The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 9: Saving Faith

Episode Date: March 11, 2018

Following Jesus starts with the first step of FAITH (not works) and is followed by a lifelong journey of one step at a time. What is your next step?

Well, good morning, everybody. How are you doing? Good. Hey, in your worship guide, it says that Jobi Martin is preaching this morning, our pastor, I am not Pastor Jobi Martin. A little more hair here, a little less hair here. My name is Adam Flint. I am one of the pastors on staff, Pastor Multification, church planting. And Thursday, handful of hours for our Thursday service, I get a text from Jobie that says, I'm sick, you're up. So, the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and said preach the word, be ready, in season, out of season. So get ready. Buckle up. We're going to go this morning. But here's the deal. I'm going to need a little help from you. All right? I know it's daylight savings time. And so this is going to have to be an us thing this morning. All right? So need a little help. You're going to have to encourage us along the way. Talk back is great. Love it. So we have been in a series on the book of Romans. And when the Apostle Paul writes to the book of Romans. He's writing for a very specific purpose. Now, he's for sure writing to them to say, hey, I want to explain some things to you about faith in Jesus, but he has this, he has a real reason for

writing to them. The Apostle Paul is about 60 years old at the time he writes this letter. And he writes to the church in Rome. And at 60 years old, Paul is writing to the church in Rome because he wants to go on a mission trip to Spain. 60-year-olds. Go on a mission trip. Pick Spain. Why not? I mean, go somewhere for the sake of the gospel.

Now, I don't know if you've ever written a letter to raise support for ministry. About 10 years ago, I planted a church and, well, maybe less than that. And this church got behind us and supported us. And I had to write a letter. I wrote a letter to our elders, and I said, I would love for you to support. the church that we are planting. Now, when you do that, here's what you typically do. You write a letter and you go, let me tell you all the amazing things that are going to happen. Like, let me tell you about all the plans. Let me tell you about all the ways God is working. Let me tell you about my

vision. You sort of bow up a little bit and go, you should have confidence in me. You should invest in this thing. Now, what is so interesting about the Apostle Paul is he doesn't do that. He just starts right in on what is the gospel. And he just starts to write about how you and I were created in the image of God. We were designed to have this face-to-face perfect relationship with God. But then the wheels come off the entire thing. We sin. We break that relationship with God.

I mean, because God is holy and righteous and just, and we are not holy and righteous and just. We can't stand face-to-face with God. And we have a broken relationship with God. and we can't fix that relationship with God. And so God sends his son, Jesus Christ, to live the life that we should have lived, lives without sin,

die the death that we should have died, paid the penalty for our sin. And then God, by the power of the spirit, raised him from the dead, resurrected him, to new and everlasting life. And then he invites us in to a relationship, brings us back to a face-to-face relationship with God by grace through faith.

And so Paul writes this. He's going, you want to support me. You want to get on board with this mission. Do it because for the sake of the gospel. Now, as he writes to them, he begins, it's great, he begins to anticipate all of these questions, these objections, these pushbacks that his readers and his hearers will have. And so one of the objections that he starts to address and he anticipates that they're going to ask is they go, okay, Paul, that's great. You keep talking. Grace, grace, grace, grace. It's all about grace. It's all about this free, unmerited, unearned favor of God. But Paul, what about the Old Testament? Like Paul, what about all of this? Because it seems like, Paul, you keep talking about Jesus and there's this free grace in Jesus, but what about all those rules?

what about all those religious laws? What about all the Ten Commandments? Don't I have to keep those ten? Don't I have to keep all the religious laws? Don't I have to work in order to earn my salvation? Because Paul, it sure seems like that it's great and wonderful and nice in Jesus, but it almost seems like God was a different God in the Old Testament. Have you ever thought that?

Have you ever thought where God seems to be really big into us, doing really good things in order to earn favor with them. But then you flip over and God has become this sweet, gentle, nice, kind of hippie God in the New Testament. And you're like, wait, okay, hold on. Paul, is it two different religions? Or Paul, is God two different gods? Or did God just decide to change his mind? And if God changed his mind, if God was really into us doing good works in order to earn our

salvation and then changes mind for Jesus and in Jesus, we get a free gift of life by faith. Could God change his mind again? Like, if it's not the same all the way through, if it's different, what if I place my trust in this grace thing now and then God changes the plan later on or he goes back or he's different now? And Paul goes, that's a really great question. Let me answer that for you. and he does this in such a brilliant way.

Paul brings up two great, huge examples of the Jewish faith for us to answer his question. And so the first one, he jumps to in Romans chapter 4, verse 1, he says, What then shall we say was gained by Abraham? Now, if you are Jewish and you are asked, who are some of the heroes of your faith? the Jewish religion. You would have said all kinds of different people, but for sure, one of the biggies you would have named was Abraham.

You would have run back and gone, oh, you want to know about what it means to kind of be in our religion and believe what we believe. Let's go back and talk about Abraham, and Paul goes super, that is perfect. Let's talk about Abraham for a minute. What Sheldon, we say, was gained by Abraham. Our forefather, according to the flesh.

For if Abraham was justified, now that word justified literally just means to be made right, as if you haven't sinned, just if I'd never sinned. So for if Abraham was, it was as just as if he had never sinned. By works, he has something to boast about. But not before God. He said, if this whole system was about works and Abraham was justified by his God, good works before God. He gets saved because of his good works. He'd have something to step up in front of God before and go, hey God, I'm here. You should be so blessed to have me. Aren't you so lucky that I'm now here with you in your presence? Because I did all of these great things. You, God, are blessed to

now have me. And Paul goes, doesn't work that way. Let's talk about Abraham, he says. So if you go back to the story of Abraham, it's in Genesis chapter 12. When the story starts, his name is Abram. He's about 75 years old. He's married to, her name is Sarai at the time. It becomes Sarah. And Abram and Sarai are living in this land called Err, and then they live in Haran. And they're just fun-loving pagans.

Like they're just, they know nothing about God. They know nothing about religion. They know nothing about faith. just doing fun-loving Vegas sort of stuff. They're bumping along. They got their life. They're just trying to get all they can get, do all that they can do. And they're just living their life on their own terms. And then in Genesis chapter 12, verse 2, God shows up to Abram and he says, Abram, I want you to go. And I'm going to send you to a land. And I am going to bless you. and I'm going to make your name so great,

and I'm going to bless you to be a blessing, and all the nations of the world are going to be blessed towards you because of you. So here's the question. What did Abram do in order to receive that kind of blessing? Absolutely nothing. He didn't do anything. It was all by grace.

And then the story fast-forward's a little bit further, and the plot sort of thickens, and it gets even better because Abram and Sarai go off and they're going to this land and they cross through Egypt and as they're in Egypt this incredible famine breaks out and they're there and while they're there Abram looks at Sarai and he's like hey babe listen um you're really beautiful and if the king and princes find out that we're married it's going to go really bad for me they're going to kill me and then they're going to take you away so here's my plan babe why don't you tell everybody that we're brother and sister now ladies wives if your husband brought that sort of plan to

you i mean you would be mad you would be no no no no that is not the way this marriage thing works that is not a wife you save my neck it actually men works the other way around but here's what's crazy a couple chapters later right on the heels of this whole episode in their lives god shows back up in genesis chapter 15 and he goes hey abram he calls him abraham at this point Abraham and sarah he goes come here bud pulls him up he goes you see all the stars in the sky count him count all the stars in the sky. He's probably in his 90s at this point. He goes, I can't.

And he goes, that's right. You are going to have more descendants than all of the stars in the sky. Now, what did Abraham do in order to earn that kind of blessing? They had been childless for 90-something years of their life. He had turned his wife over, lied about his wife to save his own neck

during a famine in a foreign land. And God comes on the heels of that and goes, hey, remember that promise I made to you before? I just want to reiterate that thing and double down on it. What did he do? Nothing. It's by grace. And the story happens over and over and over and over and over again

in the life of Abraham. And Abraham becomes this whole story. He becomes, he is a man that the Apostle Paul wants to pick up and go, you want to talk about, is it salvation by works? Was it salvation by works? No, it has never been. It never was supposed to be salvation by works. And then he says, so, verse three, Paul writes, for what does scripture say? Now that's a great question. Let's just sit there for a second. Like this is not the point of. the message, but this is a great question to ask yourself. Like when you're wondering about God,

and you're like, I think this, I don't know, I have doubts, I have questions, I have fears, I wonder, I'm not really sure, I have the question that, what does scripture say? What does the Bible say? When you've got, you're facing questions about relationships, what does the Bible say? About money? What does the Bible say? About a job, about school, about anything. What does, what does the scripture say? This is the question we ought to be asking ourselves. Because we all have some system of authority in our lives. And it'll either be God's word or my word that ultimately becomes the authority in my life. And this question leads us to the point to say, I am not the ultimate authority. I don't know everything. But God, what do you think about this? What do you have to say about?

about this and in my life. So for what does Scripture say? And then he quotes Genesis 15 chapter 6. I mean chapter 15 verse 6. What does scripture say? Quote, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Paul goes back and grabs the words out of Genesis chapter 15 on the heels of God blessing and promising Abraham. And he says to him, Abraham believed. He believed. To believe is not this shallow, simple, easy little thing. To believe is to believe, to have faith is to know some information about something or someone.

To say that's true. And then to actually rest the weight of your own. life, your eternity on it. It's actually believing on is the language of the Bible. So I find myself in airplanes all the time. Right? Here's what faith isn't. Faith is not, you know, I've heard some things about airplanes flying. I've actually seen them in the sky, so I think they can fly, but I'm not getting on that airplane. That's not faith. Faith is, I've heard some things about airplanes flying. I see them flying. I see them flying. and then you get on the plane, sit in the seat, and they lock the door, and in that little tin can,

some of you are getting real nervous right now. Stop talking about it. And then they fire you off the ground. Because you put your life, you rested your life, you trusted, you had faith. And he says, Abraham believed, trusted, who? God. He believed God. Abraham did not have faith in his faith.

Abraham didn't say, you know what? I believe that I can muster up enough belief in order for God to be pleased with me. He put his trust in the person of God, the God who made a promise that I will send you a boy. I will send you a son when there looks like there is no way for this thing to happen. No way for this little boy to be born. I'm going to send you a little baby boy that is going to be miraculous. And through this little baby, all the nations of the world are going to be blessed. Not church.

Doesn't that sound familiar? Abram puts his trust, puts his faith, rests his life on a promise that points to Jesus Christ. And so Abraham believed God and it was counted to him. Now, this word counted. You should circle it. It actually happens seven times in these couple little sentences right here. And anytime somebody writes to you a handful of sentences and uses the same word over, over, over, over, over, over, over again, you might go, huh, that's important. And so Paul says he believed God, Abraham believed God and it was counted. This is actually an accounting word. It means to credit to your account. It's a banking term.

I have two younger brothers. My youngest brother lives in Brooklyn. His name's Peter. And a few months ago, I bought, I don't, there was some present for somebody in our family, and I bought it on behalf of my brothers. And so Peter shoots me a text message, and he's like, hey, thanks for buying the gift.

Can I Venmo you the money? And I was like, hey man, I don't speak Brooklyn hipster. Like, 43-year-old Jacks, please. I don't, you know. He's like, oh, no, no, no. Venmo's just this, it's this great little app. I put some money in it, and then it gets credited to your bank account. It is counted, you don't have something, and it is credited to you. And because Abraham believed God, something was credited to his life account, his spiritual account, his relational account with God that he didn't have.

he was empty of before. And so he believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Not as his own perfection. He was void. He was empty on his own of righteousness in his account. But righteousness literally means just to have that right relationship with God, a right standing with God. And so Abraham believed God and in believing God,

and in believing God, God credited the very essence of who God was, his righteousness to Abraham. He gives something to Abraham that is alien in and of Abraham's self. Now, this is really, really good news, that by faith you and I can have a right relationship with God. Now, what is so genius and so brilliant about this example, that Paul gives with Abraham is that it predates the Ten Commandments.

Abraham lived before there ever were any religious rules and laws. None of the 623 laws in the Old Testament didn't even exist at that point. The Ten Commandments didn't exist at that point. So the question is, how do you get made right with God if it is based on rules and lawkeeping, if there are no rules and laws to keep? and Paul says it's Abraham he believed God salvation never came through works it always came by faith we have always forever

God is not two different gods God has not changed his mind from the very beginning of the time God set up this whole thing in order that you and I would be right with him based on faith not by our works So in verse four, he says now, this is going to give kind of an example. Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as it's due. So, right, if you work, if you have a job, you do your work and then you expect to get a paycheck, don't you? Guys, young guys, this is awesome. You should listen to this. You work, you get a paycheck, move out of your parents' house, you get your own, place and then you get a girlfriend. See, I told you earlier, I'm going to need you to talk back,

ladies and single women. That was your chance to be like, yes, thank you. I went to bat for you. All right? There you go. Tim Keller, who's a pastor up in New York City, he wrote about this. I wrote this down. He says, if salvation is by works, then God is in my debt. salvation is not a gift, then God is obliged to save us. I don't know about you. I'm not sure I want to stand before God and go, hey, God, you are obligated to me. You owe me. I did some things and now, God, you are in my debt, just as your employer is obliged to pay you. And that, of course, Listen to what he says, runs against the whole tenor of the Bible. And then he says, parentheses, including Genesis 15, 6, including Abraham believed God,

and it was counted to him as righteousness. My daughter, Sophie, she's about 12 years old. She came to Kristen a few weeks ago. And she's like, hey, Mom, I want a new running shirt. And Kristen's like, well, if you need a new running shirt, we'll get you a new running shirt. What do you want? And Sophie's like, well, good thing you asked. She goes back and gets, she's like, I want this running shirt.

Kristen looks at it. It's like a $40 lulu, whatever you girls wear shirt these days. And Kristen is like, Sophie, you are 12. You do not get a $40 lemon shirt. Like you don't, I'm 25. I don't. You like that, right? Wait, wait, hold on.

There you go. You wait, you know. She's like, no, I don't wear those. You don't get to wear it. No, you don't get a 40 that. You're 12. You don't get that. And Sophie's like, hold on. She runs back in the other room, gets the laptop computer, comes back, opens up. She's like, I made a spreadsheet of all the work that I've been doing that you haven't paid me for the last three months. Okay. Kristen, like, shut the computer. She's like, let's go to the store. You do work. And the one you do work for is obligated to you. Now, let's just assume for a second this was the case. Let's just say it wasn't grace by faith. Let's say it was that you did works and then you earned your way in. The question that I would ask you is, how good is good enough? Think about this.

Is it the quantity of good works you do? Like, is it one good work for every one bad work? Do you have to, is it an even offset? Or is it 5149? Like if I punch my sister in the throat, do I have to feed the poor? Or can I just like, uh, hold the door open for somebody? Is it just one for one? What does scripture say? It doesn't. And what if it's not quantity of good works? What if the scales hang in the quality of works? What if it's, You do a certain type of shady thing, and you have to offset it with an equally qualitatively weighted good thing. Right?

So let's say you get into a sales meeting and you just sort of fudge the numbers a little bit, or you kind of overpromise on what your product can deliver in order to make the sale. What do you have to do? What quality of good work do you have to do to offset that? And here's the thing about the whole works equals salvation, works equals God is happy with you. Problem is nowhere in scripture are we ever told what the system is. So think about that. What does that say about God if he designed a system and then never told you what the system was?

How cruel would that be? How just mean would that be? And think about it. to live under a system, which is every religious system in the world, part from faith. Think what that does to your soul. Think of the anxiety and the fear that you would live under, because you will live if this is the thing, good works, equals salvation. Number of good works, quality of good works, equals salvation, equals God is happy with me. You will come to the end of your days and you will be left with a number of good works.

fear and a question in your mind, did I do enough? And you will never know. And that system produces a stress and an anxiety and a fear inside of you and me. So Paul answers it in verse five. He says and or but, but to the one who does not work, who doesn't do any good deeds in order to earn their salvation, but believes in or believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Do you know who him who justifies the ungodly is? The ungodly is really easy. Us, we're not God, so we're ungodly.

Who justifies? who makes us right, who makes the ungodly right with God, who is the hymn? It's Jesus. Jesus is the one who takes all of us who are ungodly and brings us up before our heavenly father and says, you may now have a right relationship because of the life I lived in your place and the death that I died in your place and the resurrection that I experienced that you too may have by faith in me. and so he offers it. And when Paul says that,

he's not just making it up. He actually is echoing what Jesus said in John chapter 6. Jesus was teaching one day. He was out by the lake and gets late and he's getting tired. He kind of pulls away, goes to the other side of the lake and his boat.

The crowd see where he is. They run around the lake to get to him. And when they get there, they go, hey, Jesus, we have a question for you. What do we have to do? what are the works that we must do in order to do the works of God? So the question that they ask him is, what works Jesus do we have? What is the system?

We've looked in our scriptures and we can't find the system. We can't find the answer to what works do we have to do in order to be right with God. And Jesus says, if you want to know the works of God, believe in him whom he sent. He says, the system is not the works you do. The system that God has designed from all of eternity is that you would trust in Jesus whom God has sent. That has been the entire thing. It has always been salvation through faith alone.

It always has been that way. So he gives this incredible example of Abraham. And then he goes, it's as if he's sort of pictures in his mind or he's hearing this objection where we're, we would go, oh, okay, that's great. You picked somebody from before the law. But what about once the law shows up, Paul? What about once we have the Ten Commandments? What if we have the six hundred and twenty-three other laws? We're supposed to follow those then. The game changed again, didn't it, Paul? Paul goes, good question. Verse six. Example number two. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.

This is so brilliant. As Paul says, let me give you one example of one of your heroes, Abraham who came before the law, and through Abraham, you would see that you are saved by faith alone. Now let's jump over and on the backside of law after the law is given. Let's test your question. Now that the law is here, do I have to follow the law in order to be saved? And he goes, let's talk about King David.

You're talking about a hero of the faith, like David and Goliath, David, King David, the guy who wrote the book of Psalms. If you write a book of the Bible, you're kind of a big deal. Right? You're like one of the guys. And he goes, okay, let's talk about that, David. Let's talk about this warrior, poet, king, hero, champion of it. And so then he quotes Psalm 32 that David wrote. And he says, verse 7,

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. Anybody here ever done some lawless deeds? Done some shady stuff? If you didn't raise your hand, you just lied and you just did a lawless deed. April 1st is right around the corner. It's tax time. You ever done some shady stuff around April 1st, 15th, whatever. And he says, blessed are those whose lawless deeds, whose shady, sinful actions are forgiven. Now, what is so great about this? That word forgiven, we tend to throw that word around. That word he uses right there literally means to leave. The one who has faith in God, his sins leave. And the tense that they use. that verb in, it's called the passive tense. Here's what that means. Why this is such, the nerdiness of it

is such good news. It means blessed is the man not who sends his own sins away, who causes his own sins to go away. It's blessed as the man who passively has his sins taken far away from him. And everybody that heard David write that would have remembered, in Leviticus 16, the day of atonement. It was a day that was celebrated once a year among the Jewish people. And they would have taken a pure, spotless, blameless lamb.

And the priest would have laid his hands on the head of the lamb. And he would have symbolically confessed of all the sins of the nation. And then they would take that and drive that lamb or that goat out into the wilderness so that it would never be seen again.

It was all built on this idea that blessed are we whose sins are laid on the lamb and are taken. It's why David could say that your sins can be forgiven, taken as far as the east is from the west. And then he goes on and he says, blessed are you, those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. And everybody would have gone, okay, well, I remember, Day of Atonement, Lamb, scapegoat, sin away, taken away. and I remember another story, the story of Passover, where the Egyptian people, where the Israeli people were in Egypt and they were enslaved.

And God came and said, here's how I'm going to free you. You're going to take a lamb, an unblemished lamb, and you're going to sacrifice that lamb, and you're going to put the blood of the lamb over your home. And when I see the blood of the lamb over your life, over your home, I will pass over and I will spare you from death and I will set you free because I see the blood of the lamb over your life. Blessed is the one whose sins are covered. Whose sins are covered by the blood of the lamb. And in the life of Jesus, Jesus is down by the river one day and there's John and John looks over and he sees his cousin Jesus and he pops up and he goes,

look everybody look behold the lamb of god who takes away the sins of the world who removes your sins who covers your sins that scapegoat that Passover lamb that's who we've been waiting on we've been waiting on Jesus he is the lamb of God who takes away all of our sin by grace through faith in your sins, your lawless deeds, can be taken away and they can be covered by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. In verse 8, blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. You see, you and I, we're not morally neutral to God. We actually have a sin debt to God. Our account, the credits in our account are sin.

We're running in bankruptcy. And so we have our sins not counted against us by faith in Jesus. And in Jesus, we have his righteousness credited back into our account instead. That's why Paul can write one of the best verses in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 521. God made Him Jesus who knew no sin to be our sin, right? He takes our sin away so that we might become the righteousness of God. He takes out our debt and puts back in, credits back in his righteousness, his perfect standing. It's what theologians call a double imputation taken out and put it back in to the whole thing.

And then the question for us is, okay, I love that. I love that it has always been with Abraham through David before the law, after law, it's always been that we are saved by faith through faith alone and not by works. But who's this for? Who gets to get in on this? Verse 9. Is this blessing then only for the circumcised? or also for the uncircumcised, to which all the men are like,

I hope for all the uncircumcised. That'd be great. But circumcision, here's the deal. Just take that word out if it bothers you. Put religious ceremony. Take religious behavior. Who's this for? Is this for the people who get in on really, really good religious behavior?

Or is it for the irreligious people? who gets to be saved by faith is it the religious great do-goating people or is it the irreligious rebellious people do you know if you're here last week pastor stone was preaching i love this and he was talking about good works and following the law and he and pastor stone said i'm better than all of you to which i went yeah you kind of are like you pastor stone actually is better than you and better than me and God's grace, he, Pastor Stone, and everybody who has lived really, really, really great religious life, born in church. They are saved. You are saved. You get in on this salvation by grace through faith alone in Jesus. And so do all the irreligious and rebellious and pimps and prostitutes and drug dealers.

everybody gets in the same way. I'll just tell you, I'm not Pastor Stone. I had sort of the opposite story. When I was 15, my parents sent me on a trip with an organization called Young Life. It's a Christian organization. And we left Jacksonville, and we were going to a camp called Lake Champion up in upstate New York. And along the way, the Young Life leaders thought it would be awesome to stop in New York City and take the kids and tour around.

New York City. And my dad had done some work in New York. I kind of knew my way around. And so during the trip, my buddy, David, I just kind of got bored. We were like in Macy's or something. I'm like, this is stupid. I'm like, hey, David, let's go. And I took David and we bailed on the rest of the group without telling them in New York City, otherwise known as running away from the student pastor on a youth trip in the biggest city in the world. Can you imagine what that felt like to Kevin? I mean, you lose your kid in the grocery store for a split second and you feel your stomach in your throat. Can you imagine losing two teenagers in another city that don't belong to you? I mean, he had every right. Now, eventually he found us. Now, he had every right to cast us out

and to send us home. He throws us in the van, takes us up to the camp, and three days later, God just wrecks my life with the gospel of Jesus and saves me. Who gets in on this salvation by grace through faith? Is it just the religious or is it also the irreligious? And Paul goes, this is a movement for all people. All people. Doesn't matter what you've done, where you've been, who you are, what you're doing right now, the things, the shady things you're planning to do right now tonight.

You can be saved by grace through faith in Jesus. for we say verse 9 that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness how then was it counted to him it's a really good question right how does this how does this happen

was it before or after he had been circumcised so was it before or after he had done these religious acts okay that's great we're saved by faith but did the religious acts proceed Let me just imagine I'm asking Paul.

Let me just clarify. So are we saved by our actions, these religious acts? Did they come before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but it was before he was circumcised. The question is, who goes first? Do you go first and God responds to you? Or does God go first and you respond to God? And Paul's answer is, every single time from the dawn of creation, the entire system God is set up is that God would always take the first step.

God would always make the first move. Here's the problem. Our sin doesn't make us bad. Our sin makes us dead. We are incapable of taking the first step. Dead people don't do anything but rot and stink. and God always makes the first move and here's how it happens. He just breathes his spirit on you.

Maybe today you're like, well, I don't even know why I'm here. I don't know why I'm having these thoughts. I don't know why I'm asking these questions. Guess what? Game over for you. Because the Spirit of God is messing with you. And the Spirit of God starts working on you. And then you hear somebody tell you this gospel good news.

of how you're right with God. And then what happens, you hear that. God has moved in your life, and then you respond by saying, I trust that. That's how it counts for you. That's how it works in your life. So Paul, what good are religious acts? He says he, verse 11,

Abraham received the sign of circumcision and the seal of righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. He's saying those religious acts, they're great. There's nothing wrong with doing really wonderful, life-giving religious acts. You just need to know where they fall. It's always faith preceding religious action.

That these religious acts in circumcision, the New Testament sort of equivalent or something similar to that would be baptism or communion. And we would say baptism and communion are signs and seals of what God has already done in your life. Baptism and communion point back to a reality that God has already worked in your life. They are to remind you, if you have been baptized, Christian, remember your baptism. It is such a gift of God. Not to say, God, look what I did.

So point forward to what you should do to me. baptism becomes a sign where you remember and you rejoice in the fact that it reminds you that God has already done something in you. It is a reality that is yours in your life already. And then he closes it this way. The purpose. Isn't that great when the Bible just tells you, here's why this is important. Like here's why this matters right now for you. Here's the so what. He just gives it to us. This is great. The purpose. the so what what difference does all this make right now the purpose was to make him Abraham the father of one all who believe without being circumcised so that the righteousness would be counted to them as well and to make him the father to 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 So what's the purpose of salvation by faith alone?

Faith makes you family. Faith makes you the family of God. You are an adopted child of God by faith. By faith, you get to look at your heavenly father and not know him as some distant deity, but be able to look him face to face for all of eternity and go, that's my dad. That's my dad who loves me in his purpose.

and good and right and cares for me and knows me. I'm adopted by my dad. Faith makes you family. And faith, did you see this? He says, this is so that all these people that do all these religious things, all of these people who once called themselves Jewish were a part of this select religious group and everybody else all over the world, all of those people all get to be brought together. Friends, faith does something. Faith brings a unity amidst all of the diversity. When we're saved by faith alone, through faith alone, it means that there is no place, no place for racism or bigotry or prejudice anywhere

in the church of Jesus Christ. And it brings a humility to us. Remember when Paul starts this? He says, so what's up with the boasting? Does Abraham get to boast? When we're saved by faith, it makes us some of the most humble, grateful people in the world because we realize, you know what? It doesn't depend on me.

We live in a world that loves to boast, right? That little phone, that thing you got in your hand right now, the Instagram and the Facebook is all of, look at me, look at me, filter me, show you the best versions of fake me so that I can boast to you. And when we're saved by faith, we're just going, not me, but God.

And it just creates this humble gratitude inside of us. And faith, salvation by faith alone, sets us free. It sets us free because you no longer have to live under the pressure of, does my work? Is it good enough? The same, listen to this, the same spirit of God that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives in you. Not only are you free from the penalties of your sin, you are forgiven of your sin, your sins are covered, but you actually have the spirit of Jesus Christ living inside of you, which means sin. no longer has the hold and the power on you. You can live victoriously over, not for victory,

but from victory because of faith. And it gives an assurance. I didn't earn it. I don't deserve it. And God gives it to us. And he's not taking it back. Which means you can live all the days of your life, not in fear with what will God think of me when I stand face to face, but you can live with an assurance knowing that when God looks at you, he sees his perfect son, Jesus Christ. And you can live with that assurance. And when he quotes Psalm 32, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed, that word just means happy. Those who are saved by faith are really happy people. If you have been saved by faith in Jesus Christ, smile. Like tell your face, you're happy. You actually have something to really, really, really rejoice over. You have the greatest news of the world. It makes us the happiest.

It doesn't make us perfect. It just gives us joy in our soul and it makes us missionaries. Do you realize this? When you are saved by faith in Jesus, you are walking around with the greatest news ever. Which means when you go to the grocery store, you're a missionary. You're carrying the gospel. When you're at the soccer field, you're carrying the gospel. When you walk across campus, you're carrying the gospel. When you go into a business meeting, you are carrying the gospel.

Being saved by faith alone in Jesus makes you a missionary right now, right here, and it does mean you might need to go and sign up and carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. Here's the best part of it all. when we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, it glorifies God like nothing else. Because think about this. Think about this. At one point in your life, you will stand before God in eternity. And you'll have two things.

You can say one of two things. You can either stand before God and God will say, okay, tell me, why? Why do we get to be together forever? And you can either say, God, look at all that I did. Look at how great I was. You're indebted to me.

You owe me. You're obligated to me. Or you can say, God, none of me, all of you. Don't look at me. Look at your son, Jesus Christ. I don't stand before you, God, based on anything I've done. I only stand before you based on what you did in the life and death and resurrection of your son, Jesus Christ. And which one do you think honors and worships and glorifies your heavenly father more?

Look at me or God. Look how amazing you are. Faith is the thing that glorifies God. It is impossible to please God apart from faith. That's what the scripture tells us. A positive way of saying that is your faith worships and honors and glorifies God. So Paul ends this. He says that we would walk in the footsteps of the faith. What are the footsteps that you need to take? What's the next step that you need to take? Maybe you need to be baptized. Maybe you need that sign and that seal to point you to the reality that is already yours in Jesus Christ. Maybe in faith you need to take a step of repentance. Confess your sin, turn from your sin by the power of the spirit in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Maybe you need to go out of here, grab your phone in the car, and call that person that you've been warring with and just reconcile with them because the gospel reconciles.

Maybe you need to be generous. Maybe you need to serve in faith. Maybe you need to go across the globe in faith. And maybe your step of faith today is the very first step of faith you've ever taken. Maybe for the first time today, you would say, God, I'm not. I'm so tired of living in fear of if I've done enough and if I've been good enough and if I worked hard enough. And for the first time today, you would set that aside and you would say, I wholly lean on Jesus' name. I put all my weight of all of my life and all of my attorney, not on myself.

I don't know it all. I don't have it all figured out. I don't understand everything. But what I do understand, God, is that your plan from the beginning of time to, the end of the time has always been the same, never changes. And I'm putting my faith and my trust for the very first time in you that I would live assured and free and joyful and honoring to you through faith. Would you bow your heads and pray with me? And if for the first time today, you would like to take that very first step of faith and say, I don't want to lean on my works,

but I want to lean on the work of Jesus Christ, his life, his death, his resurrection. And I just trust. I trust you, God. You're good and you're true. And you're trustworthy. Would you raise your hand right now? Raise it high.

Absolutely. Raise them up. Say it's by faith, God. Yes, by faith, I trust in you. alone. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you. That your story has always been a story of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. And thank you. Thank you for the gift of the first steps of faith that you brought in your church today. We love you. We honor you. We worship you for that. Jesus' name. Amen.