much about him. You can't make me doubt the Lord Jesus down in my heart. Kind of want us to sing it. But just get those two phrases.

You can't make me doubt him because I know too much about him. It's exactly what Paul is saying in verse 21 there at the end. That's why Abraham had faith. This was Abraham's experience that Paul cited, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. So Abraham's faith pointed to God and what God was able to do.

So our faith points to God. God's power and ability. Number five, why does God use faith to save us? Faith points to the great extent of God's mercy. Faith points to the great extent of God's mercy.

This is a very important part of Paul's argument here in chapters 3 and 4. He's argued that this is how God's promise to make Abraham the father of many nations, not just the Jews, the father of many nations would be fulfilled. It was because of faith and its role. You see, were it only obedience to the laws like circumcision or the laws of Moses, then salvation would be limited to the Jews or those willing to become Jews. But here, what Paul has argued specifically in chapters three and four is that the Jewish Scriptures themselves had always presented, lying too little notice in its pages, that faith was the instrument of salvation, not works.

Faith. God used Abraham's faith as an instrument to credit God's own full righteousness to Abraham. Thus David could say in Psalm 32, quoted here in Romans 4:8, Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count, impute his sins. So we don't save ourselves by obeying God's law, but we are saved by God as we believe his promises and the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ is counted for us.

Faith acts as salvation's passport, letting it extend beyond the bounds of God's merciful salvation, beyond the bounds of Israel, into every nation in the world, to whoever would believe. Look there at chapter 4, verse 16, not only to the adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. Friends, that's how the Roman centurion, Cornelius in Acts 10 got in.

That's how Luke, the Gentile physician who wrote down the truth about the Gentile centurion Cornelius. That's how Luke got in. That's how all of us who are Gentiles here get in. This is the way God has shown his mercy, showing that Abraham is the father of all who are counted righteous by faith, circumcised or not. Friends, theology matters for us as a church, as a church family, this realization that faith alone is the only way should cause us to be careful to be united around this one true way.

God hasn't made one way for the Jews and another for the Gentiles. So we want to be very careful not to niche market God in our own church life as if this way reaches this kind of people and this other way we have this message for this other kind of people. Friends, there is only one way to God and that is by faith in Christ. And that's what we present. We hold it out in the Word of Promise, whether in preaching or in books or in conversations afterwards or in Bible studies, it is holding out the Word that God uses to bring people to himself.

The true church is both one and universal. Faith was God's plan to cause the gospel to run across cultures to the very ends of the world. Victory is to be God's from pole to pole, after people, after people are evangelized, that is, are told God's promises and as they believe. That's why Jesus points out to all the nations there at the very end in Matthew 28 and he tells his disciples, Go and make disciples of all nations. And he points across the generations as well.

He says, I'm with you always to the end of the age. And we know Christ's command has worked and will work. Because we read the words of John in Revelation 7:9, Behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. It's like the Lord said through his prophet Isaiah, It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel. I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

That's Isaiah 49:6 if you want to use that. It's amazing, isn't it? How would God's mercy extend so widely? Through the news that all who believe in Jesus will be saved. Patiently day by day more people come to know and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior and King.

Paul's argument in Romans has been that it is those who share not the flesh of Abraham but his faith who are the fulfillment of God's promise to him. And that shows that the fulfillment of that promise spreading around the world through the heralds of the good news spread about Jesus. Friends, one way we might apply this today to our own local congregation is just to challenge us to be deliberate in our friendships, to make sure that all of our friends aren't just like us ethnically or vocationally or in terms of age. Display the gospel by the love we have for one another, and so give glory to God. Work to serve one another.

We have an amazing cadre of faithful deacons in this church. These are brothers and sisters who set aside time to organize various members of the church to help serve others. And most of our deacons need help. And that's why you might want to just look through the deacons in the church membership directory, pick one you know or one you don't. One you just think looks like in an area of service they could probably use help.

I've heard there are over 300 children in this church. Perhaps I myself contributed toward the number of those children. What can I do to be helpful? To the people who were organizing us. Maybe I can help with a meal train.

Maybe I can talk to my small group. Say, what could we do as a small group to try to help? Friends, serving others, especially those not just like us, gives testimony to and puts flesh and blood on this sweet mercy of God that goes out to all kinds of people. Faith points to the great extent of God's mercy. One more.

Number six, why does God use faith to save us?

Faith to save us, faith points to God as our purpose.

Friends, we were made in God's image. Faith points us back to Him. We are most at home, we are most at rest when we trust Him, when we enjoy Him, when we are satisfied in Him, when we glorify Him.

Long before John Piper, this was a theme. Long before C.S. Lewis were far too easily satisfied. Long before Jonathan Edwards. Friends, this is in the Bible.

Psalm 65:4, Blessed is the one you choose and bring near to dwell in your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple. There is something in us as those made in God's image that finds satisfaction in knowing and trusting God in His word. We are set apart by faith in Christ as those who find His word, His promise, not only true, but also good. We like it.

We are satisfied with it because we like Him. We are satisfied with Him. As Matthew Henry said, this shows why faith is chosen to be the prime condition of our justification. Because it is a grace that of all others gives glory to God. God is glorified by our trusting Him, by our taking Him at His Word.

As we saw last week in Romans 4:20 of Abraham, he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God. Believing God's great promises of what we know about God's greatness serves as testimonies to reflections of magnifications of celebrations of this great God. It shows that we know that hearing and believing Him is why we exist. So of course we are lost and dissatisfied when we're not hearing and believing those things that he has promised. When our lives and our hearts are filled up with other things and they're reflecting those things to those around us.

So friends, what about you? What have your words and your thoughts been filled with? Christian faith is to turn us to know God and therefore to be filled with Him. He is to be the sum and height of all we want. What are we just seeing more than all in Thee I find?

Friends, is this true of you? Do you see, have you experienced how true saving faith in Christ fits with our finding satisfaction in Him? I'm not saying there's not other satisfying things in life. By God's grace and kindness, there are many satisfying things in many people's lives. But friends, the ultimate satisfaction means to really know Christ is to find your real satisfaction in Him.

Of course, in this world our adherence to the truth that we know and believe is shakier than we would like it to be. But every true child of God here this morning knows deep in our hearts that this God is worthy of our trusting him completely. And we try to teach our kids this. Young people, if you have Christian parents, they have trusted God through things you can't even begin to imagine. But you would be very interested to find out about.

Why don't at lunch today you ask them, Hey, I'm guessing everything has not always just been a bowl of cherries for you. Would you mind sharing with me, as I am either young in my own discipleship or considering following Jesus, what have been some hard things that you've had to trust the Lord through and that you've found him faithful in? I predict you'd have very interesting lunchtime conversation.

Friends, by returning to Genesis 15:6 here, Paul sums up his argument that he's made in chapter 4, proving that Abraham had nothing to boast about before God. He was not justified by works, he was justified by faith. And it's only through justification being by faith that God's promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations would be fulfilled. And so faith points to God, to heart trust in him, to glorifying him and being satisfied in him.

To God as our purpose. I wonder if this has helped you think about why God has used faith as He has in saving us. I wonder if before we started staring at this, if you thought it seemed kind of arbitrary. Why faith? I hope now you see, faith actually serves this very well.

It makes complete sense that God would choose faith. What are you hoping that God will regard as your righteousness on that last day when you stand before Him? I doubt many of us here are facing some of the things that Paul's readers were facing. I doubt many of us here are trusting in circumcision. But I wouldn't be too surprised to find out if there are other religious rites that some of you are wrongly trusting in.

Religious rules that you observe that you think merit God's favoring you with salvation.

Friends, ask your own heart, are there things you do right now that you figure make up for the wrongs that you have done? Is that wrong? It was 25 years ago. But friends, God is eternal. 25 years ago is as real as today and tomorrow to God.

Look at this ancient example of Abraham and abandon those ideas. Of you figuring out a calculus to make your own life sufficiently righteous for God to save you. I hope that this thinking about why God uses faith to save us will help protect you from wrong religion. Beloved, don't rely on religious observances, but rely on God and His Word alone. There are other ways.

There are other ways that will come along. Tempt you and try you, sift you, but whatever the other ways are that would beguile you, beware of them.

Learn your own heart. Do you tend to think that your prayer life or your giving or you're avoiding this or that sin or your knowledge or your church attendance or your theological soundness justify you before God? Do you even perhaps sometimes think that your understanding of justification by faith alone justifies you before God?

Beware of trusting in anything other than God's grace extended to you in Christ. I wonder what else has happened in your life that's helped you trust on God alone? What are some of the times of trial and times of prosperity over the years from your own experience with the Lord? From some darker days or harder chapters in my own experience or the experience of others? I think of Paul and Silas.

They're evangelizing in Philippi. All of a sudden they're arrested, they're in jail. There they are in prison and at midnight How did they meet midnight with praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them? Here's how the New England pastor, Edward Payson, put it: Christians might avoid much trouble and inconvenience if they would only believe what they profess, that God is able to make them happy without anything else. To mention my own case, God has been depriving me of one blessing after another.

But as every one was removed, he has come in and filled up the place. And now, when I'm a cripple, not able to move, I am happier than I was in all my life before or ever expected to be.

Friends, it's the faith of Abraham that allows us to say with the prophet Habakkuk, the righteous shall live by his faith. And it's that same faith that allows us to say with Habakkuk that we will live by faith not sight, though the fig tree should not blossom, nor the fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will take joy in the God of my salvation. That is how the man or woman of God lives in this faith. Let's pray.

Lord God, we could not live dependent on youn apart from youm gracious provision to us. Of the Lord Jesus Christ, your only begotten Son given for us, His righteousness, His fullness with us. Lord, we give youe thanks and praise for the way youy have provided all that we need and more. Lord, we pray that yout would help us to understand and to grasp that provision in Christ. O Lord, do this for our good and youd glory.

We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.