← ArchiveWhen in RomansWhen in Romans: Gift or Grit? (Romans 4:1-5)DateFebruary 11, 2024Speaker—TextRomans 4:1–5Passages in this sermonRomans 41:35Genesis 33:05Romans 4:1–55:27Isaiah 4117:34Genesis 15:619:44Genesis 1520:10Romans 3:2221:34Ephesians 2:826:44TranscriptClick any line to jump there.0:00*music* Okay, welcome to the church that gathers here at Bethel.0:30For all of our guests, for those who are new here, today I actually walked down from the balcony. You know, we have back row Baptist people, and then we have the next phase is0:57the balcony Baptist people, and then we have the back row balcony Baptist. So for you in the back row of the balcony, and for everyone watching online, welcome to the church that gathers at Bethel. You know who you are, by the way. My name is Josh, lead pastor here of Bethel, and I get the joy of bringing you the word of Christ again in the book of Romans. We're1:22walking through this book, which some call the center of the entire Bible, the theological center. Today, join me in the book of Romans chapter four this morning. Romans chapter four in the New Testament. As you turn there, I want to remind you that sometimes small decisions or changes have drastic consequences. Take for instance, the unfortunate fate of the NASA Mariner number one.1:51In 1962, they built this rocket at the price of around 18 and a half million dollars to fly and circumnavigate Venus and to come back with information. And with about 30 seconds or within five minutes into flight, the rocket blew up. Now, let me pause here and ask, if you are related to an engineer,2:20by birth or by marriage, if you would raise your hand, because this is for you. Okay, you can put your hands down for anonymity. Engineers call this an overbar transcription error, which is an engineering word for a hyphen. One of the coders left out a hyphen in the code. So you might call this an 18.52:46million dollar hyphen mistake. Sometimes small changes have drastic consequences. And it's not NASA that knows this alone. The great adversary, Satan, understands us. Take, for instance, Genesis chapter three in verse one. The Lord tells Adam and Eve, first man and first woman in history, it says,3:12you can eat of any tree in the garden except one. And Satan begins to scheme and to think and he advises Eve and ultimately advises Adam and says, well, the Lord says you shouldn't eat. But if you rearrange the letters, you can get eight. And with just one additional letter, Satan would remind us,3:38well, God doesn't want you to eat of the tree because you will be like him. And Satan puts it in the minds of humanity. God gives you boundaries, not because he loves you, but because he hates you. Sometimes small changes have drastic consequences. And it's not simply the Genesis account alone.4:04Paul addresses in Romans 4 and dismantles another of the accusers schemes. The Bible says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And make no mistake, Satan hates God's gifts in your life. So again, Satan says, well, small changes to God's word don't really4:32matter. So if you were to rearrange the letters in gift, and if you were to drop one letter and add another letter, you would get grit. So Satan would say, well, salvation is not a gift of God in your life. Satan would say that salvation is something you earn, something you strive for. Church,4:56small changes can have drastic consequences in your life. And today we will see the word of God dismantle again the adversary's lie in your life. Hyphens make a difference. Letters make a difference. And God's5:16word is unchanging. Romans chapter 4, verses 1 through 5. Paul says, well, what will we say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, has found? Small word, right? If. If Abraham was justified by works.5:36Now we know that it's the Judaizers who say that. It's the Judaizers who believe that. And ultimately, it's Satan who would suggest, well, Abraham was not made righteous by faith. Abraham was made righteous by grit. And so then the Jewish people began, well, if Abraham can earn his salvation,6:04earn his righteousness, we are sons of Abraham. We are daughters of Abraham. Then we also can earn. And Paul says, no, no, no, no, no, no. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness. Now to the one who works, pay is not credited as a gift.6:30You see, Satan would say, you earn salvation. It's grit. But God says it's a gift, but as something owed. But to the one who does not work, but believes on him who declares unright and godly to be righteous, his faith is credited for righteous. Today's message is this question: grit or gift? Let me pray. Father,6:58you are holy. You are holy and you are righteous. Help us hear today what you desire. Help us see today what you have put before us and help us live today in righteousness7:18alone. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You read my mind, Jared. Thank you. I have a cough drop, but it's not helping. Thank you. Grit or gift? So the first point is this. Excuse me. Are you saved by the grit of flesh? Now, the word grit can mean many things to many people.7:48Some of you know the word because you would grind your teeth. And some of you are still that pagan individual who grinds. You're the barbarian who grinds your teeth and it grates on our nerves. The word grit means to give great effort in something. And Satan would want you to believe8:11that you have earned God's love today because you are here in his gathering or because you brought your Bible or because you found Romans or because you've done something good for the Lord. But that's the change8:34of the adversary. God doesn't love you because of what you do. He loves you because of what Jesus Christ did in your place. Are you trying to live by the grit of flesh? Now, righteousness by human effort is not some pious abstraction for the Jews. They didn't say, well, we can just work hard. We will find this metaphorical reality in some way.9:01No, they pointed to an individual. They pointed to a hero of their faith. The Jews pointed and said, hey, look at Abraham. He, by grit, he, by works, was the one who enjoyed paradise. And if you think that this was out of left field, then listen to the Mishnah. Now, some of you have not read the Mishnah in a while. The Mishnah is the oral traditional9:31teaching of the Jewish people. And so, in the third division of Kudoshin, they make this interpretation. And it's wrongly, but it says this: "And we find that Abraham, our father, had performed the whole law before it was given, before it was written." So, in the Jewish teachings, they say that Abraham, before God even gave him the word, fulfilled and obeyed the word that God gave him.9:59So, do you see what has happened? Satan has turned what God has made into a beautiful gift, righteousness, grace, and mercy. Satan has rearranged the letters. No big deal, right? He's taken one letter out, the F, and has added another letter, R, and he has told the people of God, it is by grit.10:23It is by determination. It is by hard work that Abraham fulfilled the law, even before it was given. So, I ask today, do you believe the lie that you are saved by what you do?10:43Because if you believe that, if you believe that one day God will accept you because of what you have done, that lie leads to hell. That lie will lead you no further than it can away from God. If you think that's benign, if you think it's small, that's, that's Satan's desire in your life.11:12Satan wants you to believe what God says, "Don't eat." Let's just change that to eight and add an H, and God's boundaries are hateful in your life. You are not saved by what you do because none of us measures up. And what happens if we live this lie? What happens if you think that you have earned grace? Well, Paul dismantles the lie, verse 2. He says, "If," as you say, as the accuser says, "If11:39Abraham is justified by works, he has something to boast about." So what does grit lead to? It leads to a life of boasting. Now, our, our young adults, our cool kids among us, we call that riz. Right? Abraham is, he has charisma because look at what he's done. And let me just say this:12:07"If anyone can earn their salvation, it would be Abraham over us." He is the father of the people of God. So boasting is, is in yourself taking credit for what is credit alone to God. Boasting in the flesh is saying, "God, I did this. God, it is me. Look at my strength. Look at my determination."12:33And again, the grit of flesh leads to boasting and boasting in the flesh leads to hell. Will lead you away from the mercy and the gift of salvation. So what happens when you believe the grit of flesh saves you? Well, it leads you to a place where you think that God owes you.13:02Because you've done something great. Look again at verse four. Now to the one who works, pay is not credited as a gift, but as something owed. Now, many of you are in the workforce today, like our family is. And on the 15th and the 30th of the month, we get paid. P-A-I-D, right? We, the money's coming in and the bills are going out.13:33But we have never once sat around the dinner table and said, "I'm so thankful for the gift of the direct deposit that our employers gave us on the 15th of this month." No, we don't say that. You know why? Because we worked for that. We've sweated for that.14:00My wife's a teacher. She has bled for that. Because we believe in our hearts, we have earned that. They owe us. And if we're not paid on the 15th, you bet on the 16th, we're going to make a phone call and say, "Hey, we are not given what we are owed." And the danger is spiritually works the same. If you believe that you have earned things from the Lord,14:30if you have boasted in the flesh, and if you believe it is by the grit of your flesh that you receive God's grace, then it leads to a place where you say to God, "God, you owe me." And you might not say it like that. You might say it like this, "God, why did this happen to me?" God, look at what they're doing. God, why me? God, look at the good I've done for the kingdom.14:57Look at the righteousness. God, you owe me. And with one small change, Satan brings about drastic consequences in our life, does he not? You see, the reality is that God owes us nothing. He has created you and I in his image according to his likeness. And the fact that he has created us15:24in his image alone is enough that we should be eternally thankful. Maybe today you've come here and you have unfulfilled expectations and you struggle spiritually because deep down you feel that God owes you. Or maybe you look at other people's lives and they're to a place that you're not. And you say, "God,15:52I am living according to your word and they are not. Father, why does the righteous not succeed and the unrighteous is favored?" God, why? And if you feel that way, listen, you're human. But do not take the bait of the accuser. Do not rearrange the word of God in your life. Because we do not earn God's grace by grit or by grind. We earn God's love by nothing. We receive it16:23by grace. And don't misunderstand what the scriptures are saying. Abraham is not the problem. It's the people of God who have seen the legacy of God and they are rearranging the word of God. You see, Abraham was a venerated person in the Jewish society. One rabbi called Abraham,16:48he called him a bag of myrrh, which I would assume is, I think that's a compliment, right? You big bag of myrrh. Which meant myrrh was one of the most treasured spices in the ancient world. It was the Jewish people saying of Abraham's legacy, "Your legacy is a sweet aroma. Your faith is beautiful and it is to be admired." You see, it wasn't Abraham who was the issue.17:18It was those that had rearranged his life and had thought that he had earned God's grace. But the Bible says that Abraham was called a friend of God in Isaiah 41. And in the Old Testament, it says no one could surpass Abraham. And so Abraham is pointed by Paul to a man that we should admire because of faith.17:44If you're unfamiliar with Abraham, let me give you a quick reminder of who he is. You might know him as Abe, because Av or Abe in the Hebrew language means father. And there was one day that the Lord called him from Ur of the Chaldeans to, from his family and from his home and said, "Abraham, you go to a land. A land I will promise you, but a land I will not tell you right now,18:14because I want you to trust me in faith. Go to that land." And so Abraham on faith departs. God promises Abraham he will make him into a great nation. If you say, "Well, that was easy. He was a young man. He had his whole life in front of him." Abraham was around 75 years when he trusted the Lord. God said, "From your union with Sarah, I will give you an heir."18:42Abraham's about 90 years old at this point, and he has no heir with Sarah. And one day, an angel comes to Sarah, his wife, and says, "Hey, God hasn't given up on you. He remembered his promise. He's going to give you a son." And Sarah, Abraham's wife, like you and I, when she hears an angel come to her at 90 years old and says, "Hey, good news. You're going to be a mom." She says, "No, I'm not."19:11She laughs because she doesn't believe that this can happen through the power of the Holy Spirit. But let me just remind you today, what God says is true will be true. And Abraham became and Sarah became the father and the mother of many nations19:38through this lineage at 100 years old. Genesis 15:6 says that Abraham believed God. Believed God. And that is the verse in the Old Testament that Paul chooses for his example. In verse 3 of Romans 4, "For what does the scripture say?"20:04That's Genesis 15. "Abraham believed God and was credited to him as righteousness." Now, in the Old Testament, actually in all of Scripture, this is the very first time, Genesis 15, that the word believe is connected with righteousness for the very first time. So, because Abraham believed by faith, it was credited to him by faith.20:30And it's the reminder in Scripture that belief is a beautiful gift from the Spirit. It's not grit from the Spirit. It's not grit from the flesh. It is gift from the Spirit. Abraham believed in what? It was credited to him as righteousness. You see, Abraham didn't believe in belief. He believed in someone.20:58Because belief is not an abstract thought. Who did Abraham believe in? He believed in Yahweh. He believed in God. He believed in the one who gave the promises. Because belief is a gift of the Spirit. And belief has roots. See, you can believe what God says is true. Because what he says is true will come to pass.21:24Last week in Romans chapter 3, verse 22, Pastor Jared reminded us that the righteousness of the Lord is an imputed righteousness. It means it's given. It's righteousness that is not earned. God gives that because you believe in him by faith. Sound familiar? It was credited to Abraham's account of righteousness. Why?21:55Because he believed. Imputed righteousness. Abraham believed and God gave. Abraham didn't earn. It was a gift. You see, small changes have drastic consequences, don't they? And in this joyous belief, Abraham received a double counting. A double counting. Here's the counting of heaven. Here's the accounting of heaven.22:23First, because of Jesus Christ, God will never count your sins against you. So when you believe in Jesus Christ by faith, God will not count your sins against you. I love it that the Bible doesn't say God forgets your sins. You know, because some of us struggle with that we're thinking, God, I've done things that are so heinous that you could never forget.22:49The Bible doesn't say God forgot your sins. Like, man, what, just what did you do in 1989? Like, I know there was a sin, but I've forgotten that. And some of us worry that today God has forgotten, but when we get to heaven, God's memory is going to come back. And God's going to say, I remember now what you did. You are not worthy to be in my presence. No, the Bible doesn't say God forgets.23:19It says he no longer remembers. God chooses not to hold our sins against us. That is the first part of the counting, the accounting. But the second part is he gives us righteousness. Not only does he take away your sins, but he gives you something. He gives you the righteousness that Jesus Christ earned. Because if Jesus only takes away your sins, you still feel empty.23:49But God gives you the righteousness, the robes of pure white linen that Jesus has earned in your place. That's the double portion of God. When he accounts to you righteousness, he takes away your what? He takes away your sins. Listen, if anyone's sins have been taken away, you better speak up. He takes away our? Hallelujah for that.24:19And then he gives us what? Righteousness. So when we get to heaven and the accuser stands before us and he rearranges the letters, and he says, "God, don't you remember what Josh did? Don't you remember the sin?" God can look at Satan and say, "Satan, I could remember, yes. But because of Jesus, I choose not to.24:48I have taken those sins away." And then when Satan was going to say, "Well, but he still can't stand in your presence, because only righteous people, Lord, can stand before you." And God says, "Satan, that's curious you would say that. Because when Jesus takes away your sin, he gives you righteousness." That is the double portion of the credit God gives to all who believes.25:13Righteousness is a gift, not grit, of the Spirit. And righteousness is credited by faith in verse 5. It is credited by faith. Faith, like belief, is not an abstract hypothesis. Martin Luther said it this way. He said, "Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace,25:39so sure and so certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times." Faith is not this blind hope. You can stake your life on faith a thousand times over, again and again. Let me give you seven realities of spiritual faith. These are going to be short. I know what you're thinking. Oh, great.26:07Seven points of the sermon. Let me just summarize qualities of faith. First, we see in the text, you are not saved by faith alone. Let me finish that thought. You are saved by faith in God alone. It is faith in something. Faith is the human reception of the gift of salvation.26:34And said another way, faith is one side of the salvation coin, grace is the other. What does Ephesians 2:8 say? You're saved by grace through faith. You can't have faith in anything you want to. You can't say, "Well, I'm just going to believe. I'm going to hope in myself and I will be saved." No, faith has root and that root is God. Jesus Christ. We are saved by grace in faith. Secondly, faith is not a work.27:03You don't have faith and God says, "Well, because you have faith, because you have earned this, now you're saved." Faith is the response to God's miraculous gift in Jesus Christ. If salvation is the gift and God gives that to you, faith is how you receive the gift. John MacArthur reminds us in the Bible that Jesus Christ healed many people who didn't believe.27:33He healed many without faith, but He never saved anyone without faith. You see, faith is not a work. Faith is a response to Jesus Christ. Third, faith is a relational term. It's not an intellectual marker. You can't just believe 10 things about Jesus and then you have faith.27:57Faith is an ongoing, active way of life. It's the reason that the early church, they called them people of the way because they follow Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life. You are saved by faith in the person of Jesus Christ. You don't believe in intellectual propositions alone. You believe in a person. Faith is relational. Fourthly, faith is more than a feeling, but it is also a feeling.28:24You don't leave. Faith does not leave your heart cold, calloused, and empty. So if you say faith in Jesus Christ alone. If you say faith is feeling alone and it has no intellectual roots, you are missing the depth of the gospel. Faith in Jesus Christ never leaves you cold, calloused, and sulking. Faith in Jesus gave Lazarus a heartbeat again.28:53He didn't remain a corpse. And there are some Baptists among us that still look dead. God gave you your pulse back. May we live for the glory of Christ. It is okay to raise your hands in church.29:16But just because you raise them doesn't mean God has changed your life. But I will say this: If God has changed your life, it is hard to stay in the tomb. Glory be to God that faith is much more than a feeling, but it includes our heart. Fifthly, faith is not an event. It is a way of life. Said another way, your confession of Jesus Christ is not the end.29:45It is the beginning of your life in Jesus Christ. So if you were to come to me and say, "Pastor, my faith began and ended 84 years ago when I said yes to Jesus Christ," I would say, "I don't know if you have faith in Jesus Christ." Because your faith may have begun 84 years ago, but your faith will grow day by day by day by day.30:13Because he who began a good work in you is faithful to carry it to completion. Faith is a way of life. Number six. I told you these would be short. Faith is not a partial response. You see, Abraham didn't leave the land of Ur of the Chaldeans temporarily.30:41He didn't go halfway and turn around. He understood that when he left his home for the promised land that he was following Yahweh no matter what it cost. It's the reminder that Jesus says no man who puts his hands to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of heaven. Faith is not a partial response. Faith is your total response to a holy God.31:12So can you say today that you will follow Jesus no matter what it costs? He said, "Pastor, you don't understand what it costs me." And Abraham would say, "Well, you don't understand what it costs me." But God is worth it. He is worth it. Faith is not a partial response.31:36Lastly, number seven. I promised you, short, sweet. Faith is a gift. You enter into a relationship with a sovereign God in-- So you cannot enter into a relationship with a sovereign God in your sinful state. Meaning you can't show up with sin and say, "God, here I am." God says to sinners, "You cannot be in my presence as you are."32:06That's why He sent His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to live a sin-less life. To die on the cross so that all who believes in Him will be purified and made righteous. It's the double accounting of God. The gift of salvation is that God takes your what? He takes your sin and He gives you righteousness.32:35Because salvation and faith is a gift. And in all of this, Paul points to Abraham and then points us back to the mirror. Look at verse 22 of Romans. He says, "Therefore it was credited to Him, righteousness."33:01And Him is who? Abraham. Abraham. And you're thinking, "Okay, that's good." Abraham was a good guy. Left his homeland. Good job, Abraham. He was the bag of myrrh, right? Now, it was accredited to him. It was not written for Abraham alone. Okay, you got our attention.33:31But also for us. Who is us? Anyone who has read this verse out loud. We are us. Look what he says. It will be credited to us who believe in Jesus. Who raised, who Him, God, who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.34:00You see, what was true for Abraham is now true for us. That the gift of salvation for Abraham by faith is the same way that we find salvation. Not by grit, but by gift, by faith, by belief. So let me ask you today, is your eternal destiny hinging upon what you do, your grit,34:27or upon what Jesus Christ did, the gift? A pastor once erroneously told this story to his congregation about earning salvation. He said it this way. He said one day a frog fell into a pail of milk. And though he tried every conceivable way to jump out, he always failed.34:57The sides were too high. He could not get enough leverage to leap because he was floating in the milk. So he did the only thing that he could do. The frog paddled and paddled and paddled some more. And you know what? Voila! A little raft of butter formed. And the frog jumped out and found freedom.35:27See, some today feel like if you could simply paddle enough, you would make your own way to salvation. And if that's you, there is no more damning lie in your life that Satan could tell. So pastor, does it really matter if we only rearrange a couple of the letters that God has for us? Maybe we subtract one. Maybe we add one.35:56Does it really matter if we turn the gift of God into the grit of flesh? The grit of flesh sends you to hell. And today, for the first time, you say, "Pastor, I'm tired of paddling and paddling. I'm tired of being sick and tired. How can I be saved?" By faith, you receive the gift. It's by faith today that you say, "God, I'm sorry that I have sinned.36:24Forgive me. I believe," let's use Abrahamic language, right? God, I believe that what you said is true. I believe you sent your one and only son, Jesus Christ, to live a sinless life. God, you said it. I believe it. I believe Jesus died on the cross. I believe he rose again.36:55And God, I believe you said what you said is true, that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So, Father, for the first time, I believe in Jesus, my Savior. I will follow him today, no matter the cost. You know what faith does for a person? It saves. It takes away sin.37:26And it gives righteousness. If that's you, would you give your life to Christ today? Our pastors will be down front to welcome you. If you need someone to pray over you, to pray with you, we would love to help you in that conversation. But listen, there's no pastor that can save you. There is one man who saves, and his name is Jesus Christ. But selfishly, I want to be the first one to cheer and to rejoice over you. But Christian, this is not a message for the sinner alone, for the pagan alone.37:56What would your life look like today if we went back to verse 20 of Romans that says about Abraham, "He did not waver in unbelief at God's promise, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God?" How is God strengthening you in faith today?38:23What would your life look like if you bent your knee again today and said, "God, you know I'm wavering. God, give me the faith to believe. God, my son, my daughter, they walked away. God, give me the faith to believe they will come home. God, I've been praying for my neighbor. Though they're in a bad place, give me the faith to believe that you can save.38:54God, I'm tired of the unrighteous succeeding and the righteous being broken. God, give me the faith to believe. God, I'm tired. Give me the faith to believe that you will be the lifter of my head and the strength in my bones." What would it look like if every person here had the faith, the unwavering faith again to believe39:20that Jesus Christ is who he says he is and he will do what he says he will do. Father, we thank you for the gift.← Previous in When in RomansWhen in Romans: The Righteousness of God Through Faith – Romans 3Next in When in Romans →When in Romans: Be Fruitful and Multiply (Romans 5:12-21)More sermons on Romans →
