Stories are important. Not just because they help us pass the time or they're an easy way to get the children down for bed. No, stories are important because they uniquely grip our imagination in a way that can shape how we think about the world. We generally know this to be true. And when we meet somebody for the first time, we might ask them a series of questions and get to know them. We might be so bold as to say, so what's your story? Another example maybe is the connections we find in family stories. We grow up hearing about how our parents or grandparents met, or maybe how they immigrated to a new country. These stories shape us. And for people who are adopted or from broken homes, there may be a deep felt need to know more about their past, more about where they came from, how they got to where they are now, more about their story. Stories do serve as a great way to stave off boredom past the time to get to know someone, but they also make us who we are. They shape our imagination, grip our lives, and draw us towards an end. This is the case too for people groups and nations. Rome in her early years gave herself an identity and a purpose by tracing her origins to Troy and the refugees scattered in the Trojan War. The Holy Roman Empire, a millennium later with Charlemagne, found her identity and purpose in connecting herself to Rome. Israel too, throughout her history, has found an identity and a purpose in a story. The story of God creating for himself a people and his work within them. And key to this story is the story of Abraham, his call from God and the promises that God gave him. Paul knew this. He himself had been a Pharisee, zealous for the traditions of his people. And he knew that as he wrote Romans, having just spent three chapters working through God's impartial judgment between Jew and Gentile, the universal condemnation of man under the law, and the wonderful offer of justification and redemption apart from the law by faith alone. Paul knew that the story of Abraham would naturally be raised as an objection to his teaching. He knew that having said that no one is righteous by works, he knew that having said that you're saved by faith alone, that the people and the Jews of his day would naturally bring up Abraham. And they would say, what about Abraham? What about his works? And so in our passage tonight, Paul brings up the story of Abraham. He does so to meet expected objections, yes, and to expand on his doctrine of salvation, yes, to remind us of our salvation by faith alone and to exhort us in our faith in Jesus Christ. He does all these things, yes, but he also does so to help us understand how we fit into the broader story of salvation. The gospel for Paul is not just about the salvation of individuals, though yes, this is important. But the gospel, that is that very theme at the heart of the book of Romans, is also a story of God's cosmic and redeeming work, a story that can't fully be understood without the story of Abraham. And so tonight we will, with Paul, rehearse Abraham's story, have God worked in his life, and we will see what significance, if any, there is in that story for us. We will quickly find that our story and Abraham's are intimately connected. and that spanning the centuries and the testaments, we will see that God's one covenant with mankind in Christ, we might be saved by faith. That is, we will see the principle of faith. We will also see the promise of faith, a promise that Abraham looked forward to and that we trust in now. And so as we turn to the principle and the promise of faith in the story of Abraham, Paul begins our passage, as he does many passages in Romans, with a rhetorical question. And he will do so throughout the book to expect objections, to expect arguments against him. And so he brings a rhetorical question and then gives an answer. And so in our passage, Romans 4 verse 1, he begins with the question, what then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? Paul, like I said, is expecting an objection that was raised from what he had just written in 321. And in answering this objection, he jumps right into the middle of the story of Abraham. And so for us to catch up a little bit, we need to rehearse a bit of Abraham's story and meet Paul in Genesis 15. So for a bit of context, catching us up in Abraham's story, we begin actually in Genesis 11, where we hear of Abraham first as Abram, a man who, having left his homeland, is now sojourning in a foreign land, and things don't really look good. We know from Joshua 24 that Abram's family background is one of idolatry and paganism. Abram's name, along with his brothers and other members of his family, all tell us something about their religion, that they likely worshiped a moon god and were from this polytheistic pagan context. But it's not only that, he's also from a broken family. One of Abram's brothers died young in the presence of their father. And Abram's father had died in a foreign land. On top of this, Abram was married to a barren woman. These factors conspire together to make Abram the most unlikely of main characters. And at the end of Genesis 11, we're left wondering just what's gonna happen. We're left concerned. And yet God calls to him in Genesis 12, and brings him into a new land, into Canaan, giving him the promises of nationhood and greatness. And Abram initially follows this call and enters the land. But by the time we get to Genesis 15, Abram has begun to question these promises. He's made a few unwise decisions. He's journeyed into Egypt. He's doubted the promises of God. And now in Genesis 15, we find him trying to find the easy solution to a problem when the word of God comes to him, offering him assurance and greater promises. It is here that Paul picks up in our passage and hones in on, and we hear of Abram's belief in God and his counting as righteous. Abram at this time was, in the time of Paul that is, for many Jews, the pinnacle of righteousness apart from the law. He was, as conceived, the perfect example of a Jew before there were Jews. He was a law keeper before the law happened. And as we've said, Paul getting to this point where he has said that there is no righteousness by law, no righteousness by works, would have just been utterly countercultural to this day. The general feeling of the Jews at Paul's time can be encapsulated by a quote from a contemporary writer. He writes, Abraham was perfect in all his deeds with the Lord and well-pleasing in righteousness all the days of his life. Jewish contemporaries of Paul thought Abraham was perfect according to the law. They thought that he was blameless. But Paul, in our passage, is emphatic that this is not the case. And in verse three, he begins to show why. And he writes, for what does scripture say? And quoting from Genesis 15 gives us the answer that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. That is, Abraham had faith and it was on this basis that he was saved. Now, this is important for it can be somewhat common for us to think today that people in the Old Testament were somehow saved differently than we are. That because Jesus hadn't come onto the scene yet, it couldn't have been that Jesus had saved them. And we begin to think that maybe they were saved by another means. Maybe they were saved by being a good person or by keeping the law. And while in some ways maybe this is an understandable way of thinking, it's deeply unhelpful and we should be avoided at all costs. For it disjoins the Old Testament and attempts us to unhitch our story from the story of the Old Testament of God's dealing with Israel. And implicitly encourages us to only find our story, our root in the New Testament. And this would have been utter insanity for the people that writing the Gospels. Not only was the Old Testament, the God-authored scriptures that Christ would have used, that the apostles in the early church would have used for their services, for their identity. But it is also crucial for our understanding of this grand story of redemption that we've been speaking of. The story of the Old Testament is crucial for us to understand the story of the gospel. And that is why Paul is so emphatic here. Abraham was saved by faith. It wasn't his works or his law keeping that saved him. It was that he heard God's word understood it, placed his hope in it, his confidence in God, despaired of his own abilities, and it was this that was counted to him as righteousness. It was trust in God and not works that saved Abraham. A point that Paul makes further in verses four and five. Look with me there as we trace Paul's thought. He writes, Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as gift, but as his due. and to the one who does not work but trusts, him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness." Paul here, explaining the significance of Genesis 15, which he's just quoted, places Abraham amongst the ungodly. Again, this would have just been utterly countercultural for his day. The idea of Abraham being amongst the ungodly would have been blasphemy of the extreme. And yet, that's exactly where Paul places him. In contrasting working with trusting, it helps us to understand this. Now, What happens here is a little bit unusual because Paul puts forward a metaphor and then splits the metaphor. And so what we would expect is that Paul would put forward working and then would emphasize not working. That Paul would almost emphasize laziness. This is emphatically not what he does here. But rather he splits his metaphor and so he contrasts working with trusting. And in so doing, offers a great remedy for our souls. For as fallen sinners, we are so prone to foolishness and sin that we can be tempted to make even faith a work. We can be tempted to find trust in our own labors, in something that we conjure up in ourselves. And so we're tempted to see faith as a subjective feeling or an emotion, something that can be stirred up or quickened. In some extreme situations, We might see faith or a certain amount of that as a prerequisite to Christian experience. This is not how Paul is speaking of it. We might actually even hear people speak of, give these well-meaning but deeply hurtful expectations of, you just need to have more faith. Paul, though, cuts across the tack of this thinking firmly when he contrasts working with trusting. And as one theologian explains the significance of this, if faith be an exercise of human competence or a disposition of character, it is no more the righteousness of God than is any other human thing. That is, if faith is something that is a personality trait or is something that we can do in our own works, then it is just as useless for us in our salvation as any other work that we might do. This thought is elaborated by Charles Hodge, who also says, but faith considered as an act is as much a work as prayer, repentance, almsgiving, or anything of the kind. And it is much an act of obedience to the law as the performance of any other duty. We are to be saved by or through faith, but never on the account of our faith or on the ground of it. Again, if we see faith as something that is of our own doing, of our own working, something that we have grasp of, then faith is as useful to us as works of the law. It's as if we are saying, I am saved by my ability to pray, or I am saved by my ability to give alms to the poor. Faith is not a work, but it's something that is utterly gift, and is a gift of our loving Father from first to last. Christ reminds us that faith as small as a mustard seed is enough to move mountains. And it is this principle of faith as the only ground of our righteousness that unites our story to that of Abraham's. This faith is of a great blessing. And Paul takes us there as he continues to rehearse this principle of faith. Having quoted from Genesis 15, in verses six to eight, he now moves to meditate on Psalm 32. which also speaks of the Lord as one who reckons to accounts. This time, however, he puts it in the negative, quoting David. In verse three, God accounted to Abraham as righteous, but here in the words of David, God is the one who will not count sins against the one who's forgiven. This idea of counting or reckoning is prominent throughout our entire passage and is what unites these two Old Testament passages in Paul's mind. Each of them then acts as a hermeneutical key for one another, for greater understanding and building a fuller picture. It is the one who believes in God, whose sins are forgiven, and who is the blessed man. And it is the blessed man who is the one who will be counted righteous by God, whose sins will be forgiven. This counting or reckoning is also key to this principle of faith. For God, in response to our faith, clears our accounts of debt, wipes the slate clean, and credits us with an alien righteousness, the righteousness of Christ. It's here again that we see that our faith is from faith, our salvation is from faith to faith. It is gift through and through. Here again, we see in verse nine, Paul anticipating another objection from a Jewish interlocutor. And he asks, Another rhetorical question saying, is this blessing then only for the circumcised? And in the following verses, we see Paul's response. Following Paul again, it is time for us to jump back into Abraham's story to see how we fit in. And in doing, we're reminded that like all good stories, the timing of events throughout the plot matters immensely. Last time we stopped in Genesis 15, where Abram had been counted as righteous in response to his faith. And now we jump in two chapters later to Genesis 17, where we see the next high point of Abram's narrative. When God establishes a covenant with Abram, giving him the new name Abraham and the sign of circumcision. At this point, Paul's argument is simple but profound. He reasons that because Genesis 15 is because before Genesis 17, that Paul was righteous before he was circumcised. The point being that his circumcision did not contribute to his righteousness, but rather his righteousness predates his circumcision. This again is another blow to the contemporary Jewish thought of his day. His circumcision and the following of the law does not contribute to your salvation. It was not that Abraham came to relate to God through his circumcision, but rather that circumcision was given as a sign and a seal of our reality, of his reality, of something that was already his. He was already saved. He'd already been counted as righteous. And now God, in order to remind him of these things and to put God's glory on display, gives him a visible sign and seal. This principle of faith then is for Abraham given outward expression in the sign of circumcision. But Paul goes on in verses 12 and 13, closing out this section on the principle of faith by telling us that circumcision was not only for Abraham, but for us also. and writes that the purpose was given to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised so that the 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 faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. Abraham was justified before he was circumcised and as such is the prototypical believer, the ungodly man who by God's grace enters into covenant. And yet he was circumcised that he might be the father of those born into covenant who received the sign of the covenant and walk in his steps by faith. By faith and by the sign and seal found in his circumcision, we see the principle of faith brought to a close. Abraham, like us, was saved by faith. And like us, his faith was given an outward seal. And while those outward seals might be different, by dispensation, his circumcision, our baptism, they reflect one reality and one covenant which finds its essence and its fulfillment in Christ Jesus. We find continuity here that not only is the story of the Old Testament united to ours in faith. But we also see continuity of God's faithful action. We see that throughout time, throughout millennia, throughout dispensations of his interaction with the world, God continues to seal faith with outward signs. And so while Abraham's sign looked forward to a promised seed that would be cut off for the salvation of the world, our sign in baptism, in continuity with Abraham's, looks forward to day when we will fully share in the death and resurrection of Christ, which is already ours. We have been, we have died with Christ. We will be raised with Christ again. And this principle of faith is shown both in the faith that saved Abraham and in the sign that sealed him. Having seen the principle of faith at work in Abraham's life and ours, we now turn to the second half of our passage and see the promise of faith. Thus far, through verses 1 through 12, we have seen the language of counting and reckoning that dominates the passage. And through 13 to 25, Paul will transition and the language of promise will dominate his language. This promise that will orient our story and will give an end to it. Like any good story, there's an ending, a promise that we look forward to and that we live in light of. Now, look with me in verse 13, in which we see the promise right out of the get-go. 13 reads, for the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Here we find that Paul is still reflecting on Abraham, meditating on his life, and pressing us into his story. But we find no verse quoted this time, and no real point in which we can drop back into that story. Rather, we find mention of a promise. A promise that Abraham would be heir to the world. A promise that, interestingly, doesn't appear on the pages of the Old Testament. Abraham is promised a name, he's promised an inheritance, he's promised a land, he's promised much by God. But nowhere in the Old Testament scriptures do we find Yahweh promising him that he would be heir to the world. But this conundrum shouldn't worry us. For Paul here is being a good teacher and has guiding us further in how we are to read the story of the Old Testament, how we're to read our story. For it was customary for the Jews at Paul's time to take all of the unique promises that God had given to Abraham and combine them. And in Paul's quotation, we see that in this, they did well. This was an area of Paul's Jewish tradition that didn't need correcting. He was able to take their synthesis and move forward with it. The Jews and Paul were able to say that Abraham was promised an heir of the world because they had seen all the different things and put the pieces together. They had seen the promise of a land. They had seen the promise of an inheritance as innumerable as stars, which assumedly takes a lot of space. And they had put all of these things together to say that Abraham would be heirs of the world. But just as soon as we see that there's some level of agreement, that Paul is able to take this idea and move with it from his Jewish contemporaries, we also see that Paul moves quickly in verses 13 to 15 to make clear that this word of promise did not come through the law. The law, rather than bringing life, rather than encouraging holiness or ushering in the nations, brought wrath and transgression, an idea that we heard in our call to worship tonight. The law that God had put forth as a guide to instruct his people had become a stumbling block, for they could not keep it, and in their failure and in their culpability had increased. God had always written his law on nature in the hearts of men, and so we see that even pagan kings in the Old Testament rebuke Abraham for doing things that ought not be done. There has always been a law in nature. However, when the law came with Moses and was written down and inscripturated, transgression was made even more and even more manifest, for the requirements of God were clearly put before them, and yet they still could not keep them. That which was supposed to create holiness wrought sin. And that, as verse 16 tells us, that is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be granted to all his offspring. And this is the truth. the wonderful truth that the word of promise is grasped only by faith. And this helps us again to understand our story. We relate to Abraham as our spiritual forefather, as one who was saved by faith, and we understand our own faith. Faith, as we've noted, isn't a mere subjective experience. It's not something that we can conjure up. It's not something we can labor in. It's not a leap in the dark. It's a resting and trusting, a truly passive experience that's given to us in the Lord. Here we're added that faith is not some sort of ethereal, undefined, random resting and trusting, but rather is a resting and trusting in a word of promise. Our faith and the faith of Abraham always finds its proper resting place in the promised word. The word of promise that told Abraham of a coming seed and a maneuverable offspring. This word of promise that Even as Jesus tells us, let Abraham to look forward to his day, a day when Christ would become incarnate and walk among us. And it is the word of promise that we rest in and trust in that tells us that Christ will come again. The Christian faith is one that is always promise oriented. And a promise will come by faith. Paul, having made this point loud and clear though, is not happy to settle with an easy ending. And in 17, moves us to tell us something about the God who gives this word of promise. God is one who gives life to the dead and calls existence into the things that do not exist. And it is here we find the ground for the next four verses of the passage. It is this reality that animated Abraham to believe against hope and to never weaken in faith, nor to ever waver in distrust, but to rather grow in his faith. It is the fact that God who offers us the word of promise is the God who called into existence the things that do not exist by that very word of promise. This word, this word of promise, is not like one of our promises, said half-heartedly, easily thwarted by the happenings of this world or a poorly managed schedule. No, this word, this word of promise, is profoundly sure, for it is itself a creative word. It is the word that calls forth creation. It is the word that covenanted with the patriarchs. It is the word that created and constituted the nation of Israel. And it was ultimately the word that was finally manifested in the person of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Latent in the word of promise to Abraham was the consummation of all God's works, all God's work of redemption, and all that God has promised finds its end in the person and work of Jesus Christ. G.K. Beale helpfully writes here that Paul sees the fulfillment of the promise of the inheritance to Abraham's seed as being granted in the resurrection of Christ, in whom the distinction between Jew and Gentile is transcended. The apostle understands the ethnic dimension of God's promise remains, but its fulfillment comes, however, through a fresh act of God, the creator and redeemer of ethnic Israel. God, who offers us a word of promise in Christ Jesus, is the God that created the world by his word, who sustains the world by his word, and who, if need be, could raise up children from Abraham from the very stones before us. Again, this is for Paul what motivates the entire rest of Abraham's actions. Verses 18 reads, in hope, he believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations. And in verse 19, he tells us that he did not weaken in his faith when he considered his own body. And in 20, we see that neither did distrust make him waver concerning the promises of God, but rather he grew strong in his faith and gave God glory. Abraham's faith was a living faith animated by word of promise. It was a faith that produced works and led to a life of obedience as ours ought to. This is why the Apostle James can say that Abraham was saved by his works. It's not that James is speaking of works before the law, but rather that he's speaking of works that stem from an evidence of faith. The principle of faith that unites the Testaments and gives us a father in Abraham, a father who has laid a path for us to walk, a path of obedience and a path that glorified God, trusting and resting in the promise of faith. Stories are important. They tell us who we are, and they tell us where we come from. And when it comes to the broad, redemptive story of God's work in this world, they help us to know how we ought to live, how we ought to die. Christian, the story of Abraham is part of your story. And like him, we live as sojourners in a foreign land. We live knowing and trusting in the word of promise and not despairing to things seen, but looking in faith to that word of promise and to things unseen. For we know that like all great stories, our story has an ending. An ending in which when Christ returns at last, our wandering will be over, our homeland will be reached, and we will be with Abraham and his promised seed. We will be heirs of the world. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you are faithful from first to last. And as we tonight reflect on the history of your people, on the story of your redeeming work, we ask that you, God, would hold us fast in faith, that we might find all our hope and trust in Jesus. And having done so, enter into that Sabbath rest that awaits your people at last.