In the sermon titled 'Abraham Displays the Marks of True Faith,' Scott Brown discusses the nature of faith as illustrated by Abraham, who is presented as a model of true faith in the context of Romans Chapter 4. The sermon emphasizes that justification comes through faith according to grace, not by works or adherence to the law. Abraham's faith is characterized by his unwavering trust in God's promises, even when circumstances seemed hopeless. The sermon contrasts true faith with superficial acts of belief, suggesting that genuine faith involves believing in God's promises, including the resurrection and the fulfillment of His word. It encourages believers to reflect on their own faith, noting that God tests faith to strengthen it, and emphasizes the importance of having a faith like Abraham's that glorifies God. The sermon concludes by inviting believers to rejoice in justification by faith alone and to embrace the faith of Abraham for salvation.

Romans chapter 4 beginning in verse 16 through the end of the chapter. Therefore, it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations, in the presence of Him whom he believed, God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did, who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations. According to what was spoken, so shall your descendants be." And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God and being fully convinced that what he had promised he was also able to perform.

And therefore, it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now, it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you for your word for the gospel of Jesus Christ that is so clear, so powerful, never wavering, never failing.

Oh, thank you for making that promise to Abraham. Thank you for keeping your promise to Abraham. We know you're so powerful and strong to be able to do that. Lord, we thank you that it was not written for his sake alone, but that it was imputed to Him, yes, but also for us. What a powerful Word you have that stretches through all eternity.

We rejoice in your grace, Father. We pray for our good brother Scott now as he's coming to rightly divide the Word of truth to us, Lord. Fill him with your Spirit. Give him your strength and grace as he delivers your Word to your people. And all God's people prayed and said together, amen.

Our text opens a window into the faith of Abraham, which is the faith that all who come to God must have. We've been working our way through the book of Romans in chapter one we learn that Paul is not ashamed of the gospel but that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness all our sinners We've exchanged the glory of God for a lie. And he speaks of the despicable sinfulness of Gentile culture in chapter 1. Chapter 2 he says but it's not enough just to say that it's those terrible homosexuals out there that are lost. Also, there are religious people who are lost, who have claimed faith in something in which there is no substance to it at all.

And so He turns his attention toward the religious and says as well that there is only one way to be saved and it's not through the works of the law. In chapter 3 he expands on that and says that justification is by faith alone, not by the works of the law, that all have sinned, all, and fall short of the glory of God. And then in chapter 4, after giving us this doctrine, he gives us an example. He gives us a living person to help us understand what all these things mean that have gone before. Isn't that interesting that you get you get the doctrine and then you get the practice and that's what you get right here.

You get a living picture of a human being in history who explains the details of how justification by faith alone works. Doctrine is never isolated from practice in Scripture, and now we'll see this doctrine lived out in the attitudes and the practices of a historical figure Abraham. So we've seen the theory and now we see the practice. We've seen what faith looks like from a theological level. Now we see what faith looks like in the practical outworking of Abraham's life.

So what does Paul do? He goes back 2, 000 years before his time. He goes back 600 years before the law. And he brings to us a personality that is an example of faith in Jesus Christ. That's exactly what he does.

Isn't that amazing? There are not two Bibles. There's one Bible, there's one faith, one Lord, and one baptism. And this salvation is explained through the life of Abraham. And so this chapter answers lots of questions, but mainly Let's focus on this one question that it answers, and that is, what kind of faith is it that justifies sinners?

What kind of faith is it that makes someone justified? Let me just give you an example how important this question is. For one thing, there are many who believe that there are very few in the broad spread of our evangelical churches who are truly believers. There are people in our own Southern Baptist Convention who say that maybe five or ten percent, maybe twenty percent of the sixteen million who are on the rolls are true believers. Here's how they get to that number.

They say we have sixteen million but only half of them show up at church ever. They come on Easter and Christmas and then the number gets whittled down accordingly that way. Here's another way to explain it, explain how important this question is. Ian Murray a while back wrote a book called The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism and he does a historical study from 1750 to 1858. His thesis in this book is that there are two kinds of revivals in American history.

One kind was a work of the Holy Spirit, where the people who were involved in them believed that revivals happened because God awakens His people through His Word and through His Spirit alone. These revivals would be exemplified in what we saw in the first great awakening with Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield and George Tennant. One of you actually has a Bible that was owned by George Tennant in this room. It's absolutely amazing. But her Gilbert Tennant.

And these were examples of this kind of revival. But Ian Murray says that there is another kind of revival. He calls it American revivalism, where there are methods employed to obtain the appearance of external signs of conversion and repentance and rebirth. Charles Finney, D.L. Moody, were proponents of this second kind.

He says that in many ways, these revivals, because they sought to get an instant verification through some sign of the revival created false conversions in the church and instead of real disciples And Spurgeon criticized many of these new methods and he said, he said, what are we doing by counting these people certifying in half a minute which will need a lifetime of testing. And so, Ian Murray speaks of this problem that we have today of this revivalistic methodology that seeks to get a decision, that seeks to get a prayer, that seeks to get a walk down the aisle. And in many ways, it's salvation by works. If you walk down that aisle, if you raise your hand, if you pray that sinner's prayer, you are saved. And the Bible doesn't say that at all.

The Bible gives us many things, as he has in Romans 1 through 3. And now He gives us a person to help us understand what true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is. Now let me just qualify this. Can someone be saved when they raise their hand, when they walk down the aisle or pray the sinner's prayer? Absolutely they can!

And millions have been saved that way. But is that, is that what God is calling for in terms of true faith? And the answer to that question is absolutely not. We don't see that in Scripture. What do we see in Scripture?

Well, we see it here in this passage. So what kind of faith would cause a person to be saved? And what would cause righteousness to be put to the account of the sinner. James tells us what kind of faith doesn't justify. He says that faith without works is dead.

If you say you have faith, but there are no works, You've not had justifying faith. That's it's one thing James tells us now here the Apostle Paul gives us more on that whole subject and So how do you explain what kind of faith is required for salvation and how do you describe what happens to those who have it so we're getting a detailed layout of the doctrine justification by faith what it means to be saved by Paul beginning in chapter 1 rolling it up right now to this moment where we find ourselves in this character study of Abraham. Chapter 4 begins with a really interesting question, and I'm just going to rephrase it. The question really goes like this. Where did Abraham's works get him?

And the answer is nowhere. If they got him anywhere, he would have a reason to boast, but not before God. He could boast before man, but not before Almighty God, because God does not justify by works. And then other questions are answered. Was it Abraham's circumcision that got him saved?

The answer is Absolutely not. God is looking for a circumcision of the heart. God has always looked for the heart. God has always justified by faith and not by works. And so here we find Abraham as a premier example of what what salvation by faith alone looks like.

You have an outline before you and I've broken this up in four particular parts and The first is that in verses 16 we see that justification is a faith through grace. You see those words there? It's so clear. Therefore, so therefore means something came before and he's been explaining all these things about Abraham because we're still talking about Abraham. He says, therefore it is a faith that it might be according to grace so that the promise might be sure to all the seed.

So faith is explained and it's by grace. Now there are many definitions of faith in the Bible. If you would define faith, my expectation is that you would probably think, first of all, of Hebrews 11.1. Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. We think of that probably first when we think about defining faith.

Paul also to the Ephesians gave a definition of faith. He said, for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared that we should walk in them." So faith in its definition must contain the aspect of free grace. And here in Romans 4 in these verses we also find a definition of faith. In verse 21 it says, being fully convinced that what he had promised he was able to perform.

That's another definition of faith. Faith says that what God promises He is able to perform. That's what faith does. And the result is, in 22, and therefore it was accounted to Him for righteousness. So faith is a free gift, it is by grace.

All of the Bibles says that. And here we find it exemplified in Abraham. There's also something else here that I think is so important that we bring out and that is this. It's the sureness of the promise. Because the sureness of the promise is affirmed here He says that the promise might be sure to all the seed what makes the promise sure is it your works?

No, is it your attitude today? No, The sureness of the promise is secured by grace. And there's no sureness of this promise of salvation unless God keeps His promise and performs according to that promise. So the sureness of the promise is not ensured by our feelings, it's not ensured by our performance, it's not even ensured by what somebody else might say. The sureness of salvation is by faith according to grace.

That's how sure this promise is to you. And it's backed up by God's own promise. And it's exemplified in Abraham, who gives... Abraham is here for us to give both religious and non-religious people hope that they can be saved. That their salvation is not dependent upon the works that they performed in the past or even in the present or even in the future because it is a faith that it might be according to grace.

Now this verse 16 that we're on right now it might maybe it's the heartbeat of the passage. Everything in the passage gets summed up in that statement right there. Therefore it is a faith that it might be according to grace. And the purpose is that the promise might be sure to who? To all.

The promise is sure to all who have this faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He says it's to all the seed. Do you see that? To all the seed. And Then in these first two verses, another thing happens is that Abraham is identified as our spiritual father.

Now we have earthly fathers and we have spiritual fathers. And Abraham is now named as our spiritual father. He's a representative. And we look at him to see how faith worked in his life. This is one thing that every little boy and every little girl has such a wonderful opportunity.

They get to see their daddies and their mommies, and they get to see them as representatives before God. They see a Father who is the head of the household, and Christ is His head. They see these representatives and how they work. Now Abraham was a man. He was not divine, but he is a spiritual father to us in the way that God gives spiritual fathers and mothers in the church as well.

And Abraham is our spiritual father. And so by looking at Abraham we can know how to have a relationship with God. This is how God is wired to the world. He gives us these representatives that teach us something about Himself. And so, Father Abraham is the prototype of every believer.

Now who was Abraham? Abraham was idolatrous. He was chosen. He was called. He was imperfect.

We have a number of stories that illustrate his imperfections, and he was not justified by his own efforts. And he was also without the law, or at least he was without the Mosaic law. Six hundred years before the law he lived. And it's interesting that Paul would go, not go, he didn't go back to Moses, he goes back even further before the law was given formally. Of course God had written his law on men's hearts and he has given us, he has given all men a conscience and so we do know what God desires but he goes back 600 years before the law to give us this example of faith to help us understand what faith is all about.

So Abraham is our father, and he is our mentor in salvation. Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had father Abraham, and I am one of them. And so are you. And this statement here in verse 17 makes it very clear that when we think about faith, we don't just think about the Lord Jesus Christ, we do think about Him.

We don't just think about the apostles. We don't just think about those who are saved in the book of Acts. We also need to have a broader, clearer understanding of the work of salvation. We go back to Abraham to help us understand what salvation in Christ is all about. So, in this first section, we see the nature of salvation, that justification is a faith according to grace, verses 16 and 17.

Now let's move on. We're going to move on into a really meaty section that I think is so encouraging. I hope, I really hope that what we cover here will thrill your heart. I pray that it will fill your soul with joy in the Almighty hand of God and His strength. That as a result of studying this, we would have more faith, our step would be more brisk, our smile would be broader, our hearts would be full of more joy as a result because we'll see how faith was demonstrated in action and why.

And that takes us from verses 18 to 21. So I want to speak generally and then we'll kind of get more specific. The content of Abraham's life, the genuineness of his faith, is really painted here in a beautiful, very clear way. And the summary of it is this. Abraham believed everything that God said.

Verse 17, as it is written, as it is written. And Paul is quoting from the Old Testament, and he says, I have made, I've already done something, And I have made you a father of many nations. So he starts out with this promise that Abraham is the father of many nations. In Cintra Zin he says, I have made. It's like he's already done it.

And this is the great evangelistic agenda of Almighty God. That He will redeem people from many nations. Do you see those two words there? Many nations. And this means there are no cultural barriers, There are no geographical or spiritual barriers in the heart of God for salvation.

He will work in the poorest and the richest and the most backward peoples in the whole world. That's why we should bring the Gospel to the whole world. We should send missionaries to places where we don't know their language. And we should learn their language. All year we've been reading this biography of John G.

Peyton who went to the New Hebrides Islands and he was there and his life was threatened every day and people died. His dear wife died beside him and he had to protect her grave from these these vile people that he was around. He stayed there for many years and thousands and thousands came to faith because he went there. He believed that God desired worshippers from every tongue and tribe and nation. And by the way, I just got an email from one of my friends this morning, Andy Davis.

He's not preaching this morning. There's a missions, they're having a missions conference this weekend. We just pray that God would help them. They do. This church has a desire to reach lost people in this world.

And let it be so, Let it be so of all of us. Many nations God will redeem. And this is God's heart. And what was it about Abraham and the myths of God's heart and motivation? In the presence of Him of whom He believed.

Here's Abraham in the presence of God. And in God's presence, He believed. That's the idea. You know, All of us, right this moment, stand before God. We sit here in this place.

We are before Him, just like Abraham was. We are always just like Him, either before God or before the world. Our hearts are either turned toward the world or toward God. And Abraham was in his presence in whom he believed. He believed in God.

He desired God's authority in his life. He desired to be obedient to him and to carry out everything that God would have for him. And that was the first mark of his faith. He believed. That's the general summary of what we'll get to more detail on in just a second here.

But he believed in God. And that was his posture. His posture was before God, wide open, and the object of his faith was even more important. It was God that he had his faith in. You know, all the faith in the world is nothing if it's put in the wrong object.

I can have all the faith in the world that eating chocolate will save my soul. But if the object is wrong, then all the faith in the world is meaningless. It doesn't matter how much I write about chocolate saving my soul or talk about chocolate saving my soul. If the object of my faith is not strong, then all of my faith is worthless. And that Abraham was before God, and his faith was in God.

His faith was not in some worldly thing that had no workable effect at all. So here he believed God. And then we get to what I think is so wonderful. What did he believe about God? And this is an example of what true faith is.

When you believe these things about God, you're justified by faith. That's what he's saying here. So faith isn't going to church, it's not saying things, it's truly believing the things that Abraham believed about God. And if you believe those things, you are justified by faith. That's the logic that he's using here.

So are you ready? And notice there's nothing about walking in Isle, there's nothing about praying a sinner's prayer. There's nothing about anything like that, but there are things of the heart that justify us. So the first thing he believed about God is that he believed that God gives life to the dead. He believed that God gives life to the dead.

And so he saw everything according to the power of God, particularly this issue of death and resurrection. We see this in the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 verse 5. Abraham believed that God could would raise up his son from the dead and you know it's interesting that Abraham has all these stories written about him. Some of them are complimentary, and some of them are very uncomplimentary. We know that he faced famine.

And when you read the narrative of the famine story, you get the idea that Abraham had lost his faith, don't you? He did some things that, you know, were not right. We see him losing faith and then jumping the gun and taking Hagar as his wife. We see him facing a potentially hostile pharaoh in Genesis 12. We see him facing conflict with his nephew Lot.

We see him facing these strong kings. He takes 318 of his fighting men and he takes on the biggest, baddest king in the ancient world, Keter Lommer and those who were in league with him. And so, Even though he has this mixed record, he believes that God gives life to the dead. And he had this rock solid belief of the resurrection, that it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now, to have salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, you must believe in resurrection.

You must. If you don't believe in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, if you don't believe that God can raise the dead, and if you don't believe that God can raise you from the dead, you are not saved. That was the faith of Abraham. He had his problems, but he did believe that God was able to raise the dead. The second thing he believed is he believed that God was omnipotent to do anything he pleased.

He said he calls those things which do not exist as though they did. He calls those things which do not exist as though they did. He believed in a God who could bring everything out of nothing. He believed in a God who if he needed to, the stones would cry out. He believed that God could take care of everything that might come down.

And even though we can't see our deliverance with our own eyes, God calls those things which do not exist as though they did. And so Paul uses this word, he says, that Abraham believed that God calls things to happen. God calls many things to happen. And he uses this imagery of the omnipotence of God and the belief in it to demonstrate the kind of faith that Abraham had. And so here Abraham believes that God is omnipotent.

Here's the third thing that he believed. He believed God when the evidence was contrary to hope. Look at verse 18. Who contrary to hope, in hope, believed, so that he became the father of many nations according to what was spoken, so shall your descendants be." So he believed God, even though what God said was contrary to what he could see with his eyes, it was contrary to hope. And so Abraham's situation had two elements to it.

First, there was a promise. God made a promise to Abraham, and Abraham was standing on those promises. But the second part of Abraham's situation is that there was no outward observable evidence that it was true. His body He regarded as dead and same with his wife. And there was all this evidence that just would destroy hope.

And of course we all understand that. We've been in situations where all the evidence would just seem to wipe out all hope. Abraham is like us in that sense. But there was an undeniable, unassailable condition that totally contradicted the promise. And Abraham's faith teaches us something about how to handle things that are beyond hope for ourselves.

You know, there may be things lingering in us that we would say, my salvation is hopeless. Or there may be other situations in our lives where we look and we say it's hopeless, there's no evidence of any hope here. But salvation that saves, or faith that saves, is a faith that has hope, even when there's no evidence of the hope. And so there's information out there that destroys hope in us. And, you know, we can see a beautiful example of this when we read Hebrews 11.

Because Hebrews 11 speaks of so many people in scripture, Abraham included, who had no reason to hope, but they had faith, they had hope in the things that were unseen, that were contradicted by the evidence. And they had hope in the promises of God. Abraham believed that the promises of God were true. He had trust in the promises, not in the external realities that were facing him. Has that ever happened to you?

Where you have all these external realities that seem to contradict everything about hope. And what happens to us is we often set aside the promises of God and we say, No, those aren't true for me. They must be true for other people, but not for me. You know, I was reading about this whole subject this week, and I ran across the words of Joshua on his deathbed. Joshua's come to the end of his life, and he's speaking.

He's saying, I'm getting ready to go the way of the earth and he says and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the things that the Lord God has spoken to you, all have come to pass, and not one word of them has failed." That's what Joshua says just before his death. And then you find Solomon saying a similar thing in 1 Kings 8 where he says, blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people according to all that he has promised, that has not, there has not failed one word of all his good promise which he has promised through his servant Moses. You have Abraham who believed in the promises, you have Joshua who believed in the promises, and you have Solomon who believed that not one word of God will fail. That was the faith of Abraham. He believed that not one word would fail.

And God, you know, God has given us so many promises that external evidences sometimes try to defeat. There are many things that try to destroy a trust in the promises of God. You know, God says, my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches and glory. Is there anything on the horizon that's destroying that hope? God has promised that His grace is sufficient for us, that that's all we need, that no matter what might be happening in this life, His grace is sufficient for all things.

There are so many promises that God has given us. He has laid out hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of promises for us. He said, be anxious for nothing, but by everything with prayer and supplication. With thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and, here's a promise, and the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and your minds through Jesus Christ." Well, God has given us so many promises, and how often is it, how often is it, that the external, hopeless information dampens the promises of God? Well, I think it's obvious that faith must look beyond circumstances.

Faith must be visionary. Faith is not bound to today. And Abraham's faith enabled him to see that God was faithful to his promises. Here's a third thing we learn about Abraham. He was not weak in faith, verse 19.

And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body already dead. Since he was about 100 years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb. So here we know that there are two kinds of faith. There's weak faith and strong faith. Abraham had strong faith.

Now if you read the story of his life you'd think he had weak faith. That's not true. Having strong faith doesn't mean that you've perfected everything in life. That's not what strong faith is. Strong faith is different than that.

It might include faithfulness and obedience, of course. But Abraham, first of all, he considered his own body. He wasn't blind faith, by the way. Abraham believed, but he wasn't just blind faith. He said, hey, look at his body.

He considered his body dead. He wasn't a pie in the sky kind of faith. He was looking at the evidences, but he kept his emphasis of his heart on the promises. But the evidence of his body didn't weaken his faith. His eyes weren't closed to it.

But does having strong faith mean that you have no struggles? No, it doesn't mean that at all. In the midst of the fears, in the midst of the struggles, Abraham had fears. But his faith triumphed. You know, have you ever had a faithless thought that eventually turned around through the ministry of a wife or a brother or a word from God or a sermon?

Has that ever happened? That's the faith of Abraham. There might be struggles with it, but that doesn't mean that it's all over. The faith of Abraham actually struggled even though it was strong faith. Strong faith isn't perfect.

We see Abraham struggle in a number of places. In Genesis 15 we see it. The word of the Lord came to Abraham and said, do not be afraid Abraham, I am your shield, I am your exceedingly great reward. Why would God have to come to Abraham and say, don't be afraid? He had strong faith but he still had fear, somehow.

And God came to him and met him on that level. And then Abraham shows his struggle and he says, but Lord, in verse 2, Lord, what will you give me? I'm childless. And look, the heir to my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And how will this come out?

And then God comes back and says, no this one shall not be your heir but one will come from your body. Abraham responds and the text says and he believed the Lord and it was accounted to him for righteousness and then God said to him I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to inherit it and then Abraham says but Lord how will I inherit it And then God gives him an answer. He says, go get a heifer. Get a three-year-old female goat, and a three-year-old ram, and a turtle dove, and I'll tell you what to do. And Abraham has a terrifying night where God stakes his claim on all the promises and says, I am putting my name on these promises.

I am the one who is striking this deal. And it is my name that it stands for these promises. If I do not fulfill these promises, my name is nothing. And God is coming to Abraham in his struggle, and in the middle of his uncertainties, his misgivings. These are all things a part of our sinful flesh, but God is faithful, and he helps turn us back to the place of satisfaction in his promises alone, and to get our eyes off the appearances that would destroy our faith.

So it was strong faith. And then lastly, he did not waver in his faith. I really love the way the King James translates this. He staggered not. He staggered not in his faith.

Verse 20. He did not waver at the promise through unbelief. So what does it mean to stagger? Maybe it's like James with the double-minded man. He's unstable in all his ways.

He's like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. Let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord." We read of this unstaggered faith in a number of places in scripture. One of the places is in Acts chapter 20 where Paul says, See I go bound in the spirit of Jerusalem not knowing what will befall me there, but I know that in every city it is said that bonds and chains await me. And then he says this, he says, but none of these things move me. Because his faith did not stagger.

He kept his eye on the promises. And what happens when this happens? Well, God gets the glory. His faith is made strong glorifying God. Now, there's nothing that glorifies God more than believing what he has said and resting completely upon it.

There's nothing that glorifies him more And nothing shames God and shames us or belittles Him when we disregard what He has said and we don't believe. You know, our family has had many, many happy hours in bodies of water, swimming pools, swimming docks, things like that. And one of the things that happens, happened in our home, especially when our children were little, is I would stand a few feet off the edge, and my children were standing there, and I would say, jump! And... There may have been times where a child was reluctant to jump.

They did not have the faith that their father would catch them. But faith works when it believes and takes that jump and says, Yes, Father, I believe. But there's nothing that shames us and belittles God more than when we do not fall in the direction of His commandments by the lack of our faithfulness. One of the happiest things in the world is when you hold out your arms and your little child jumps, and then you move back a little bit farther. And you say, jump, and they jump.

And that they would cheerfully trust in the abilities of their father to catch them. And that was the kind of faith that Abraham had. So Abraham considered God, he desired to glorify God, and he accepted the promises as greater than the evidences that were around him. So we must believe, We must believe. Here's one thing we must believe.

We must believe that God is able to justify us. We must be able to believe that He accepts unworthy sinners. We must believe that His resurrection is greater than our sin. We must believe that He will raise us up on that last day. If we don't believe that, we do not have justifying faith.

You know, the sinner honors God by trusting in His grace in the same way that Abraham glorified God by trusting in his justification and trusting in the idea that God is omnipotent and that he will raise from the dead. Well this last section, by faith, righteousness was accounted to Abraham and to us. Now it's interesting that the first verse in this section is very much like the last one, because the theme is continuing here. And therefore, and therefore, with all, that Abraham believed all these things, as a result, it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now, it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him, but also for us.

It shall be imputed to us who believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead who is delivered up Because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification So he starts out and he says, was it not written? Was it not written? And what was written was the Gospel. And here is the Gospel. He gives us at least three things that are true of the Gospel.

And the first thing is that Christ's righteousness was accounted to Abraham as an example for us. So it's not just for Abraham, it's for us. That's the idea. And so, you know, Paul is giving us an example from Old Testament Scripture to lead us and Abraham is our example. And here's what the example teaches.

Well, it teaches many things. Can a person be saved and still have marriage problems as was the case with Sarah and Abraham? Remember when Sarah lied? There's some tension in this marriage from time to time that we can see in Scripture. Can you be justified by faith and have a problem in your marriage?

Yes. Can you be justified by faith and have a problem in your marriage? Yes. Can you be justified by faith and still have problems telling the truth, as it was with Pharaoh and Abraham, and you are my sister? Things like this?

Is it possible? Yes, it is possible. Is it possible that a person could be saved and have terrible problems in his family? Yes, Abraham and Lot had terrible problems, and they resolved them. But Abraham is a representative person and he demonstrates for the rest of us how salvation works.

So you know we see how the Old Testament can apply today, that the faith of Abraham is exactly the kind of faith that we are called to. And that's why verse 16 says, but Abraham is the father of us all. And just as with Abraham, it will be imputed to us for righteousness. It's interesting that the Apostle Paul uses the word imputed, but he uses a future verb to signify it. Logistus thai is the Greek term that he uses, but it's a future verb And it's to signify that this faith that Abraham had continues on in all ages to the church, to all of God's people, that there is this constant work of justification, of imputation.

This is the way that God works with his people. And then he speaks of the reason for all of this. Because he was delivered up for our offenses. We have many offenses, and he was delivered up for our offenses. Verse 25.

Offenses that God forbears because He's justified us. It doesn't mean that His sins are meaningless to us, to Him, Because the wrath of God is against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. There is the wrath of God for our sins. We will receive wrath at the judgment seat of Christ, where our works will be tested by fire. And there will be wood, hay, and stubble.

The things we have said in the flesh and done in the flesh will be burned up. Yes, God does care about our sins on the one hand. On the other hand, He's justified us by grace, through faith. Now one of the things that's so interesting here to me is the forbearance of God in Abraham's life. God disallows Abraham to lose his faith through temporal failures.

I just want to say that again. God disallows Abraham to lose his faith through temporal failures. Isn't that interesting? God sustains the faith. God gives the faith and he sustains the faith and he perfects the faith.

It's God that does this and He who began a good work in you will perfect it. And so we walk by faith and not by sight. And then finally the great point of the gospel, He was raised because of our justification. He was raised because of our justification. So the faith of Abraham summarizes the gospel that he was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification.

And so the faith of Abraham is the kind of faith that is perpetually accepted in every generation. Do you believe that God can raise the dead? Do you believe that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead? Do you believe that He can raise you up on the last day and bring you into his eternal kingdom? Do you believe the promises?

And if you do, it will be reckoned to you as righteousness. And that's the faith of Abraham. Okay, I have maybe three points of application to make and the first application is this. God tests our faith. And how is your testing going?

There are always points of faith testing, just like Abraham. There's a famine on the one hand. There's a conflict in a family and a desire for riches and the best land, on the other hand. There are problems in faith, faith stretching things happening in marriage. So what is it for you?

God is always testing our faith in some area. What is it for you? Could you just name that in your heart? That God is testing my faith. My heart seems to fail from time to time.

But I do believe in the resurrection. I do believe that God can raise the dead. In my mind I do, with all of my heart I do, but there's this testing going on in me right now and it's scaring me and I'm harmed by it. You know, it's interesting, God does this with us. You know, God sustains our faith.

Here's a brilliant example of this. Of course, we have Abraham. We see how God has sustained his faith. But the Lord Jesus said something to Simon Peter that tells us the same thing. He said, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat.

But I've prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you've turned back, strengthen your brothers. We're being sifted. Peter was sifted Just like we're being sifted right now. What is God using to sift you?

To strengthen your faith so that when you come back from this time of testing you will come back to strengthen your brothers. What is that time? This last week I was in a time of testing And there was one day last week I found myself just discouraged about some things that were happening, some things that were being said about me that were not true. And so I was getting discouraged. And then at one point in the day, I was standing right over there, and I was talking to Deborah.

And she said, Scott, Is this all about you? Are all you thinking about is yourself in this? You're only thinking about how this affects just you. Scott Brown is thinking about Scott Brown. And she says, you know, aren't there more worthy subjects to obsess about than Scott Brown?

And she said, she said, you've spent too much time, you've been spending too much time in the wrong place. You've been in Scotland, haven't you? You've been spending too much time in Scotland. She said, I think Scott Brown needs to leave Scotland. And I said, Deborah, I want to announce to you that immediately I'm leaving Scotland and I did I left Scotland for that moment no for that entire week I have not returned to Scotland since I think it was Monday or Tuesday okay now I'm see I'm seeking a better country I don't want to go to Scotland.

But what is this sifting and testing that's going on among us in your life? It's probably different than mine. But sifting happens to all believers, just like it did with Peter, and just like it did with Abraham. And there are many different problems that were introduced into Abraham's life that caused the sifting to build his faith. Now, what is it for you?

Do any of you need to leave your Scotland? Like I left mine early this year. I'm so glad I got out of Scotland and Life was so much better. You know, Matthew Henry said, when God intends some special blessing, some child of promise for His people, He commonly puts a sentence of death upon the blessing itself. And upon all the ways that lead to it.

Joseph must be enslaved and imprisoned before he advanced." And then he talks about Abraham. But this is true about this life that God has given us. There are contradictions and siftings in the midst of our faith. And the second thing is that faith that trusts gives many opportunities to glorify God. In your siftings now, which child are you like?

Are you like the child at the edge of the pool that will not jump? Or are you like the child who with all of his heart and with the biggest smile in the world, giggling while he jumps out into the water and says, Ah, the Father, I believe you. So, Faith that trusts gives opportunities to glorify God. Let's glorify God in our trials and tribulations like Abraham did. It glorifies God to take Him at His word and to trust Him.

It pleases Him when we have the faith of the child that just jumps off the edge into the water. And then lastly, Has this faith of Abraham been found in you? Do you have the faith that is described here? Do you have saving faith that believes with your whole heart? Not that you haven't had problems or reversals.

That's not what we're talking about. But we're talking about real, genuine, I believe in you God. I believe your ways are pleasant ways. I believe that you're able to raise the dead. I believe that you will bring me into your everlasting kingdom.

I do believe that God is true and every man is a liar. Do you have that's the faith that Abraham? Do you have it? This is the faith that saves. And so If you are a believer here today, I would just so desire that we together would rejoice in justification by faith alone.

And if there are any who have not believed yet, you can believe. You can have the faith of Abraham, and God will save your soul for all eternity. And when you do die, you will hear those precious words, enter into the joy of your Master. That was the faith of Abraham. May God give us great faith in this life and may God give us many sons of Abraham as a result of our willingness to share the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Will you pray with me? Thank you Heavenly Father for our Father Abraham and all that we learned from Him about our salvation. Oh Lord, I pray that we would be true sons of Abraham. Amen.