I'd like you to open your Bibles to Romans 4 is where we're going to spend most of our time. But if you actually want to begin at Romans chapter 1, we will be looking back there in a moment. Romans 4, and I didn't make a note of what page that is in the Red Pew Bible. It's usually in the bulletin, so you can use that to find it. Romans chapter 4 here in a moment. A couple of comments before we begin this sermon. One is just an explanation of its context. I wanted to explain the context of this sermon in light of where we have been in our sermon series. We have been going through the book of Genesis now for, what, about two years, working our way, rather systematically, with some breaks through the book of Genesis. And it wasn't all that long ago that we were talking about Abraham. And here in Romans 4, we're going to see Paul, the Apostle Paul, takes the faith of Abraham, takes what Abraham believed, and ties it back around to the resurrection. And so it was, I thought, fitting that we would take this chapter and use it for our Easter Sunday in the midst of a Genesis sermon series. That we would consider how it is that the resurrection impacts what it is we believe. and the faith of Abraham to which we hold. I also want to explain a little bit something about, you may not be even noticing or seeing it, but I didn't bring with me this morning into the pulpit my usual notes. I have no papers here. I will do this just to prove it, you know. Okay, nothing there. I don't have my tablet with me in the usual way. And if you've been here for any length of time, you will know that every so often I come into the pulpit this way, and it's usually for the same reason as it is this morning. I want to encourage you to worry less about the details of anything said in this sermon and to consider the key idea, the big picture, the main message. Now, if you're a note taker, I'm not going to prohibit, we're not going to police it. If you take notes, fine. but I would encourage you to not worry about, what did he just say? What was that detail? What was that? Catch the big picture. And to avoid my tendency to get caught up in certain details, I wrote a sermon and I left it in my office this morning purposely so that I would be driven by the main theme, the big picture, so that we would be focused together in that direction. So there's a couple of background pieces of information. Now I want to share one more piece of information that gives us some context for Romans chapter 4. So here's a little bit of historical backdrop that's important to understanding the Book of Romans. There was in the church in Rome a divide between Jews and Gentiles. We have a tendency today to think of the Christian faith as a Gentile faith. But we must remember that in the early days of Christianity, it was overwhelmingly dominated by Jews. Jews who held to their Messiah, who saw Jesus of Nazareth as the one promised by the prophets. And they believed him. But in the 40s AD, so this is early on in church history, actually before any of the New Testament was written, Emperor Claudius evicted all Jews from the capital city, Rome. And so for a time, that burgeoning young church there in Rome fell under the control exclusively of Gentile believers, all of the Jewish believers having been driven out of the city. After Claudius' death, when those Jews began to return to Rome, conflict began to occur in the Roman Church. By the way, I get a kick out of Christians nowadays. When you ask them, like, what kind of church do you go to? They're like, oh, I don't subscribe to any denomination. We just want to be a New Testament church. I want to say to them, really? Like Corinth, where they tolerated sexual sin? Or do you want to be like Galatians, where they believed in works? Or do you want to be like the church in Rome, where they couldn't get along because of Jews and Gentiles? Folks, the New Testament church was far from perfect. It was a deeply flawed church. But Christ loved her anyway and died for her. And we can learn lessons from that church. So in Rome there was this Jewish-Gentile divide, conflict going on, this power struggle within the church. And you'll see it in every page of the book of Romans, at least in the early pages of the book of Romans. Look with me at Romans 1, Romans 1 verse 16, a famous verse. for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes now notice what he says to the Jew first and also to the Greek and he's not merely noting an historical sequence whether rather he's emphasizing inclusion He's saying to his fellow Jews, yes, salvation may have come to you first, but your place as the special people of God was never to the exclusion of the others, but rather for their blessing and inclusion. And he says, listen, not just Jews, but also Greeks, Gentiles, non-Jews could be saved. And notice his stress on the fact that all come to salvation through the same gospel. We then turn over to chapter 2, and we look at verse 9. Chapter 2, verse 9, there will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. Now, many of the Jews would have had no problem believing in the judgment of God, but they would have seen themselves as recipients of honor and glory and blessing, and the Gentiles as the recipients of distress and tribulation. And Paul says, that's not how it's going to break out. It's not going to break out along ethnic lines. God is going to judge differently. You are all under the same threat or hope of the judgment of God. Continuing now at the bottom of chapter 2, look at verse 28. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. And here Paul begins to say, listen, you Jews, you think you should be leaders in the church because of your Jewishness. You're circumcised. You keep the law. You don't eat pork. You do all these other things. And he says, that's not what makes you a Jew. It's not about your circumcision, the outward things. It's about what's going on inside, what the Spirit has done inside of you. And notice that comment, his praise is not from man, but from God. What he's saying there is, listen, any man can judge a Jew outwardly. Any human can look at a child and go, circumcised, not circumcised. But only God can look inwardly and see whether you believe in the hope of the promise that circumcision marks. In chapter 3, we have in verse 9, what then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all, for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Gentiles alike, are under sin. As it is written, no one is righteous, no, not one. He's obliterating any idea that there should be a division between the Jews and Gentiles in Rome. Now, Paul knows his audience, and he understands that they're going to have a hard time with this message, that there is nothing they do that makes them special in God's eyes. So how is he going to convince them? If what he's said so far is not going to get it done, what will? And it is in chapter 4 that he appeals to the archetypical Jew, the Jew of all Jews. No one could be more Jewish than Abraham himself. Abraham is the father of the Jewish people. Let me explain to you from Abraham the truth of the gospel of Jesus. And so we pick up now in chapter 4, verse 1. What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. The prophet Isaiah, God warned the prophet Isaiah, I am Yahweh, that is my name. I will not share my glory with another. Paul is saying, listen, we know nobody can boast before God. There is no boasting before God. Our God will not tolerate that. But if it's by works and there is a ground for boasting, so it can't be by works because our God doesn't tolerate boasting. So what's going on? Verse two, for if Abraham was just, I'm sorry, he had something to boast about before God. Verse three, for what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. That was our Old Testament reading this morning. Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. Now, we skipped over this, but back in chapter 3, what does Paul say? Are the wages of sin? But Jesus spoke of Abraham as living. He talked about how God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But God is not the God of the dead. He's the God of the living. Jesus spoke of Abraham in the present tense. But the wages of sin is death. Obviously, Abraham didn't get what he worked for. Instead, he got some gift. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. And now he appeals to another archetypal Jew. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? For we say, remember, now he's back to that whole question of Jew and Gentile. For 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. Our Old Testament reading from Genesis 15 comes before, by quite a few years. Genesis 17 is where the sign of circumcision is put in place. But it's in Genesis 15 that Abraham is declared righteous. by faith. And Paul now brings that out. It was not after, but before he was circumcised, he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. 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. You see the argument Paul's making, saying we all are saved in the same way by believing what Abraham for the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world. By the way, offspring there in the original Greek biblical language is singular. It can be lost in English. it's singular, hence the pronoun singular he. For the promise to Abraham and his singular offspring that he, singular, would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherence 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. If you want to live, dear Jew, by the law, you are in big trouble. But if you're willing to go back to the promise given to Abraham, back before the law was given, then there is hope. That is why it depends on faith. I'm in verse 16. in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his 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." Notice how Paul is now including the Gentiles. As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations. In the presence of God, in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence of things that do not exist. Paul is saying to his audience, listen, it was never supposed to be about Jews only. Abraham was always to be the father of many nations, not just the father of the Jews. It can't possibly rest in your Jewishness that it matters. Because that wouldn't keep the promise to Abraham. Moreover, if you're having a hard time believing that God can bring Gentiles in as children of Abraham, remember, this is the God who raises the dead and calls things out of nothing. It ain't a big deal for Him to turn Gentiles into children of Abraham. In hope, Abraham believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations. As he had been told, so shall your offspring be. He 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 unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith and he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Notice the growing strong in the faith is all coming after it's counted to him as righteousness. That is why his 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. It 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. Let's pray. Dear Spirit of God, author of this passage, writer of all of history, work in our present time right now an understanding of what is being taught here. Through my lips, let my words be faithful to your intent, and let our hearts be soft in receiving what you have to say, that we would hold to the faith of Abraham and be justified by the resurrected Jesus, in whose name we pray, amen. What does the faith of Abraham mean to you? What do you think of when you hear the word faith? Many people tend to process that in a subjective manner. In other words, it's the subject of the sentence that has the important thing, the faith, going on. The faith of Abraham is all about Abraham, the quality of Abraham's faith. And many will use an illustration. I've heard this illustration in quite a few different sermons, different preachers, different churches over the years. Perhaps you've heard it as well. There is a Jean, and I will not get it, oh, Gravelet, I believe was his name, Jean Gravelet. He was a Frenchman, lived in the mid-1800s. He was better known as the Great Blondin. He was a tightrope walker extraordinaire. And he made his name by crossing Niagara Falls. It's actually amazing. You should read about it sometime. It's pretty wild what he did. And the first time he went across the falls, he got the rope strung up. They had some difficulty getting the cable pulled across the falls, stretching it out. They couldn't get it pulled tight. So there was this big sag in the middle. And the guy wires that were supposed to stabilize the rope couldn't reach out to the middle. And there was all this drama. And people are taking all these bets on whether he's going to plummet to his death. And the vast majority of the money said he would. He crossed successfully. Despite the mist and the spray, the wet rope, despite all the winds that howl around that gorge, he got across successfully. He actually went back a second time on that June day in 1859. As that summer went on, he crossed repeatedly. And on one occasion, he got across and he asked his audience, do you think I could carry a man on my back safely to the other side? And they all cheered. They all shot a hand in the air. Yes, you can do it. And then he asked, who will get on my back? And all the hands went down, and nobody said yes. And many a sermon will point to that as an illustration that they lacked faith, that they did not have what it took to believe him. Is that the faith we're talking about here? Is that a valid illustration of Christian faith? Imagine for a moment that one brave soul, stop and think about how I just described them. that one brave soul said, I will. I believe you can do it. I will climb on your back and go across. He gets on Blondin's back. Blondin takes him across. They get safely to the other side. What's going to happen? Every reporter from every newspaper there is going to inundate the man with a bazillion questions. They're all going to write articles the next day in their papers about this brave volunteer, this courageous man. Perhaps he was from Ohio, and they'll talk about the brave buckeye who got on Blondin's back and rode across the falls. They will speak of his faith, of his confidence, of his assurance that Blondin would carry him to safety. They will brag and boast about the man who rode. And how will he handle it when he gets home to his small town in Ohio? As he's sitting in the tavern and his buddies are all slapping him on the back and congratulating him and buying him yet another round, he will boast. I'm not afraid to say, gents, I was scared, but I got on his back. I had confidence, and what a thrilling ride it was. You see, if that's what we mean by faith, then there's grounds for boasting, is there not? Isn't there something in that man that made him different from everyone else in that crowd that day? Isn't there something about him? A fearlessness, perhaps. A confidence, perhaps. A carelessness, perhaps. But there is something in him that made him get on the back of the great Blondin. Remember, it didn't actually happen, but imaginary. Got on the back and carried across the falls. But our text says there can be no boasting in your relationship to God. That is not the faith of Abraham. That is not what this is talking about. That is not at all a good illustration of saving faith. It is an excellent illustration, perhaps, of the spiritual gift of faith that Paul will talk about in his letter to the Corinthians. Those who have that extra measure of faith, who are able to do those extraordinary things. But that's not what we're talking about here with saving faith. For in that, there is an element of boasting. So what are we talking about? Well, imagine on that same day, in that same crowd, there is a woman quietly standing there. Back when the first time, when Blondin crossed, and all the papers were talking about it, what's coming up, and looking forward to it, and all the people were speculating about whether he would die, fall to his death, what would happen to him, she thought to herself, what a fool. How stupid is that? This Frenchman cannot possibly comprehend the whipping winds in and around Niagara Falls. This Frenchman cannot possibly comprehend how slick his rope is going to be from all that mist coming up. He is a fool. He's never going to make it. And she stayed home, not wanting to go to see that. And then she reads in her paper, he made it twice that day, that first time. And then a few weeks later, she reads again that this crazy Frenchman has crossed another time. He ended up crossing on eight days. I think a total of like 14 total crossings there and back, eight different days in the summer of 1859. So let's imagine that on one of them, she finally decides to go and see it for herself. And it happens to be the day he asks for volunteers. And she lowers her hand and will not volunteer. Is it because she doesn't believe that he can do it? Is that really what we're saying? Is there no other possible reason she might not volunteer? Deep inside, she's saying to herself, I believe. I think he can do it. I've seen the evidence. He's gone back and forth so many times now. Over the course of that summer, the great Blondin, with each crossing, ramped it up a bit more. So the very first time he got midway out on the rope, shocked everybody on shore, he actually sat down on the rope, dangling his feet over the Niagara River below, pulled a rope out of his costume, lowered the rope, waved the Maid of the Mist over underneath him, He had a friend, his manager, was staged already on the Maid of the Mist. He lowered his rope. His manager tied a bottle of champagne. He lifted it up, and he drank some champagne sitting on the rope in the middle of the river. One of the later times he crossed, he took a table and chair with him. He set the table up on the rope, set the chair down, sat on the chair, put his feet up on the table to show how relaxed he was on the rope over the river. On one occasion, he crossed, he took with him a stove, lit it out on the rope over the river, cooked an omelet, and lowered it down to a passenger on the Maid of the Mist so that they could have breakfast. By late in that summer, this woman who had been a doubter in the early part of the year, it's easy to imagine her now being a believer, isn't it? She's seen it. The evidence is all there. This guy can do it. So why doesn't she raise her hand? Well, a proper woman may not have anticipated the invitation. She may not have worn all the right petticoats and whatnot that she could risk being out there in that wind. That would be improper. That's not because she doesn't trust him. Perhaps she is worried about her own fear of heights. I will get scared and let go. It's not because she doesn't trust him. Perhaps she's worried that she will, in fact, be the problem. I'm gonna panic, and I'm gonna stiffen up, and I'm gonna grab so tight a hold of him, he won't be able to balance, and it'll be my fault we plunged to our deaths. It's not for a lack of faith in him. Her inaction is not because she lacks faith. You see, this is the problem when we picture faith this way. The faith of Abraham is not a gift in Abraham. It is not a quality within Abraham that made him different from everyone else. When Paul references the faith of Abraham, that's not what he's talking about. Rather, he's talking about an objective faith, not the subjective, not the faith that was the, if Abraham is the subject of the sentence, the faith Abraham has, the amount of belief he can generate. Rather, he's talking about the object of Abraham's faith, what he believed in. You see, in the final analysis, it's not a question of how much you believe, but what you believe in. It doesn't matter how much you believe that chemical will cure your headache. If it's arsenic, it's going to kill you. And it doesn't matter how much you believe if what you believe in isn't trustworthy. The faith of Abraham is the Nicene Creed we read right before the sermon. The faith of Abraham is the object, what he held to, not how well he held to it. You see, while you might lack Abraham's faith, you don't lack the faith of Abraham. You believe what he believed. He, as the book of Hebrews, our New Testament reading showed us, was looking forward to a hope to come. He recognized that God was not going to fulfill all of the promises in his lifetime on this earth. And he realized that he had to look forward to the city of God that was to come. Abraham put his hope in that future that God had promised. And that's what justified him before God. That's why he was counted righteous. Not because he had some extra measure of beliefness inside of him, but because he was looking at the right thing. the right way. When we look to Christ, the offspring singular of Abraham, the inheritor of the world promised in this text, when we look to Christ, we are looking to the right thing, to the right person, to the right place. When our hope is in Him and in Him alone, when we're not counting on our Jewishness or our Presbyterianness or the excellence of our doctrine or the precision with which we can state complex theology, when we are not hoping in our good works at the soup kitchen or in the way that we treat our spouse, all of those are good things, But when we're not hoping in those, but rather hoping in Jesus, we have the faith of Abraham. For God himself, Jesus himself, said, Abraham saw my day and rejoiced. Abraham's hope was our hope. Abraham's faith is our faith. And that's what justifies you. not how well you hold to it, not how perfectly you believe it, not how rarely you doubt. We've been learning a new song here over the last couple of months called Hymn of Heaven. There's a great line in there that talks about how we sing the songs of faith through doubts and fears. I love that line. Because it's not the quality or the condition of how I feel in that moment that determines whether or not I'm saved. It's that Jesus died for me, that he was given up for my trespasses. That's the thing that saves me, even if I'm having a hard time, even if I'm doubting, even if I'm unsure. Imagine that woman. is standing on the edge of Niagara. It's the end of the summer and her faith is fully justified. Why? Because on August 14th, 1859, Harry, I will not remember his last name, Concord, that's not it. Anyway, Colcord, Colcord. Harry Colcord, he was the great Blondin's manager. He climbed. on Blondin's back and was carried across Niagara on a tightrope. They both rise safely to the other side, and Blondin proved that he could carry a person. This woman's faith, quiet, unassuming, just standing there in the crowd. She didn't raise her hand to go across, but she believed he could do it. And as summer came to an end, her faith was justified, because he did it. He proved it. You see, this is where these analogies fall short. Even Blondin himself accused people of not really believing him, but he doesn't know hearts and souls. He doesn't know what's going on in people's minds. Your Savior does. The one who has promised to carry you to the other side does know what's going on inside of you because he's bringing it about. Faith is the evidence of things unseen. He's the one generating that faith within you. He knows you believe even in the midst of your doubts. He knows the object of your faith is His work. And so you stand on the edge of Niagara and come to the end of your strength and fall over the edge. You're not going to perish eternally as your sins deserve. You're not going to be dashed on the rocks below because you're going to be scooped up and carried safely to the other side of Jordan and set on the other bank. Not because you had this great faith that caused you to throw your hand in the air and volunteer and jump on his back. Not because of something in you that might stir you to boast. But because the one who's straddled that gulf between man and God is faithful to get all over to the other side who will hope in him. You see, that's where Paul comes back around to the resurrection. That's where he concludes this chapter on the resurrection. He says, folks, if we're having a hard time believing our belief, if we're having a hard time with faith in our faith, if we're doubting our Christianity, if you're wrestling with over what, in the church there in Rome, you're wrestling over what it really means to be a Christian or to have the right leadership capacity or anything else in this church, here's what it comes down to. Believe in Jesus, and that's been justified. You're hoping in this man named Jesus, You think he's the right answer. How do you know? God thinks he's the right answer. God stepped in and overturned the verdict that man brought against him. God raised him from the dead. He's been raised for our justification. His resurrection proves your hope in him was right and valid. Just as Blondin carrying his manager across on August 14th proved that that woman was right to believe he could, So it is that when Jesus came out of that grave, all who had hoped in him, all the way back to Abraham and before him, they were justified. You've been shown to be right. Your faith is wise. It's well-placed. That's a warranted faith. That's not a leap of faith. That's not a blind faith. That's not jumping out into the vast eternity of space and hoping that there's a God out there who's going to catch you. That's looking at the evidence in history and going, if God can do that, then there's nothing for me he can't do. The faith of Abraham is an objective faith, a faith placed in the truth of who God is and what he's accomplishing and accomplished through Jesus. That's the faith to which we hold. That's the faith that was made valid at the resurrection on the first Lord's Day. That's the faith by which we are justified because God raised Jesus from the dead. Let's pray. Lord, it is easy to look at our doubts and our fears and think we might be lost, that we might perish, that we might fall to the rocks below. Help us to take our eyes off from ourself, even off from our faith, and place them on you. Help us to see in the resurrection your stamp of approval on Jesus, and thus your validation and justification of our hope in him. Let us be a people who do not hope in our hope or believe in our belief, who are not assured by the qualities within us, but are assured because of what Christ has done. Let that hope ooze out of every aspect of our being. Let it spill off our tongue in every conversation. to come out of the pores of the very essence of who we are so that all who know us will know about Him. We pray this in His name.