This morning we are continuing our study of Romans - Roaming Through Romans.  In the chapters we’ve looked at so far Paul has been describing the reality of where we live our lives.

Victor Hugo wrote in Les Misérables, “Everything terrestrial is subject to sin.  Sin is like gravitational force.” (1) 

Isn’t that true?  Every day - as we’re going through the stuff of life - we struggle against sin.  We live in a fallen world.  Thank you Adam.

Death - mortality - aging - all that is tainted by sin.  The economics of this world - the philosophy and reasoning of man - politics - all that is stained by man’s sinful greed and pride.  Our relationships - family - work - school - out there and in here - can be brutal - painful - easily damaged by sin.  

Some of what we struggle against is self-inflicted.  Our own attitudes - our own actions - our egos and pride - our focus on self and not God continually gets us into trouble.  We’re good at sinning all on our own. 

What Paul has been describing is the brutal reality of where we live our lives in a world that has chosen to turn away from God - to ignore God - to suppress the truth of who God is and His truth.  To trust us and not Him.

In 3:23 - Paul lays it on the line:  “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  As sinners we’ve all fallen hopelessly short of God and His holiness - His sinlessness.  Meaning we’re hopelessly separated from God now and forever.  Meaning we’re condemned - toast.

But - Paul goes on writing in verse 24: “and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

God, not because we deserve it - but because God is gracious to us for reasons known only to God - when we come in faith trusting God’s promise that God has done everything necessary to restore our relationship with Him through Jesus’ work on the cross - the moment we by faith trust Him with our lives - God makes us to be right before Him - justified - just as if we’d never sinned.  The good news of the Gospel.

Paul writes - in 1:16:  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel”  The gospel is God’s remedy for our sin.  The gospel is - Paul writes - the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” - what we need to live life lived by faith in God.

The question we’re dealing with in this section of Romans is what does that mean?  Specifically in chapter 4 - in our struggle against sin - what difference does it make that God by grace has justified us and made us to be righteous and called us to live by faith in Him?  What does being saved by grace and living by faith look like in the day-to-day of where we live our lives?

Coming to chapter 4 Paul is going to help us understand that.  Paul uses Abraham as an illustration of what all that can mean for us.  Thank you Paul for illustrations.

Looking at our message notes, Paul’s illustration breaks down into two parts which are all about answering two questions.

Question number one comes in verses 1 to 12 - question number one is this:  When was Abraham made righteous?

Look with me at verse 1:  What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?

“gained” in Greek is the word “euresko” which is where we get the word - California state motto:  “Eureka” - “I found it.”  Abraham is living life like we live life.  Different context.  Different time.  Same issues.  What has Abraham found?  What knowledge has he discovered?  Gained? 

Verse 2:  For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

The righteous things we do - serving God - acts of spiritual dedication and commitment - those may seem impressive.  They may impress people.  Sometimes we impress ourselves.  Like doing something for God is something we should get credit for -  a little recognition - some cred.  We might even brag about it in a humble sort of way. 

But, compared to the righteousness of God - our efforts at living rightly before God - we don’t have anything to brag about.  In the flesh - doing the stuff of life as we do life - neither did Abraham.  What we do by our own whit, wisdom, and working isn’t getting us any closer to God.

Verse 3:  For what does the Scripture say?  “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” 

Question:  When was Abraham made righteous?  Answer:  When God counted Him righteous.

Let’s pause and make sure we’re together.  We need to do some quick backfilling on what’s going on in Abraham’s life to make sure we’re all up to speed of Paul’s illustration.

Abraham and his family were living with Abraham’s father Terah in Haran - which is about 10 miles north of the Syrian border in what today is Turkey.  At the young age of 205 Terah - Abraham’s father - dies in Haran.

One day - up in Haran - God introduces Himself to Abraham and makes some life changing promises to Abraham.  God promises to make Abraham’s name great - renowned - respected - by a whole lot of people.  God promises Abraham a land and a whole lot of descendants to live on that land and that through Abraham’s descendants God is going to bless all the families on the earth - which includes us.

Key word?  Descendants.  Or at least one descendant.

We know how this goes.  Right?  God tells Abraham to leave his family in Haran and head south to the land God is going to show Abraham. 

Which makes sense.  To go to the land that God promised to us we got to go to the land that God promised us.  So Abraham leaves his relatives - most of them anyway - and heads south to what is now Israel.

Which is easy for us to do.  Right?  Trust God when we can figure out how we think God can or should or is doing something.  When what God says fits our understanding of things it’s easy to trust God.

So Abraham heads south.  But instead of immediately having a lot of little Abrahams - descendants - Abraham and Sarah living happily ever after in a beautiful valley raising goats and sheep - Abraham and Sarah come up childless.

With a little help from the Brick Bible we can picture this.

At least 10 years have gone by since God first made His promise to Abraham and told Abraham to head south.  Meaning Abraham is probably about 85.  Meaning this is long after Sarah is physically able to bear children. 

So Abraham is now wondering about what God promised and trying to figure out how he - Abraham - can accomplish what God promised.  Because its obvious that God hasn’t got this figured out and probably needs Abraham to figure it out for Him.

Which is what we sometimes do.  Isn’t it?  When God isn’t doing what we think He should do.  Helping God along according to our knowledgeable perspective on things.

Recorded in Genesis 15, Abraham is telling God what God already knows.  “We got no offspring.  So Eliezer of Damascus can be the one your promise gets fulfilled through.”  Eliezer being a relative of Abraham.

God saying, “No, not Eliezer.  You and Sarah are going have your own child - a son - an heir.”

Genesis 15:5 - God takes Abraham out on a hill - shows him what?  The stars.  God says, “Start counting. That’s how many descendants you’re going to have.”

Genesis 15:6:  “And he - Abraham - believed the Lord, and He - the Lord - counted it to him as righteousness.”  Same verse Paul quotes.

We need to hold on to that.  This is a crucial - significant - life changing - history hanging in the balance - defining moment in Abraham’s life - and a whole lot of lives - including our lives.  Abraham can go back to pushing Eliezer - Abraham’s solution - or Abraham can choose to trust God.

(picture Felix Baumgartner ready to step off platform for jump)  October 14, 2012, Felix Baumgartner broke the skydiving record - jumped from 127,852 feet up.  Edge of space.  Defining moment.  To jump or not to jump? 

October 24 of last year, Robert Eustace broke Baumgartner’s record - jumping from almost 26 miles up.  Palms sweating?

Defining moments are moments that define us.  How we respond demonstrates who we are and can set the course for our lives.

Abraham’s response was to believe.  Not in himself.  Not in the promise.  Not as some kind of attempt to impress God with some kind of righteous response - giving the right answer to impress God.

But Abraham “believed” God - trusted in God - God’s character - that God was willing and able to do what God willed and promised to do regardless of the obvious impossibility of any of that happening.  Regardless of Abraham having no clue how God was going to do all that Abraham chose to believe God.

Grab that:  If we knew what comes next it wouldn’t be faith.  True faith in God is when we have no clue and we choose to trust God - period.  We don’t need to know how or why - because we know God.  God said it.  I believe it.  That settles it for me.  Heard that?

“Counted” is an interesting word that in Greek has the idea of calculating balances.  We have a credit card that each month the bank sends us a statement that has a record of our transactions - expenditures - payments - fees.  And our balance.  What we owe verses what we’ve paid and what they’d like us to pay.

God can count.  God enters a credit on Abraham’s account.  Because of Abraham’s belief God marks Abraham’s account paid.

Let’s be careful.  In Hebrew - going back to Genesis 15 - the Hebrew word for “counted” has the idea of a thought process - calculating with the mind.  In other words - when Abraham trusted God - believed God -  in the mind of God - God now thinks of Abraham’s account as paid.

Which isn’t about dollars and shekels - but about spiritual realities.  God declaring Abraham to be righteous.  Whatever debt Abraham owed God because of his sin - is paid.  Not because Abraham earned or deserved that declaration - that payment - by all the righteous things Abraham did for God.  But because the One to whom Abraham owed everything - God - chose to declare Abraham righteous.

When was Abraham made righteous?  Answer:  When God counted him righteous.

Back to Romans 4.  Verses 4 to 12 are amazing declarations of what that “counting” means in real time - to Abraham - to each one of us.  We’re going to focus on just 3 that we can own for ourselves.

Follow along with me at verse 4:  Now - meaning now - today - this minute - now that we have been counted as righteous - 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...

Declaration number one:  Faith is a response to grace not an essential for grace.

Paul writes again about counting - meaning settling accounts.

Hopefully, if we’re working at a job we get paid for the work we did.  Those are our wages.  We earned every penny.  Wages are not a gift but what we’re due - a settling of accounts.

But when it comes to God we need to make sure we don’t get the cart before the horse.  Faith is not a way that we settle accounts with God - a way to pay back God for His grace.  That reduces faith to a righteous work that we do to earn grace.

Faith is not like being honest or loving or humble or doing something super spiritual that God is going to pay us for with righteousness.  That somehow faith makes us worthy of grace.  That somehow we make ourselves worthy of God’s payment of our debt of sin - counting us righteous.

Works - how we live serving God - works demonstrate our faith in God.  Faith is a response to grace that comes out in what we do.

Which is a huge relief.  Isn’t it?  In the day-to-day stuff of our lives how many of us could ever possess or live by the degree of faith - of works - necessary to earn God’s righteousness?  To live rightly before God?   

God counting us righteous is huge.

Verse 6:   just as David also speaks of the blessing of one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:  “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;

Declaration number two:  Faith is a process of learning to live forgiven.

Paul bringing up David - quotes David from Psalm 32.  “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven…  blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

Which is the Psalm that David wrote after the whole missing shower curtain episode with Bathsheba.  David falling from the heights of success and blessing to commit adultery with Bathsheba and then getting her husband and his loyal servant - Uriah - killed in order to cover-up David’s sin.

When David confessed his sin - repented of it - and received God’s forgiveness - David wrote Psalm 32 - what Paul is quoting from.

Reading through the life of Abraham - Abraham messed up lots of times.  But God didn’t one day say, “Well, sorry I’ve reinstated your debt.”  “You’re toast… again.”

It is impressive how great is God’s patience with Abraham.  How many times God forgives Abraham.  How many times God cleans up Abraham’s mess.  How many times God reaffirms His promise and commitment to Abraham.

Forgiveness is a huge part of faith.  Learning to confess and repent and trust that God really does forgive us.

As Abraham keeps having to come back to God and to learn to seek God’ forgiveness - to seek God’s restoration - to seek God’s strength and guidance - how Abraham learns in the midst of the day-to-day of life - at defining moments of Abraham’s life - how Abraham is learning - as David learned - as we can learn - that God really does forgive us.

That’s a huge blessing.  We don’t have to drag around the guilt and shame and stress and doubt of sin that’s been confessed and repented of.  We can move forward trusting God for the awesome new life He’s prepared and teaching us to live in.  When we mess up.  Confess.  Repent.  Trust Him.  Forgiven life really does exist.

Verses 9 to 12:  Is this blessing then only for the circumcised - meaning the Jews - or also for the uncircumcised?  - meaning everyone else.  How are circumcision and faith related?

We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.  How then was it counted to him?  Was it before or after he had been circumcised?  It was not after, but before he was circumcised.  - The timing of that being significant to hold on to.

He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had - past tense - by faith while he was still uncircumcised.

Why?  The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

There’s a lot there.  Bottom line - Declaration number three:  Faith is an opportunity to know God at the heart level.

In verse 10 Paul asks the question:  Was Abraham counted righteous before or after he was circumcised? 

The answer - to the average Jew was a no brainer.  Before.  The whole - God telling Abraham to count the stars - believe God - God counting Abraham as righteous - defining moment in Abraham’s life took place years before Abraham was circumcised.

And yet, through the centuries after Abraham - God’s people had placed a greater and greater emphasis on the outward symbol of faith rather than faith itself.

Through the centuries they’d forgotten the obvious order of faith and counting.  They’d forgotten the internal spiritual significance of their heart level relationship with God by faith that was being symbolized by the outward act.  To the point that the rabbi’s in Paul’s day took for granted that Abraham was justified by his works or his own righteousness - that he’d earned God’s grace.

Paul brings us back to the reality that Abraham believed God and that Abraham walked with God through life for years before he was circumcised.

In verse 12 Paul writes about our walking “in the footsteps of faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.”

That walking isn’t about following Abraham in some kind of religious rite - some symbol of our faith.  Like so many do today - being baptized or taking communion - without the life changing reality of a personal saving relationship with Jesus.  All those rites have significance.  But the meaning is lost without the relationship.  Without the life of faith - as Abraham had.

Paul’s declaration is to bring us back to the original purpose of the symbol as demonstration of our relationship with God by faith.  The redirection and transformation of our lives that takes place within us at the heart level in the defining moment of our lives as we trust God with our lives.

Are we tracking with Paul?  These declarations about faith?  What being “counted” righteous can mean for us?

Abraham is counted righteous by God when Abraham believes God for what God promised Abraham.  God does that for us as we believe God for the life in Christ He promises us.

That means that in the day-to-day defining moments of our lives - moments which often can drag us down into sin and the effects of sin - how we live our lives can be totally changed.

What God promises us - the good news of the Gospel - is a certainty.  An opportunity to live in relationship with God that He counts - gives to us by His grace - the moment we by faith trust Him for it.  We can follow after God - trusting Him at the heart level - knowing the presence and working of God in our lives even when we have no way of knowing what comes next - even when we mess up in our following.

The second part of chapter 4 begins in verse 13.   Question number two is this:  Why was Abraham made righteous?  Answer:  Because God counted him righteous.

Let’s read together starting at verse 13:  The promise to Abraham and his offspring - meaning us - 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 is no law there is no transgression.

Let’s pause there.  God tells Abraham:  “I promise to bless you.  Believe me.”  All that came centuries before Moses and Mount Sinai and the Levitical law - years before circumcision.   

God’s promise came as a... promise... not a law.  Law demands obedience.  Promise gives.

A promise that demands obedience - doing the law or some religious ritual - is totally contrary to what God gives - counts - to Abraham by faith and to Abraham’s offspring - meaning us - who will also by faith trust in God’s promise.

Verse 16:  That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his - Abraham’s - offspring—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,

All of us are descended from somebody.  Yes?  Whether we knew them or not we still have something of our parents within us.  Genetic traits - habits - lineage.  Paul is saying that in a similar way that’s true of us spiritually.  Abraham is first in a growing family of offspring who share by faith what God has blessed Abraham with.

When we by faith trust in God’s promise for ourselves - the promise that is realized in Jesus Christ - in the same way that God counted Abraham as righteous God counts us as righteous.  By grace through faith we receive from God what God also promised Abraham.

Verse 17:  as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations” - not only the Jews but us here in Merced —in the presence of the God in whom he believed who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.  In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring - many nations - us - be.”

In verse 17 Paul makes two significant statements that describe what Abraham knew about the God he has faith in.  Two statements that are significant for us.

At a minimum Abraham knew - number one - Abraham knew that God is the God “who gives life to the dead” - meaning God takes someone who once was alive and now is dead and brings them back to life again.

Number two:  Abraham knew that God is the God who “calls into existence the things that do not exist” - meaning not forming something different out of something that already exists.  But God calling into existence what has not existed.

Makes sense that God - back in Genesis - while He’s making His promise to Abraham - makes sense - doesn’t it?  that God would show Abraham the stars.  “Abraham, start counting.”

Psalm 33:  “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their hosts… The Lord looks down from heaven; He sees all the children of man; from where He sits enthroned He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth…  Behold the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love, that He may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine.”  (Psalm 33:6,13,18,19)

Psalm 33 tells us - what Abraham learns as he’s counting stars - God is sovereign over all things and God is deeply concerned with the details of our lives - even death... and life. 

That knowledge is significant for Abraham - and us.  God is the God of creation and resurrection.  Sovereign over our lives - how we got here - why we’re here - where we’re going.  That firm conviction - Paul writes in verse 18 - gave Abraham the assurance he needed to have hope in the midst of circumstances that contradicted hope - in the midst of anything that Abraham could reason out for himself.

Verse 19:  He - Abraham - did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.  No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised.

Have you ever considered your body?  Be honest.  When we’re young we’re looking to see how things are shaping up.  When we’re older we’re looking to see what’s left.  Strange things happen as we get older.

In Genesis 17 God comes to Abraham who is now 99 - God says to Abraham - one year from now Sarah will have a child.  Name him Isaac.  It is a significant defining moment in Abraham’s life.   

Will Abraham choose to believe God or not?  Paul writes that Abraham did not weaken in faith even when he considered his body.

How is God going to enable the body of a man pushing 100 and a women pushing 90 to produce a child?  Who knows?  Physically - from a human perspective - its impossible.  A circumstance without hope.

And yet, Abraham never doubts that God will make it happen.  That God will fulfill His promise.  He’s seen the stars.  He’s walked with God.  We can’t.  God can.  That’s all the connection between the dots that’s needed.

What Abraham has learned is that God is the only answer to our in adequacy, failure, and inability.  God is the only hope we have in hopeless circumstances.  God is the only One worthy of placing our trust in.   

Have you ever experienced circumstances that contradict hope?  Yes. 

God is not put off by our failures - our inadequacies - spiritually - physically - mentally - emotionally.  The same majestic sovereign powerful God who created the heavens - who spoke to Abraham on that night - that same God has the ability to work within us and through us - even in the hopeless circumstances of our lives.  God can redeem any person in any circumstance at any time.  Even us. 

Whether we understand how is not the issue.  The bottom line of faith - in the defining moments of our lives - the questions is whether or not we will choose to trust that God can.  Who can?  God can.

Verse 22 brings us to Paul’ summary.  That is why his faith - Abraham’s faith - was counted to him as righteousness.  But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. 

Who’s sake?  Ours.  Offspring by faith.  We need to see ourselves in the pages of Scripture.

...it - righteousness - will be counted to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Do any of us really understand how the dots are connected in all that?  No.  Righteousness comes as a gift of God’s grace.  God gives it.  We must by faith receive it. 

God making us to be righteous is all about trusting God.  Not about us trying to figure out solutions to the stuff of that drags us down and seeks to rob us of hope.  Not about us trying to accomplish God’s promises for Him.

Faith in God - in the day-to-day defining moments of our lives - is about trusting that the God Who is sovereign over all of life - created it - sustains it - gives purpose and meaning to it - promises it to us for eternity.  That God has it all worked out - and like He said to Abraham - in those defining moments of Abraham’s life:   “I will bless you.  Trust Me.”

Question:  What are the defining moments of your life?  Maybe you’re facing defining circumstances even today.  How will you respond? 

Second question:  God used the defining moments of Abraham’s life as an example for us of what it means to have faith in God.  As you’re living defining moments in a hope draining world how might God use you?

_________________________

1. Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, Part 1, Book 1, Chapter 4

General reference for this message:  Charles R. Swindoll, Insights on Romans - Zondervan, 2010

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®  (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.