Justified by Faith Part 1

Romans 4:1-8

• Justification defined: Just As If I have Never Sinned

• No matter what you have done in the past, if you have believed in Jesus Christ and His work on the cross, you have been completely forgiven.

• You have nothing to boast about in your righteousness.

• Any prideful position we might try to use for our boasting: ethnicity, religious background, baptism, confirmation, is all excluded.

• We are all completely ruined without Christ.

• We have no righteousness from ourselves.

• Your righteousness all comes from God, and so Paul continues his point in chapter 4.

• The Jews had been taught from infancy that their distinctive place as a nation was built on their ancestry, their physical descent from Abraham.

• In chapter 4, Paul emphasizes that justification by faith is not a new concept:

• This principle was active even before the Mosaic Law, even before circumcision was established.

• The two principle examples are the two most important men in the Jewish religion: Abraham and David.

• Paul shows us that Abraham and David are the best examples that God established the principle of faith long before Christ came.

• You see, even Abraham was not justified by his works! He has nothing to boast about.

• Abraham may think that he has something to boast about before men, but not before Holy God.

• There is no good in Abraham any more than there is any good in any one of us in the human race.

• You cannot reform your flesh! Your fleshly, sinful nature will always be fleshly and sinful.

• You don’t reform or rehabilitate your flesh.

• You starve it to death; you don’t feed it.

• The problem is when we attempt to send our fleshly nature to “Reform School” and think we can change our nature.

• You can’t change it, you must let it die, starve it to death with neglect.

• This is one of the most beautiful passages in all of the Bible.

• Memorize this verse! It is the theme of the entire Bible.

• The word used here is logizomai.

• This word is used 41 times in the New Testament

• 19 times in Romans

• 11 times in chapter 4 alone

• The New Kings James Version uses the words: “accounted,” “counted,” and “imputed.”

• It is a mathematical calculation in which God is saying that He has written off, as gone forever, all of the sin in your life if you have trusted in His vicarious atonement through Jesus Christ.

• God has then deposited into your account His own righteousness to your credit.

• Now, the books that once showed you completely bankrupt, show that you are the possessor of all that God requires for eternal life.

• Ex. You have walked into the bank where you had zero in your account and suddenly you find that someone has deposited $1 million as simply a gift. They have given you the money!!

• Our righteousness account was zero, and God deposited the full measure of His righteousness into our account.

• We stand bankrupt before Holy God with no coin of divine righteousness to pay our entry into heaven.

• There is no possible exchange rate that will get us in.

• There is no currency available.

• You and I were hopeless and homeless.

• So, what does God want? He wants us to believe!

• He gives us a free gift, and He is willing to declare us righteous if we will just believe.

• What does God want? He wants to be believed!

• We sang the hymn last week:

• But you might say, “Steve, there is surely merit in our faith right?” There is no merit in your faith either.

• Ex. There is no more merit in believing in God than there is believing in a $20 bill. It is not believing in the bill that makes the bill good. What if I take a $20 bill to a store and try to buy something with it? And what if then the cashier tells me, “This is a $20 bill from a Monopoly game”? It is not my faith in the $20 bill that makes it valuable. It is the fact that the United States Government has issued the bill and stands behind it that gives value to the bill. 

• Faith in itself is worthless. True faith accepts what God says. God says that if you will believe, you will be saved! The value for our faith is based in the heart of God!

1. We are justified by the sovereignty of God

2. We are justified without a cause in us by His grace

3. We are justified by the virtue of the blood of Christ

4. We are justified by the obedience of Christ

5. We are justified by the resurrection of Christ

6. We are justified by the power of the Holy Spirit

7. We are justified by the faith of Christ

8. And finally, the evidence of our justification is to be found in our works, our changed life

• So faith is the condition, not the ground of our salvation.

• God is the One we trust and it is His free grace that warrants and elicits our confidence!

• There is a vast difference between wages and a gift.

• Some may say this passage is heretical! “Do you mean all the stuff I have done for God? I was baptized, confirmed, and I have hardly ever missed my confessional. Haven’t I earned my salvation?”

• If a man can produce the character and quality of works that can meet the demands of God, then it should go without saying that that man should go to heaven. He can go to heaven’s gate like it’s the cashier’s window at work and cash his check of righteousness

• And this is what many in the Church have believed: thus creating a “holier than thou attitude” and self righteousness. This is a curse among Christians

• This is why Christians get prideful and boast! They think that it is their righteousness that has given them right standing before God.

• So what do my works mean as a believer?

• They are simply a response to God for all that He had done in your life!

• Love is the highest motivating force! We don’t love to earn God’s favor; we love because He has shown us favor!

• If love doesn’t motivate you in God’s work, you will be very frustrated.

• But when we are motivated out of love for God and people, God can do amazing things through each of us.

• Our works are a response to Jesus for His salvation! This is how we know that we are saved and have a changed life.

• So many of you are “trophies of grace” saved out of the dung pile of sin and rebellion! 

• Ex. We have people in this room who have committed every imaginable sin and now you are walking in great freedom and grace. What an amazing grace, what an amazing God!

• The word “blessed” means “how happy.”

• How happy is the man who no longer has any sin imputed to him!

• Do you understand that God no longer charges you with any sin if you believe in Christ?

• Come to Jesus today! If you have never given your heart to Christ, do so today.

• “But Steve, you don’t know what I’ve done?” I don’t care what you’ve done, I care what He has done!

• He has done it all, and you can walk out of here in the freedom of Christ.