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Brothers and sisters in the Lord, Paul's whole purpose here in Romans chapter 4 and relating
the story of Abraham you will recall is to try to demonstrate that the gospel that
he is preaching that gospel of grace is not some kind of a new fengal teaching but is in fact
the way that God has always chosen to bring blessings into lives of his people you will recall
that his Paul preached his gospel there were those who having been trained in the Jewish interpretation
of the law and interpretation that said you get would you deserve and you got to be good to
get at they listened to what Paul was saying and and to them it sounded like a new fengal kind of
a teaching at odds with everything that they had been ever taught in all their years of being
brought up and so Paul ever mindful of the need to preserve the gospel of grace tries to demonstrate
to them that what he is teaching has always been God's way of salvation by grace through faith
and he does that you will recall by going back all the way to the beginning all the way back
to Abraham's life and he says now look at Abraham how did Abraham come into the blessings that
God had for him did he come into those blessings because he was a good man did he come into those
blessings because he kept the law did he come into those blessings because he headed within him to
become what he needed to be and he says the answer is no Abraham had none of the things that he needed
but he came into those blessings because he was a man of faith he believed God that God would work
it out and produce in his life the kind of righteousness that was required for him to inherit
the promises of God and so all the way from the very beginning says Paul here in Romans chapter 4
God's program of salvation has always been by grace through faith verse 13 says the promise to
Abraham and his descendants so they should inherit the world did not come through the law that is
to say not by anything they did but through the righteousness of faith Abraham he goes on to say
believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness now having established that truth
Paul here in Romans chapter 4 towards the end of the chapter returns to his basic theme
of how this applies now to the lives of God's people and here is what he says the words it was
reckoned to him were not written for his sake alone don't ever think he says that God was only
worried about Abraham they were not written for his sake alone but for hours also it will be
reckoned to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord who was put to death for
our trespasses and raised for our justification not only did Abraham come into the promised inheritance
by faith but he says you and I too we receive what it is that God has to offer to his children
by the righteousness of faith in Jesus Christ it will be reckoned to us who believe in him
that raised from the dead Jesus our Lord now I know we've spent a lot of time on that in recent weeks
but the risk is sounding like a broken record I want to come back to it one more time this morning
and I do that very deliberately because my pastoral experience continues to indicate
that while intellectually a lot of us understand the nature of grace there continues to be I
believe in the lives of many of God's people everywhere whole areas of our lives that are not yielded
to grace but where in some small or big way what we are trying to do is to earn the favor of God
let me tell you story this morning young lady from our congregation came to see me this past week
and I share her story with you this morning as is always the case with her permission
and the Lord has really been working in her life she's young woman who has a deep devotion to the Lord
has really been convicted in recent services in particular by the word that has been shared
about the need to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord and she has been wanting to
overcome some things in her life to be the kind of woman that God's calling her to be
and she's been trying ever so hard to be different but she's become discouraged and
despondent in the process because the fact remains that the things that she's called to be in
her life she just doesn't have what it takes to be a that story says familiar that's because
that's a very common predicament for the human race we all think we do just fine until we start
wanting to be what God wants us to be and we discover that our own hearts want to lead us
in another direction so we arranged to get together Rineshi began sharing her story with me it
became very evident very quickly that while in many ways she understood the grace of God there
were areas of God's grace that were totally foreign to her thinking because what was happening
in her life was this and I've seen it happen in a lot of people's lives she had no problem believing
and understanding that Jesus when he died on the cross died for her sins in the past and she
had come to Christ with all of her sins and they had been washed away and she had been renewed in her
commitment to the Lord and now as a good obedient Christian she was wanting to live the Christian
life and that's a good a noble thing to do isn't it the problem was having started with grace she
ended with law and rather than understanding that in Jesus Christ she was already righteous
and that his grace was needed in her life to become all of the things that God was calling
her to be she was in a very subtle way and it was very because it took us a long time to nail it
down in a very subtle way she was trying to gain God's approval by a life of obedience
and when she lived up to that obedience she was full of joy but when she failed as she did most
of the time she was filled with despair and wondered if she would ever make it
and if that story sends familiar it's because when push comes to shove that's how most Christians
live the Christian lives they know Jesus died for their sins and now they believe that somehow or
another they got to live up to the standards of God and they forget that that standard of God
has already been met in Jesus and that they are made righteous by faith in Him.
Want to listen again to what Paul says here are the concluding verses of Romans chapter 4
the words it was reckoned to him were not written for his sake alone
but for hours also it will be reckoned to us who believe in him that race from the dead
Jesus our Lord who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification
want you to notice the two elements here he was put to death for our trespasses he was raised
for our justification that is to say when Jesus died in the cross over the years ago
he took all of your sin and all of my sin and he took it into himself upon the cross
and he perished because of all of our transgressions most of us understand that I think pretty clearly
but Paul doesn't stop at that point in the scripture he goes on to say he was raised for our
justification he was raised to make us right with God wonder this morning if you've ever given
serious thought as to the significance of the resurrection of Jesus what is it about the
resurrection of Jesus Christ that Paul says later in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 is the Lynch
pin upon whom the whole Christian faith rests it's because the resurrection of Jesus
proves the righteousness of Jesus and the favor of God upon his life for God to raise Jesus
from the dead was God's judgment that Jesus was his son and there was no sin within him
and so when Jesus arose from the dead sat down at the right hand of God the Father
and God gave him all power glory a fority and dominion over all the universe it was a demonstration
that he was perfectly satisfied and perfectly pleased with his son Jesus Christ
and what God's people need to understand is that when we come to Jesus and when I admit to him
that my life is full of sin that there is no way that I can ever begin to measure up on my own
to his standards but that Jesus has done it all then not only do I confess that he has taken my
old sins and he's put them on the cross I'm also confessing that I'm united with him in his
resurrection and because he is perfectly righteous his righteousness is mine by faith and what that
means is if this morning you've come to Jesus you've really come to Jesus now not just intellectually
but in your heart and you've really confessed that Jesus alone is righteous in all of the world
and none of us in the natural is righteous then the righteousness of Jesus is imparted and imputed
to your life and to my life and before God I'm as righteous as I'm ever going to be
but you say my life is full of sin you bitch it's full of sin and you say but I'm struggling
with a lot of things how can God accept the kinds of things that I'm struggling with the answer
is God doesn't but he's nailed him to Jesus and when he looks at you and when he looks at me
he looks at us through the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ and because Jesus Christ is righteous
I am righteous before the face of God and in that sense no matter how much sin remains in me
and I'm not at all justifying sin well we'll come to God's remedy for dealing with indwelling sin
but when I lay hold of Jesus by faith confessing my sin then God looks right past all of my sin
all of my failure and he looks at me in the perfect righteousness of Jesus it is just as if I had
never seen I am perfectly holy before God and as we'll see in a few moments that has tremendous
implications because it enables me to lay hold of his blessing so I shared that with her took a
little while because if you follow my logic this morning then you know that the nuances are very
very minor but very significant as we talked about it there came one of those what I call holy
moments those moments when you know God's there and her eyes lit up she understood
and she said to me you got you mean to tell me that when Jesus died in the cross two thousand
years ago he not only died for all of my passions but for my present and all of my future sins as well
and then I get excited you know because when God's people catch it their lives
are going to change she walked out and I know her life is going to be different
because now instead of trying to be good wondering if she's going to be thrown aside if she fails
she can boldly and with confidence drawn here to God's presence and lay hold of his mercy
because she knows that in Jesus Christ she is the righteousness of God and God loves her
with an everlasting love and out of that righteousness now her life is going to begin changing because
God will move her from glory to glory into the things that he has for her in his kingdom the words
it was reckoned to him as righteousness were not written for him alone but for ours also
it will be reckoned to us who believe in him that raised from the dead Jesus Christ our Lord
who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification
now why do I make such a big fuss about that because if you understand that
not just intellectually but in your heart it will transform your life radically
because the Bible goes on to say in this passage now that it is that understanding and that
understanding alone that opens the door to our relationship with God whereby we begin to experience
all that God is and all that God has listen to the words of Paul as he goes on therefore
that is to say in light of the argument he says that I have just been developing
therefore since we are justified by faith since we are made right before God by faith in the
resurrection and the death of Jesus now listen we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand and we rejoice
in our hope of sharing the glory of God three benefits in these first two verses
that he says will flow out of a correct understanding of being justified by faith number one
let's look at each of them very briefly we have peace with God we have peace with God what does it
mean to have peace with God that means God's no longer angry with me it means God turns his face
towards me rather than his back why do we struggle why do little children die
why are there wars why does it look as if God doesn't care and things just keep on going the way
they are and they always seem to fall apart sooner or later well the Bible says it's because
we're alienated from God all we look sheep of God is straight the wrath of God Romans one says
is revealed against all the ungodliness and wickedness of mankind and while God is very gracious
in sending a certain measure of common grace that enables life to go on in fact to the matter is
all of a sudden and fallen short of the glory of God that's why so many people can't connect with God
that's why so many people are afraid of God that's why so many people coward before God because
they sense intuitively that his anger is directed towards them and they're afraid to stand in his
light because they're afraid he's gonna slay them with his sword therefore since we are now
justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ this warning you've come to
Jesus and you know that your own righteousness is not gonna make it and you're looking away
from your own righteousness and you're accepting the righteousness of Jesus and his righteousness alone
the very first thing that happens in your life is that you become reconciled to go on
God's no longer angry with you
that means in the one hand that his judgment is lifted from off your life you don't have to be
afraid anymore that all of a sudden God's going to come along and broadside you with a swat
because he's caught something in your life that he's been holding back from you so that he can
just catch you at the worst possible time it means you can live in the middle of the greatest
problems of life and know that God is for you and God is not against you
it means that when you come to the point of death and you contemplate the horrors of the day
of judgment when every secret of your art is going to be laid bare you don't need to be afraid
anymore because you know that you're going to hear the words well done good and faithful servant
you've been faithful over Little Andrew in a much because of the righteousness of Jesus
it means to that when you face the complexities and the difficulties of life
his presence and his power will be there to guard you and to keep you and to bring you into
everything that he has ever designed for you in the love that he had for you from before the
foundation of the world because notice Paul goes on he says not only we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ but then he goes on to say through him we have obtained access
to this grace in which we stand we have obtained access that's a word Paul uses it only three
times in the New Testament it really means introduction and the picture is here of
of let's say royal Majesty seated upon their throne and you're just a poor nobody
and you want to lay hold of the king's mercy and you want to lay hold of the king's power
and you want to lay hold of the king's glory and you come to the palace and you want to see
the king but they turn your way because who are you that you think you can just walk up to the
seat of power and that the king should take note of you when he's got a whole lot more important
people to be busy with a lot of Christians feel that way they feel that way about God
poor little me
God so busy running the universe
keeping the planets twirling and rolling the affairs of the nation
why should he bother about my hanging nail or the troubles in my personal life
or the things that I struggle with that make my life so difficult the answer is in Jesus Christ
I have access to the throne of God's glory I have as it were a letter of introduction that
enables me to walk right on by all the guards and to present my supplications before the king
of kings and the lord of lords have you ever thought about that have you ever thought about the
incredible privileges that you have as a child of God that you can boldly draw near to the throne
of grace to find help in time of need through him we have access to this grace in which we stand
what's grace unmerited favor it's God's power glory majesty and love now directed towards me
to fulfill all of the plans and all of the purposes that God has for my life remember I've been
designed to rule the world I've been designed as we shall see in a few moments to sharing the glory
of God I've been designed to be victorious over all of creation and to share the very blessedness
of God himself sins made a real mess of that and instead of ruling as the crown of creation
you and I were tossed to and froled by our sins and by our weaknesses and by the demonic
powers out there by people who are bigger than we are situations and life that want to
overcome me hit our more optimistic moments we think we can take on the whole world part of growing
up in life is to begin to realize you're not half as strong as you think y'all and we only live
by virtue of the breath of God when I come to Jesus I not only have access to God but because I
have access to God I've access to his grace that his his favor towards me above and beyond anything
that I might have deserved because I am in Jesus Christ practically speaking that means
do I struggle with things in my life that make me an unpleasant person to have around
do I not have the kinds of disciplines that I need in order to to be the kind of man or woman
that God's calling me to be do I have trouble controlling my temper do I have trouble understanding
spiritual truth and spiritual reality do I have difficulty laying hold of the promises of God
and stepping out and living in obedience am I sunk down in the pit of depression because of the
heaviness of life that rests upon my shoulders are there people in situations out there that are
bigger than I that want to swallow me up and that want to destroy my life and my sense of purpose
and my sense of destiny do I hurt is death and work in my mortal body access to this grace in
which we stand means that I can come to God my father now he who made the universe
by the snap of his finger and the word of his mouth who makes the life things that are dead
lifts up the lowly and lowers the high and exhausted that God is now my father
and everything that I need to live the kind of life that he is wanting me to live I can go to him
and I have access to this grace in which I stand but you say I don't deserve it
but you say why should God bother with me that's the genius of the Christian gospel
the answer is we don't deserve it and God doesn't have to do it but because of Jesus he's chosen
to do it because what he's given to Jesus he gives to me and he guarantees that I will have
whatever it takes to get through life faithful and obedient because this grace is a grace
in which we stand I have peace with God I have access to this grace in which I stand
and then praise God I rejoice in the hope of sharing the glory of God
do you know the glory of God is we talk about it we read about it hardly anybody knows anything
about it and even those that do know something about it no very little about it
because the glory of God the very majesty the very splendor the very power that God is and he has
that makes him worthy of honor and worship and adoration it is unapproachable in its splendor
and throughout scripture when people have even caught a glimpse of that glory they fall flat
in their faces because they cannot stand in the presence of God but when I made right with God
not only can I stand in the presence of God
because he is I am made right before his face but the Bible says we share the glory
of God which is to say everything that God is and everything that God has
we're going to share fully by faith in Jesus Christ you see God made us to rule as I said a few
moments ago God shares his love with us in sharing his authority over all of the universe with
his children Adam and Eve had positions of prestige and splendor in the new creation and we
call the fall the fall because they fell from the glory of God all have seen and fallen short of
the glory of God we have exchanged our glory says Romans one for shame and we walk around covering
ourselves up because we are afraid of the light but because of Jesus I have not only peace with God
I have not only access to his grace but I rejoice in the hope of sharing the glory of God
that word rejoices a bed translation it really is the word boast and Paul is always talking
about boasting we either boast in ourselves in our own position or we boast in the Lord
and he says I boast in the glory of God he knows that by faith he's going to get there
and nothing and nobody is going to stop him because Jesus Christ has done it all and he has
peace with God access to grace and he rejoices in the hope of sharing the glory of God
there's coming a day when everything the human race will have ever longed for and everything
you and I work so hard to try to work out for ourselves in this life
God gives it as a gift to his children and as always while the full attainment of that glory lies
in the future when I belong to Jesus and when I have been made right with God by faith in him
that glory already begins to work in my life because the spirit of glory lives in me
and God begins to bring me into the inheritance that he has for me and he begins to share his love
with me and it's going to shine through me until one day all the nations of the world will acknowledge
that Jesus Christ is lower to the glory of God the Father
can you see why Paul is so categorical about justification by faith
because it is by faith that we have peace with God it is by faith that I have right of access
to this grace and we trust in and it is by faith that I know that I know that I know
there is laid up for me a glory that nobody can rob me from because it is the very glory
of God let me ask you this morning have you met that Jesus have you got that peace
have you got that grace and your rejoice in the hope of glory if not
you need to come to him you need to settle the issue once and for all that in your heart of
heart you've not been trusting in Christ but you've been trusting in yourself
and yes you've been able to work out some measure of peace and you've been able to work out some
measure of status and life and you've been able to obtain some measure of glory but I want you
to know that all the glory of this age is but like a flower it's here today and God tomorrow
lasting peace and lasting grace and lasting glory
it's available only according to the measure of our faith in Jesus Christ our Lord
it will be reckoned to us who believe in him that race from the dead Jesus our Lord
it will put the death for our trespasses and raised for our justification let us pray
but an amazing word it is Father that doctrine of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus
and how hard it is to work it out in our own understanding where on the one hand we seem
like we don't have to do anything and yet on the other hand you call us to be obedient
help us Lord to understand that our obedience flows
not out of an attempt to earn it because even if we lived as best as we could in ourselves we would
still fall far short of your glory almost understand that Jesus Christ is perfect and that by
faith in him you look at us in the righteousness of Jesus and Lord out of that relationship with you
help us then by faith the way hold of all that you give us so that from glory to glory we may be
transformed until that day when as the stars and the firmament on high we shine forever
with God's glory with God's power and with God's majesty bless your word Father
bring us to life in you in Jesus name we ask it amen
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