Romans 4:1–5Scripture
All right, open your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 4, and we are looking at verses 1 through 5, Romans 4:1–5. And Paul, at the end of chapter 3, moves, and he begins to set up that we are saved by faith alone through Christ alone, and it is God's grace that accomplishes this in our life.
And then he begins to kind of speak to a specific person in the Bible, not current but in the Old Testament, where many world religions actually refer to him, they actually look to him. And so his name is Abraham, and so he begins to talk about Abraham. There are many different religions that understand or know Abraham, that trust in what Abraham accomplished. And so for the sake of defending the gospel which Paul preaches, he uses Abraham. He goes all the way back to the Old Testament, to Genesis, and he reminds us that it is not by the goodness of Abraham that Abraham was saved, but it is by the faith of Abraham, that he believed and God reckoned it to him as righteousness. Now we know, before I jump in here, I thought, maybe there's probably a thousand different ways we could go about looking and exploring these five verses, and we could go, I could have went and really talked about Abraham, we could have went all the way back to Genesis, really looked at his life and seen the picture of his life and then how that affects us, but I've chose to go a different direction today. I really want to just focus in on, and I think it's important, there's some conversation that I'm hearing that I think that I want to really drill down on. We need to talk this morning about justification and what that is, all right? And although Abraham is a part of that in the defense of the gospel, I don't really want to focus too much on Abraham. But before I jump into the justification part, I'll just say of Abraham, he believed God, and then a lot of times he didn't
Point 1Abraham was a mess, yet justified
Believe God. So much he believed that God was God, he believed that God's promises were true, but his faith wavered. How many of you can relate to your faith wavering? Us too.
A couple things that he did. God promised to make him a mighty nation, out of him that would be as many as the stars, and then he promises this to an old man who's really, quite honestly, about to die. He's not in child-bearing years, and definitely his wife is not, right? I mean, I mean, it'd be like going to somebody, praying over somebody that was 90 years old and telling them they were going to have a baby. I mean, they probably would laugh, much like Sarah laughed. By the way, a cool little tidbit: Abraham's first name was Abram, and then God changed his name to Abraham.
Now Brook brought out something to me that I thought was quite profound. If you take Abram and you take Abraham, right in the middle of that is a "ha."
See that? And Sarah laughed when God told them that they were gonna have a baby. And I just thought that was funny, maybe this is a comedic relief for the Lord, he just threw "ha" in there, and maybe, like, prophesied that Sarah would laugh. I don't know, but that was really funny. You guys don't seem that amused by that. I thought that was hilarious. We've been talking about that all week. But anyway, ha. But they didn't, they believed God. It has said that they believed God, and God reckoned it to him as righteousness, justified him, and he was saved. Believed God, yet moments later, after he believed God told him he was going to have a child, and they didn't, faith wavered. So they began to come up with a plan. How many of you have ever tried to come up with a plan to help God, right? So they're trying to come up with a plan to help God, and Sarah comes to Abraham and tells him that he needs to sleep with the servant so that they can have a baby, so they can help God make a mighty nation out of them. Like, I mean, there is, we do some dumb stuff, right? And we plead insanity when God comes to us, but this is next-level dumb stuff right here, right? God promises something, we go to help God, and then we sin to try to help him do what he promised and declared. It was crazy. There's another time that he actually gave his wife up to a king, that the king might sleep with her so that they wouldn't be in jeopardy of being killed. Like, Abraham, if he's the father of our faith, father of faith, I have a lot of questions about his faith, because he kind of did a lot of really ridiculous things. Right, now so where then do we have hope today? We have hope in knowing that it is not about what we do. We're not saved because of what we do. We're not saved because we make all of the right choices. That's why this is a miracle. God chooses to save who he wills, and you know, and listen, that should put a lot of you at peace today. Now we know Paul talks in here later in Romans that if you just continue to live wild lives and you don't care about God, and you don't care about breaking his law, and you don't care about hurting his heart, and you don't care, and you just continue sinning, and you set your face like flint against the God, and you don't care, and you take advantage of grace and you trample over his good nature, then you were never saved and you never had faith. But for those who have faith, who believe God, you're just going to have some moments of idiocy, but it does not disqualify you. Why?
Because you're not saved by all of your choices, you're saved through Christ and his choices.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 7:14
Isn't it awesome that God can use someone who continues to make mistakes to do his miracles through? It's amazing. So when we look at Abraham, we're not looking at some solid figure who did all the right things and made all the right choices. Guys, he was kind of a mess-up. So were many of the disciples that God chose. But I want to talk this morning about this word, which we hear in the church, called justification. Justified. Abraham was justified because
Point 2Justification happens in a moment
He believed. Now I want you to know this: to be justified happens in a moment. It is in a second, is it in a nanosecond, it is the moment we believe we are justified.
Sanctification takes a lifetime.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 8:17
They are different. They are different.
Justification and sanctification are not the same.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 8:29
Today I want to talk about justification, and I believe that it is strong in these verses. Romans 4:1–5 says this: "What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?" Well, according to flesh he did a lot of really silly things, so not a lot was gained that way, right? "What shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified," everybody say justified, that's the word that this whole section is about, that's it. If you miss that word, then you don't, you don't understand that everything that's being said here is to break down and explain what justification, not only what justification is but how it comes to us.
"Abraham was justified. For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.
And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies," everybody say justifies, "the ungodly." Notice here it doesn't say justifies the godly. He justifies the ungodly. Just do a word study on "ungodly." Do a word study. Just look at all the places in the Bible that it talks about the ungodly. Actually, remind yourself and read Romans 1 and 2 and look at all the times it talks about the ungodly and what they behave like. He justifies those type of people, not good people. Now listen, church, men and women here today,
It's not your goodness that saves you, it's God's grace that saves you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:34
You were on a fast-track highway to hell, the Autobahn to hell, actually, going as fast as your car could possibly go, and nothing could stop you but the grace of God, and God, in his loving grace, swooped down and saved you, even though you were all the things that listed in chapter 1. You had set your face like flint to go against the things of God, and he swooped down and saved you, even though you had no intention to be saved. That's grace.
And he changes your heart, and he justified you in a moment, and you became righteous even though you were ungodly. Do you listen?
Please today, don't miss the magnitude of what he's done for those who believe. There's a lot at stake.
I'm going to speak plainly and I'm going to speak soberly today, but there is a lot at stake in this room today. There are, I would say, several groups of people.
There are those who have been in church their whole life and hoped that they can be justified by the goodness of their life, and you've placed your hope for salvation in your attendance, your participation, your obedience to God, and he said that does not save you. You have to be justified before him. Then there are others, there are others here today who are saved. You believed God, you were ungodly, he saved you, and your salvation is true, and you will stand before him one day and he will say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." And then there are some of you today who have made a profession of faith and you trample under the goodness of God, under your feet, the goodness of God, his grace and his mercy, and you take advantage of him, and you live lives that do not please him, and you do so resting on the fact of his good nature, and it's abusive. Paul talks about that in just a moment as we move on in Romans. There are all kinds of people in this room. There are those who, quite honestly, you've read the Bible but you have not sensed God's call.
And so today we hope, wherever you are on that you understand and don't miss the magnitude of what Paul is saying, because it is huge. Now, I read an article this week, in a paper I was working on, it's an old article actually, I had to go back, quite a bit, the article actually quoted John Paul II, Pope John Paul II, and he was actually talking about hell.
The title of the article was called this, and I think this summarizes it all, I'm going to quote maybe another section of it, but I think this is very important when we think about justification, and quite honestly, this, what he says in this title, has taken many different forms in our conversation with each other. And let me let me just set this up this way. We have a hard time believing that God would send someone to hell. Maybe you wouldn't have a hard time with that. We have a hard time believing that God would punish someone in hell for all eternity from heaven.
We have a hard time reconciling the goodness of God, his loving nature, and his wrathful, judging nature that punishes sin. So what we begin to do, then, is we begin to excuse God from wrath and judgment and punishment, and we begin to then place all of that on man's free will. Listen to me, and say things like, "We chose to be there, God didn't send us there." Ladies and gentlemen, God, in the end, is going to send you there, and he is going to unroll his wrath on you every moment of every day for all eternity, those who don't believe and who are in sin, and it is going to be bad, and he is not going to stop. Don't miss the magnitude of what's at stake here. But John Paul, much like we have difficulty embracing the wrath of God, the punishment of God, his hatred toward sin, Pope John Paul had that problem, the second, had that problem too, and the title of the article was, and I quote, and it quoted Pope John Paul II, "Sinners earned eternal damnation."
Now that didn't seem too bad when you hear it right off the bat, and we earned it, right? We earned it. Sinners earn eternal damnation. Now we should be thankful for every biblical truth that we hold in common with the Roman Catholic Church: that God is three persons in one divine nature, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; that God created all things; that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man; that Christ died for sinners; that the Holy Spirit is needed to live godly lives; that the Scriptures are inspired by God; et cetera. It is good that so much truth is upheld by so many. But what this article made plain, as I read it, was that the Protestant Reformation from 450 years ago was not unneeded, it was very needed. And it isn't just that there are serious problems with the authority of the Pope, the place of tradition alongside of Scripture, the veneration of Mary, the belief in the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the claim that baptism regenerates, the teaching on purgatory, et cetera. Those are reasons enough to reform, and that's why the Protestant church did that's why Martin Luther did. But even more fundamentally, what this article showed was that the biblical teaching on justification by faith in the Catholic church is obscured, so that most lay people do not see it, let alone savor it as precious and base their lives on it: justification by faith, or getting right with God, or being acquitted in his court, being forgiven for our sins, being declared righteous and having the righteousness of Christ imputed, as it says, to us, and our sins imputed to him, not becoming righteous but being counted as righteous while we're still sinners, and all of this is by faith alone. That is what the first eight chapters of Romans are mostly about, and for the Apostle Paul it was the heart of the gospel message. The book of Romans is the fullest, the most systematic, most extensive effort of the apostle Paul to put his message in writing, to teach us the gospel, and honestly, the whole book is structured around the great truth of justification by faith, not by your goodness, not by your works.
Many of us misunderstand justification, and let me tell you, sometimes it is in the slightest way that we misunderstand it. So let me help set it up by this article and what the Pope said, see how easy it is for us to miss it. So then some of you may be saying, "Shawn, what is the problem with what the Pope said in this article?" For brevity, I will respond to the popular notion that is not only limited to Roman Catholic theology, so you don't get triggered and email me.
We hear it in our small groups, we hear it in casual conversations in the life of this church, and quite honestly, we have been slowly led away from what true biblical justification is, and we've done so with the heart to try to make God look better than we feel the Bible says he is, and it's dangerous. And this attitude, if you can't catch it, undermines the gospel in conversations, and then we begin to adopt these things, and when we stand before brothers and sisters, let me tell you, Paul says the gospel has the power to save, not the gospel one degree off. So the problem with this is there are many of you who would like to see your mother, your father, your family member, your friend, those you're connected with at work, you would like to see them come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and, for the same salvation you have received through faith, for them to receive through faith. But the only way they do that is by the preaching of the gospel, and if you get this wrong, are you with me, it is serious business. This attitude has seeped into the church,
Point 3Hell is God's judgment, not our creation
And here's the issue. In the article, the Pope portrayed hell as real, as eternal, and as terrible, which is true, but the main point was that hell is not something God imposes on us but a condition we bring about through separating ourselves from God, and that undermines the gospel massively. Now listen, part of what feeds into this problem, let's pause here for a second, is our lack of understanding the sovereignty of God. Another thing that feeds into the problem is a secular mindset, not a biblical one, where we think everything starts with us and moves out from us. So when we begin to think about justification, or we begin to think about God's punishment, when we begin to think about damnation and God judging us for all of eternity and punishing us, we start with us and move out, but the Bible starts with God.
So his punishment comes from God, the wrath comes from God, the judgment comes from God, not from us, and you can get this off and you can miss the whole gospel. The Pope says in this article, and I quote, for more clarification beyond the title, here it is, and you'll hear this in conversations, you watch, you listen, you'll hear this: "Hell, he says, is not a punishment imposed externally by God but the condition resulting from attitudes and actions which people adopt in this life. Hell is the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy." So external damnation is not God's work but is actually our own doing.
Now we would sit here today and say, "no," but you would be amazed at how often I hear people applaud this kind of thing, said a little bit differently: "it isn't God that sends us to hell, it's you that sends you to hell." Wrong. It's God that sends you there, because all things don't start with you, they start with God. The two negative statements in this quote which I just read that are not biblical are this, and you write them down, catch them, you write them down. It is not true to say, and I'm quoting them from the Pope, "Hell is not a punishment imposed externally by God."
That's wrong. That's false. And it is not true to say, and I quote, "External damnation is not God's work."
Those are false. I'll come back in a moment and show you why. But why does it matter? It matters because if, listen to me, if you're checked out, check back in, listen to me, if hell is merely a self-imposed condition of sinning and separating from God, and not a god-imposed judicial sentence of punishment for breaking God's law, then justification by faith as Paul teaches simply isn't necessary, because you can earn it. Did you catch that?
So if it is you and you're the one that sends yourself there and it is because of your choices that you got there, and your choices and what you do, then you're saved by works and not by faith. See how easy it is to get the gospel wrong, see how easy it is to get justification by faith wrong? It's that easy. It's that easy, and it's concerning. It's concerning.
And I believe today that more people in the church have placed their faith in themselves and not God, and that's concerning, because we're not saved by having faith in us, we're saved by having faith in God.
Behind this article, I believe, is the serious error of making hell the outward working of our character, so that heaven becomes the outworking of our character also, and thus, since hell is not the consequence of the damnation of God, heaven is not the consequence of the justification of God. Instead, since damnation is seen as deterioration of my personal character, then justification is seen and redefined as the improvement of my character. You would not believe how prevalent this is in our churches, in this church, because our church is a part of the churches, not because I'm thinking of anybody specific, because if I did I probably wouldn't preach this, but it's a problem. But that is not what Paul meant when he said justification here, and
It is not the gospel that turned the world upside down, that you can get right with God by improving your character.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 28:42
That's not the gospel. That's not the gospel.
I put a question here: is damnation my work or is it the work of God? Is it true to say this, "Hell is not a punishment imposed externally by God," which the Pope said, and is it true to say "external damnation is not God's work"? Well, I'm going to prove that's wrong by Scripture, and I have some Scripture up here that we've already read. All right, so here we go. Most of Romans 1, chapter 1 through 3, actually refutes this behavior in this conversation that you send yourself to hell, God doesn't send you there. That's basics of it, and God doesn't punish you for all eternity, you choose punishment, and I guess just punishment just happens out there in the ether by itself, right? Romans 1 through 3 refutes that and actually says the opposite. Let's give you specifics. Romans 1:16–17, let's look at 18. Romans 1:18. I think they have it up here we go: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." Listen, it comes from heaven. God reveals it from heaven, and it's him that does it. Judgment is breaking in now, and God is very angry with us in our sin. All right, verse 24, chapter 1: "God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts." It's God that does it. He's active. It's not the people who do it's not the people who run away from God actively turns them over. Verse 26: "God gave them up to dishonorable passions." That's verse 26. Verse 28: "God gave them up to a debased mind." These are active punishments of God. But there's more, wait, there's more.
These are Scriptures we've read, by the way. Romans 2:2 says, "We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things." Verse 3: "Do you suppose, O man, that when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God?" Verse 5: "Because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed." So judgment is coming from God, and it will be the effect of his wrath against sin. That is what hell is. It is not simply a self-imposed condition, it is a God-imposed punishment, a legal sentence, an everlasting punishment for sin, where his wrath comes to kill you day by day, moment by moment. That's how much he hates sin. Listen, if you don't know the magnitude of his judgment and punishment, then you'll miss out, and you will make little of sin, and you will see no need to be justified.
It is important. This is not okay. And if you break one part of the law, you break it all. So you can have a problem with people that are pedophiles, but if you lie, God's just as angry and you're going to receive just as bad a punishment. He categorizes you in regards to his wrath and punishment the same. Sin is abhorrent to him. That counts white lies too. Even though it seems holy because it's white, it is wrong.
Sometimes the greatest lie you will ever tell, sometimes the greatest sin you will ever commit, is standing in silence when you need to speak up.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:46
Are you hearing me? When someone's murdering with their mouth your brother or sister and you say nothing, that is worthy of God punishing you with his wrath and judgment forever and ever. That's why you need him to justify you in a moment, and the way you get it is belief, is faith. So all of that brings us to a place where we ask the question, well, how do I escape this kind of punishment and condemnation? Well, Paul answers the question by using Abraham as an example. Not by works, not by a better character, not by you being gooder,
Point 4Justified by faith, never by works
But by faith. Romans 4:1 says this: "What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?" A lot of mistakes, that's what was gained. A lot of mistakes, and a lot of hell, that's what was coming to him about what he did in the flesh.
All right, that's what was coming. And then he goes on to verse 2, and I love this. In verse 2 he begins his answer of how we escape condemnation, not by the things we do in the flesh, and he picks up the issue of boasting that he dealt with in Romans 3:27–28, and he says this: "For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God." In other words, you're not justified by works but by faith, or belief. Abraham believed God. He believed God. He believed that what God said was true. I got to be a part of a conversation, a small group Wednesday night with youth, a few weeks back, we were talking about Abraham, all the ridiculous things that Abraham did, right? Because left to our own devices we'll do some dumb stuff. And so we were talking about all that, and one of the students, actually several of the students, said, "Why would Abraham, when he had a promise from God, why would Abraham sleep with the servant, have an affair on his wife to try to, why would he do, why in the world, what is wrong with him?"
My answer: for the same reasons that a lot of young people, or people in here today, or single people, will sleep with someone before marriage when we have a promise saying that's not the best way.
Isn't it amazing how we can see the atrocities of other men and we create allowances for ourselves, abusing grace for self-pleasure? Listen, as ridiculous as what Abraham did is what we do.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 36:54
We, listen, this is the point: we are ungodly, and God comes in his love and in his mercy and in a way that captures our heart, turns our heart from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh, and yanks us out of the flames of hell and our destination we have set our face to go toward. He yanks us out, he puts faith in us that we might see him, his goodness, and in a moment we go from being ungodly to justified, to made to look like him, and all of that has nothing to do with us and everything to do with God being good. That's it. Here's the thing:
The best thing that a pastor can do for a church is encourage its people to seek out the goodness of God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 38:28
You seek his goodness. Just seek his goodness, not by word, but by faith. I'm almost done. Justification is by faith
Point 5Three signals that faith alone justifies
Alone, nothing but faith alone. Verse 5 is perhaps the most important verse on justification by faith alone, I believe, I believe in the entire New Testament. There are three bright signals in this one verse that teach that justification is by faith alone and nothing but faith. Read it with me here, it is: "And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness." Man, that's powerful. So let's break this down, right? Because some of you just heard, like, you remember that charlie Brown where the teacher talks and it's like, "Wah," that's what you heard. Let's break it down, because that was a mouthful, and let's make sense of it. Number one, "to the one who does not work." That's the first section of verse 5. First he says, "to the one who does not work." That means you don't work for it, and that's the person that gets it, the person who doesn't work for it. Here's a portrait of the moment of justification. This moment could happen for you this morning, because it is not a long process like most things in life.
It happens in a moment. It could happen today for those of you who've trusted in your own strength, trusted in your own goodness, trusted in what you do.
For some of you who feel you're so disqualified and discredited and you've done so much wrong against him that God would never receive you, there's no hope for you ever, you've just gone too far, this can happen in a moment, because it isn't about what you do or don't do, this is about what God does.
And just in case you didn't know, everyone's ungodly. "Well, but I'm more ungodly than other people." No, he doesn't classify ungodliness. Ungodliness is depraved, and everyone is that. Everyone is without hope unless God. It happens in a moment.
Justification is a verdict delivered by God in a moment because we trust in him and not ourselves any longer.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 41:27
He says, "I declare this guilty person innocent," in a moment. In a moment. And in case you think it was only a declaration, do not so quickly forget that declaration was only able to be made because Jesus died and took all of the sin of those who would have faith in him on himself, and God, it pleased God to punish him immensely for your sake. Why did it please God? Because he hates sin and he loves punishing it.
Seems, "Well, Shawn, that doesn't seem very loving, and I'm not sure that I want to worship a God like that."
Well, good luck worshiping yourself. Good luck with that.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:34
God punished sin, it pleased him to do so, but to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. Righteousness that is so good, that means it comes by faith alone. So number one, to the one who does not work, it is not by work. Number two, in this describes justification comes not by work, it is a verdict. Number two, God justifies the ungodly. The second signal that justification is by faith alone is the word "ungodly." After Paul says "to the one who does not work," he says, "but believes in him who justifies the ungodly." This was utterly shocking. It jars all of our judicial sentiments. It makes us cry out, how is this possible?
And the answer, of course, is that
Christ died for the ungodly. He did not die for the godly.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 43:51
This is why they called him a friend of sinners. God can justify the ungodly because his Son died for the ungodly. The point of the word "ungodly" here is to stress that faith is not our righteousness. It's imputed to us. It's not our goodness, our good choices, it's imputed to us through Christ. Christ made good choices, Christ didn't speak out of turn, Christ did all the right stuff, Christ did not sin, and that is given to us by God. When faith is born, we're still ungodly. Faith will begin to overcome our ungodliness, that's the purpose of faith, but in the beginning of the Christian life, where justification happens, we're all ungodly. How many of you know the moment you got saved you still had some ungodliness in you? Faith works on that day by day, sanctifying you. Faith strives to finish the work he began. We are righteous in his sight, and faith is making us less and less ungodly day by day. When faith is born, we're ungodly. Faith will begin to overcome our ungodliness, but in the beginning of the Christian life, where justification happens, we are all ungodly. Godly works do not begin to have a role in our lives until we are first justified.
We are declared righteous by faith alone while we are still ungodly, and that is the only way any of us can have hope that God is on our side, so that we can now make headway in the fight against ungodliness. He is for us, and if God is for us, what or who could stand against us?
Three. Number three, the third point in chapter or verse 5, chapter 4, that further explains justification is "his faith is counted as righteousness." Notice that it says his faith, not your faith. Notice, and remember, and we should remember this every time we open the Bible, every time we have conversation, every time we're spitballing, nothing worse than Christians spitballing, I've heard so many poor theological statements spitballing, we need to stop spitballing, we need to quote Scripture as it is, we don't need, are you with me today?
It is important that we understand it is his faith.
Stop taking ownership of something that was never yours.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 47:29
It's not your faith, it's his faith, and his faith is credited as righteousness, because your faith is not righteous, it's ungodly. It is a secular mind that begins with us, that makes everything about us, that takes ownership of everything. Everything in the world and everything that functions and moves finds its being in him, and he owns it. Finally, the third signal, then, "his faith is counted as righteousness," that justification is by faith alone, is the last phrase in verse 5. "His faith is counted as righteousness." Listen, not his works or his love or even his fruit of faith, but his faith alone is credited as righteousness. It is amazing. I'll close with this. It is amazing even when we're talking about justification, not by works but by faith, that in our conversation and the things we write and the things we discuss, we can turn justification into something that is about us, and we boast about it. When you take something that's God's and you make it yours, that's boasting. That's boasting. And can I say this? Can I say this, that counts things like wrath regarding sin. Are you with me? That's God's, not yours. That's God's.