Video Transcript: One God, One Plan, One People
Today we focus on God's Word in Romans 4. Romans has showed us the great sin of humanity, and also the wonderful righteousness that God provides through faith in Jesus' blood. And the question that is addressed in Romans 4 is this. Is this really consistent with how God had been operating in the past? And the things he had promised in the past? And the people that he had chosen in the past? or is this some brand new, unforeseen, newfangled idea that is being brought that God saves people through faith in Jesus' blood? In one sense, of course, it's new, and in the sense that at the time, the apostle Paul had written, the resurrection, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ were really quite recent events. So in that sense, it was new. But the Apostle Paul wants to show that this was what God had been planning all along, and what all of the Old Testament books and events had been leading up to all along. And so he goes back to the original Hebrew, the original Jew, if you will, Abraham himself. What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather discovered in this matter? If in fact, Abraham was justified by works? He had something to boast about, but not before God? What does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. So he goes back to the story of Abraham. And we'll go back to the story of Abraham for a moment to back to the book of Genesis, Genesis 12, says, The Lord had said to Abram, go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land, I will show you, I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. Now, it's always good to follow mathematics and 12 comes after 11. And what happened in Genesis 11. In Genesis 11, you read the story of the Tower of Babel. After the flood, the people of the earth have a fresh start, and what do they do with their fresh start, they decide they're going to build a tower to heaven, and they're going to do things on their own. And ever since then Babylon has kind of stood for the kingdom of man trying to do it all on his own, without God and how did God respond by cursing, basically, their enterprise, the tower remained unfinished, he confused the language and scattered them into all different nations all over the place. So at the end of Genesis 11, people have been scattered, humanity has been divided, and humanity is going its own way without God. And that was not what God intended for humanity. It intended united humanity to rule his creation. And when God calls Abraham, he sets in motion, the reversal of Babel, but He does it by choosing just one nation out of the many. But all along his purpose in choosing this one man, and promising to bring out of this one man, one special nation, is to bring blessing to all the nations again, and to make them back into one nation in the fullness of time. So the call of Abraham follows the Tower of Babel and is intended ultimately, to set in motion God's plan to reverse what happened at Babel to reverse the curse, to reverse the division of nations against one another. And so God speaks to Abraham, he speaks of the fact that he's going to be a father of a nation and in fact, a father of many nations. And at the time, God says this, Abraham is the father of zero. And he's getting along in years, and his wife is getting along in years, and they've been unable to have a child but God makes this promise. And so he calls Abraham to come out of Ur of the Chaldees. And the Chaldees is kind of a location around Babylon, a kind of in that neighborhood of where Babel got built in the first place, but God calls him out of the whole Babel setting, to a fresh setting. And so Abraham believes God And he leaves. And he goes where God tells him to go a little bit later then God speaks to Abraham again. He took Abram outside and said, look up at the sky, and count the stars if indeed you can count them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. Abram believed the Lord. And He credited it to him as righteousness. That's the verse that Paul quotes in Romans 4 Abraham is out there looking at the stars, and is invited by God to try to count them if he can and as the stars are uncountable, so Abram's offspring are going to be uncountable. And Abram, a man with no children, and no reason except the promise of God believes that he's going to be the father of an uncountable multitude. And then in Genesis 17, this is my covenant with you says, The Lord Abraham, you will be the father of many nations, no longer will you be called Abram, your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations, still no children. And he's changing his name, not just to father but father of many. For I've made you a father of many nations, I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you, and your descendants after you for the generations to come to be your God, and the God of your descendants after you. The apostle Paul is going to have a lot to say about Abraham's God, and about Abraham's descendants in in Romans chapter four. Another thing that happens before the time that that Paul is writing is some teaching of Jesus that arises in the context of controversy of bickering and arguing. The Jewish people, many of them during Jesus day, don't believe in Him. And so he has this conversation with them. And they don't believe in Jesus, they reject Him, and they say we are Abraham's descendants. And Jesus basically reply is, oh, no, you're not. If you were Abraham's children, then you would do what Abram Abraham did. What did Abraham do? He believed, you belong to your father, the devil. Your father, Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He saw it and was glad. Let me just repeat that. Jesus says, your father, Abraham rejoiced out the thought of seeing my day he saw it, and was glad by faith. Abraham saw Jesus day coming, and he was glad. They said, How in our world, you're not even 50 years old. And you claim that Abraham saw you and Jesus answers before Abraham was, I AM. Jesus says that He is really the object of Abraham's faith, even from 2000 years earlier, when Abraham lived, Abraham trusted in Jesus. And so Paul takes this fact that Abraham trusted God's promise, and it was credited to him as righteousness. And he says, Okay, this is proof of what I've just been teaching you. When a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation, however, to the man who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked or the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. Look at what that verse says, when you go to work, and you work all day, and you put in long hours, and you sweat, and you do all that work. Then does your boss come to you and say, Here is your check. It's a generous gift. And you say, What are you talking about? I worked and I worked, and I worked and I deserve that check. It's, it's coming to me because I did the work to earn it. So if you are a person who works and you're getting paid your wages, it's not a gift. It's not some generous crediting to you, you deserve it. And the Apostle says, On the other hand, to somebody who doesn't work, but gets a free gift, then whatever they're given, is a credit. And he says, that's how it works with righteousness. You believe you receive a gift, and you didn't earn it. So don't think that you're earning your wages. Later on. He'll say in Romans, The wages if you want wages, let's talk wages, The wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. So When you receive that free gift, then your faith in that gift and in the giver is credited to you as righteousness, even though you're a wicked person. And you might say, Well, yeah, but how does Abraham prove that? I mean, it says that Abraham did some good things. And Abraham even was willing to offer up his own son when God calls for it. The Bible says that Abraham's work was pleasing to God. How could God be justifying the wicked when he's just like Abraham? Well, think back what was Abraham? When God called him, he and his father Tara and their family were idol worshipers. God in crediting righteousness to Abraham was crediting righteousness to an idol worker and idol worshiper. And later on, even after Abraham believed in God, he was not a man who had a spotless record. When he and Sarah were down in Egypt, he got afraid of what might happen if people saw how beautiful Sarah was. And so he lied, and said, Now Sarah, you've got to say you're my sister. And even when it meant that Pharaoh was about to add her to his harem, they kept on with a lie, because he was cowardly. And he was willing to just let his wife go to save his own skin. If that weren't bad enough, he did it again, later with a king in Palestine, and once again, God protected them from having Sarah go into the king's harem. But it's not because Abraham was so brave, and so wise, and so good. If you ask Abraham, how are you right with God, he will say, Well, I trust in the God who justifies the wicked. And so Paul makes his point by saying, Hey, we can tell from the story of Abraham, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now we've looked at the Great Father of the Hebrews, and of the Israelite nation. Let's look at the greatest king, the one who's line was going to produce the Messiah. Let's go look at King David. What does he say? David says the same thing. When he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works. Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord net will never count against him. So David is considering himself blessed and other people blessed if their transgressions are forgiven, and their sins are covered. He does not say I earned all of God's favor, and I deserve all that God gives me. David believed in a God who justifies the wicked, and he needed to you know the story of David and Bathsheba how he saw another man's wife and desired her and took her for himself. And then he lied and tried to cover it up and his lies weren't working. So he decided to get rid of her husband. And he arranged through his general Joab to have have him advance Uriah the Hittite, against the toughest part of the battle. And as they expected, Uriah was killed and problem solved. Well, not so much. God definitely rebuked David through the prophet Nathan, and there were consequences. But one consequence was not that God forever cast David off, or that God took back his promise that David's line would be blessed forever and would reign throughout all generations and that an offspring of David would be the great Savior. God had made a promise and God did not take back his promise. Even when David pretty well covered the bases of breaking the 10 commandments, You shall not murder. Uriah is dead. You shall not commit adultery, David's in bed with Uriah's wife. You shall not steal he stole her. You should not give false testimony, he tried to cover it up, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You know he pretty well covered the territory when it came to breaking commandments. And well then he prayed against you, you only have I sin and breaking those commandments against people. He of course was sinning against God Himself and making himself an idol. So David needed a God who justifies the wicked. And that's why he said, How blessed is he us transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. So when we look at Abraham, the father of the nation, and David, the greatest king, what do we find? We find that there has been one God, and one plan all along all along? God justified the wicked by counting their faith as righteousness. All along. God chose Abraham to be the father of many nations, not just one nation. And this is very important at this point in Paul's ministry, and it's important for us to realize still today, because Abraham's story is our story. But how is that so? Most of us are not Jewish by blood. And yet, Abraham's story is our story. Because all along God chose Abraham to be the father of many nations and not just of the nation of Israel. It was his plan to do that, to reverse Babel and gather all nations back to himself. All along. That chosen nation was meant to bring blessings to all nations and all along this forgiveness and justification of the wicked would come through the Son of David. So Paul was just saying, this is God, this is who he's always been. This is God's plan. This is what he planned all along. And just because the coming of to completion of that plan is kind of new doesn't mean the plan itself is new. Christ was the Lamb of God who was slain before the foundation, the world, in the plan of God. And all of these things, though, the resurrection is fairly recent, does not mean it's a new thing in God's plan. So this teaching that Christ is the Savior, that faith in Him is what makes you right with God, and nothing else, is God's way of dealing with humanity all along, and it's been his plan all along. Well, there were people in that day who thought that you needed to be circumcised in order to be saved. We've already mentioned them in a previous message, and they come up quite a number of times in the New Testament, people say you need this sign of circumcision. And if you don't receive it, then you are not one of God's people. And so Paul addresses that objection and asked this question, is this blessedness? Only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? We've been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. And notice Paul doesn't just throw stuff out there, here and there he reasons very logically, we, Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. When did that happen? Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after but before, and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith, while he was still uncircumcised. When you read that Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, you got to remember your mathematics. It happens in Genesis 12. And the covenant of circumcision comes 14 years later. And that is when it's introduced for the first time. So Abraham was justified by faith 14 years before God ever gave the sign of circumcision as a sign and a seal of the faith that he had even before he was ever circumcised. So Paul says, Don't tell me circumcision is the key to being right with God. Abraham was right with God, before ever, he was circumcised. And then he goes on to explain a little bit more so then he is the Father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he's also the father of the circumcised, who not only are circumcised, but who also walked in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. So Paul is saying, if you weren't circumcised and you have faith in Jesus, then Abraham is your father? If you're circumcised, and you have faith in Jesus. Abraham is your father. And well, he's not so much your father. If you're merely circumcised and aren't walking in the faith of Abraham, he's, he's redefining who is really a child of Abraham who is really a Jew. Then he goes on to talk not just about circumcision, but about the whole law that came in the circumcision of Abraham happened a few years, like 14 years after Abraham believed God's promise, but it was hundreds of years later that the law was given to Moses. So God's promise, and the people of promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants were around for hundreds of years, before the law of Moses was ever given. It was not through law, that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. Again, he just insists righteousness by faith, righteousness by faith, it's always been God's policy. It always came first. For if those who lived by law are heirs, faith has no value. And the promise is worthless. Because law brings wrath, and where there is no law, there is no transgression. He is saying promise comes before law. And if law just cancels out, promise, then the promise is no good. Let's say I tell my son, son, don't take this seriously, boys. When you turn 16, I am going to get you whatever car you want the hottest, best, fanciest car and I will pay the insurance. And they they may delight in that. And they may rejoice in that. And then a few years later, you know, I tell them that when they're 14, and then when they're about 16, I say boys, I'm going to give you the nicest hottest car that you'll ever want and I'll pay the insurance but I'm going to do that only if you obey me perfectly at all times. Now, what have I just done, I have wiped out the promise, because they're not going to obey me perfectly. If I make the promise conditional on a law that requires perfect obedience, there's really no point in making the promise. And so that's what Paul is saying here he says, if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value, and the promise is worthless. When God called Abraham, he didn't say, if your descendants live up to the law of Moses that I'm going to give hundreds and hundreds of years later, and they do so perfectly, then I'm going to bless all nations through your offspring. That is not what he said. He said, I've chosen you, and I am going to bless all nations, and in you, all nations of the earth will be blessed. And I have credited your faith to you as righteousness. The promise was unconditional, and was received by faith. So Paul insists that it's not circumcision, and that it's not the law. That is the basis for a right relationship with God. And he develops this even more sharply in the book of Galatians. I'll just take a few samples. We know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness works through the law, then Christ died for no purpose, Christ died for no reason, if you could be made righteous, just by doing what the law said, Now, it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith. And there he's quoting the prophet Habakkuk, just as he did in the great theme statement, the Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes first to the Jew, then to the Gentile, because in the Gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed that is, by first by faith from first to last, just as it is written, The righteous will live by faith. And here in Galatians, he's quoting the same verse making the same point, nobody is right with God, by the law, you're made right with God by the grace of God. And then he says, You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ, you've fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope you're going to get righteous by faith. For him, Christ Jesus, neither circumcision, nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself through love. So that's the argument. Therefore the promise back to Romans chapter 4, verse 16, and following, therefore, the promise comes by faith. So that it may be by grace, and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring who are Abraham's offspring, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations. He is our Father in the sight of God in whom he believed, the God who gives life to the dead, and calls things that are not as though they were. Again, this is a question that Paul addresses in a number of places earlier in Romans chapter two, he says, To the question, who is a Jew? No one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the spirit not the letter, his phrase is not from man, but from God. So circumcision and the law were temporary things that God gave to administer his work among the Jewish people for a limited time. And when the fulfillment came in Jesus Christ, then circumcision didn't count anymore. The ceremonial aspects of the law of Moses didn't count anymore. Even perfect obedience to the law of Moses was never ever a requirement. As a ladder to get you to heaven. It was always going to be righteousness, through faith. And it was always going to be something that got into your heart, not just into your ceremonies. Galatians also gets into this definition of who are Abraham's children understand then that those who believe are children of Abraham. He keeps repeating that and I keep repeating it because it's something that seems to get forgotten, forgotten these days. People seem to think that the nation of Israel is the children of Abraham, and that God's blessing comes to that national and political entity. Now I, I've been to Israel, I love the nation of Israel, but those who believe are children of Abraham, I am more a child of Abraham and Benjamin Netanyahu. Okay. That's what the Bible says, I am a child of Abraham. He is in one sense, but he's not in another sense because he doesn't believe in Jesus as his Messiah, not picking on the Prime Minister of Israel just making the case as obviously and plainly as I can, you can be Jewisher than Jewish in one sense. And if you don't accept Jesus as Messiah, the Bible says you're not one of Abraham's children. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the gospel in advance to Abraham, all nations will be blessed through you. So, to repeat again, those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. He redeemed us, again, continuing in Galatians, he redeemed us, in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith, we might receive the promise of his spirit. You are all children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus, there is neither Jew nor Greek for you're all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. If you want to get the theology down fairly clearly, you just need to learn that cheesy old song. Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham, I am one of them, and so are you. So let's just praise the Lord. That is a theological definition of who the children of Abraham are, when you believe in Jesus Christ. He has many children, and you're one of them. And if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, you're not. So that's the argument of Romans chapter four, up to the point that we're at. Faith comes before works. Before David was a man after God's own heart he was, he believed in God who justified the wicked, Before Abraham was the man who was had such faith that he would even offer up his own son to God, he was believing in the God who justifies the wicked. So faith comes before works. Faith comes before circumcision in the life of Abraham, faith came before hundreds of years before the giving of the law. So faith comes first in God's plan. And then after talking about this overall plan of redemption, and that's how the Bible teaches much of it is we just have to understand the story. We've got to understand the plan, don't just look for examples of I should be a little bit like that. Although there's value in that, as we're going to see in a moment, but just look at the big picture and how the plan and history of salvation unfolds. And where Abraham is in that plan. And then you can also look at the example. That's what Paul does here. He says, against all hope, Abraham, in hope, believed, and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, so shall your offspring be. Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead since he was about 100 years old, and that Sarah's womb was also dead. So Abraham's faith was not some dreamy little Oh, I've got no problems. There's a you know, it's automatically going to happen. He faced the facts. I'm a codger. I'm old, my wife is old. There is no way our bodies are capable of producing offspring anymore. We're more ready for the funeral parlor than we are to the baby ward. It's a fact, but God says there's a baby coming. So I am going to believe that fact. And so Abraham's faith was in the God who made the promises. He believed the word of God, he faced the facts that were in front of him. But then he took the fact of God's promise as being even more certain and more true. And so he is a great example of how faith works. When you're told that you're going to rise again and live forever. You believe that even when you're facing the fact that the statistics on death are very impressive, we all die. And we don't see people popping back out of the grave. We just believe God's promise, and we believe it based on what he did with Jesus Christ and raising him. But we face the fact that when were dead, and yet God gives life we face the fact that we're dead in sin. And that God gives life that our lives are about as likely to produce good fruit for God, as Sarah's womb was likely to produce a baby. Impossible, except if God says so. And then God can accomplish whatever he says. And so Abraham and Sarah they believed God, and he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised. This is why it was credited to him as righteousness. Now, once again, if you read the actual stories, you find Abraham doing some strange things. He takes the maid Hagar and has a child by her contrary to God's plan and promise. He has another time when God is promising that the baby's coming and Abram laughs and Sarah laughs too, and God says well make you laugh. All right, you just name your kid laughter when he shows up. So they named him Isaac, because he did show up. So again, this crediting him his righteousness, you just read in the Bible reading plan, Hebrews chapter 11, about the heroes of faith, and about all these people who did great things, because they had faith in God. And when you read the real stories, you find out boy, some of them had pretty little faith. And some of their faith kind of bounced around here and there, but in God's reckoning, hey, little faith, he credited him as righteousness, He was persuaded that God had power to do it. And so that's how God looks at these things. And he, he clung to the promise of God. And overtime, his faith did keep getting stronger, and stronger, until he could actually give up his son to God, reasoning, that even if he killed Isaac, God would bring him back from the dead, and he would still fulfill all of his promises through Isaac. So he had such faith in God, who brought something out of nothing, who could bring life out of death. That's the kind of god Abram believed in. And then Paul, once again drives it home. He's talked all about Abraham with a little sidetrack about David, and the way of righteousness. And then he says, the words it was credited to him, were written not for him alone, but also for us to whom God will credit righteousness for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, he was delivered over to death for our sins, and was raised to life for our justification. If you want a summary of the gospel, that last verse will just about do it, he was delivered over to death for our sins, and was raised to life for our justification. That is the summary of the work of Jesus Christ, He died to take away the sins and when God raised Him, He vindicated Jesus as his son, and he vindicated and made righteous, all who are in Jesus, through His resurrection. And so later on, Paul will say, if you believe in your heart, that Jesus, if you believe in your heart, that God raised Him from the dead and confess that Jesus is Lord, you'll be saved. And so this is the plan of salvation that He teaches us again and again. So just to summarize a few things from this chapter, one God, one plan one people, the God who chose Abraham is not a tribal God. He didn't just decide he loved Israel. And that's the only people he loved and the only ones he was going to deal with. He is the Lord of all peoples. And his dealings. Even with Israel, were always meant to be a light to the nations, and a blessing to all peoples and in the fullness of time, the Son of God would come to Israel, and then be a light to the nations. God does not have different plans to save different people's faith in Jesus, the Messiah is the only way for all. It is a grave and terrible error, to think that God has other ways of saving Jewish people, besides Jesus the Messiah. There are some whose theology says so well, if they don't believe in Jesus, if they don't follow him, if they don't receive His righteousness, God has another way to save them. No, he does not. Later on, Paul says, I have unceasing sorrow and agony in my heart for my kinsmen the Jews, because so many of them don't believe, would he have had that agony if they had some other plan for being saved and made right with God. And that's not just true Jewish people, of course, there are many different nations. And they say, Well, Jesus was Jewish, and this whole bible kind of a Jewish thing. And so there's many different religions, and whatever religion is out there works for you. That's not so God doesn't have different plans to save different peoples faith in Jesus is the only way. And a final point, just looking at this fact that God has one plan is that the church, the people of God, Christians who believe in Jesus and belong to Him, they are not plan B. They are not a parenthesis. There is a kind of theology sometimes called dispensationalism, that God has various dispensation, and deals with people very differently at different eras in history. And there's even the teaching that the Sermon on the Mount, for instance, doesn't apply to us today. Because it was meant for a particular segment of Jewish people. And when they rejected God's kingdom, then God went to Plan B, a kind of parenthesis in salvation history where he deals with the church. And then at the end of that he'll get back to dealing with Israel again. The church is plan B? The Sermon on the Mount doesn't apply to us? You got to be real careful with that kind of teaching because we are called to follow the teaching of Jesus and to be His disciples just as much as The Jewish people who heard the Sermon on the Mount, and the church includes the people of Israel. And the people of Israel, who come to Christ by faith are part of the church just as much as any Gentile, we're all one. In Christ Jesus, all believers are Abraham's children. So this is the great plan of God. And he doesn't have plan A, plan B, plan C, and so on. The Son of God was slain before the foundation of the world. When God called Abraham, Abraham was already looking to Jesus' day, and was glad. And he was saved by faith in the promise of a coming Messiah. And as he was saved by faith in the promise of a coming messiah, we look back and are saved by faith in the Messiah who has come and is coming again. So the unity of God's plan, you say, Well, why do I need to know all this? I just want to know, you know, how to get saved and how to go to heaven someday? Well, that's not enough. In terms of what I want you to know. And what God wants, you know, that's more to the point, it doesn't really matter what I want you to know, Romans four is God's word. And God wants you to know not just how you get saved as an individual, but how you're part of a great story. And you belong to a great plan. And you're a child of Abraham. So when you read his story, it's your story. When you read David's story, it's your story. Because you have the same faith and God's plan of how to save you. Yeah, that's that hasn't changed to the man who does not work. But trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. If you asked Abraham, how were you right with God, what brought you to heaven? He would say, Well, I was wicked. I was an idol worshiper, I was a coward. I was a liar. But I trusted God who justifies the wicked, and my faith was credited as righteousness. If you ask David, how are you right with God? How did you make it into God's kingdom? David would say, Well, I was an adulterer, and murderer, and a coveter, and a thief. And I trusted God who justifies the wicked, and my faith was credited to me as righteousness. If you ask Mary Magdalene, how are you right with God? How did you make it into God's kingdom? She'd say, Well, I was controlled by seven demons and living a wicked life. But I met Jesus and I trusted him. And though I was wicked, I trusted in the God who justifies the wicked, and my faith was credited to me as righteousness. And supremely if you meet the apostle Paul, and say, How are you right with God? He'll say, Well, I was a murderer, and a blasphemer, and do not even deserve to be called an apostle. But I trusted in God who justifies the wicked, and my faith was credited to me as righteousness. So that's the point that Paul was making. In Romans chapter four. If you trust the God who justifies the wicked, your faith is credited as righteousness. God credits righteousness apart from works. God will credit righteousness to us who believe in Him who raised Jesus, our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins, and He was raised to life. For our justification that has always been God's way. It will always be God's way. Lord, we thank you that we are your children, and that we're children of your chosen servant Abraham, through faith in Jesus Christ. And we pray, Lord, that each of us here today may again rejoice in you that we are yours that you have come and that through your truth and grace in Christ, we are yours and we can rejoice forever as your children. Lord, if any of us are unsteady or, or far from you. We pray that you will strengthen our faith or give us faith if we don't have a living faith, and that we too may enjoy this right standing with you that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. And then Lord, fill us with your joy with the knowledge that being justified by faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we pray, Amen.