In this sermon titled 'Abraham Believed God!', Scott Brown discusses the concept of justification by faith alone as explained by the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans. Brown highlights Abraham as an example of justification by faith, emphasizing that salvation has always been by faith in both the Old and New Testaments and that it is a faith that rests on the promises of God. He explores what Abraham believed and how his faith was accounted to him as righteousness. Brown also addresses the importance of believing in Jesus as the Savior, the blessings that come through the gospel, and the unfairness of God justifying the ungodly. Overall, the sermon emphasizes the significance of justification by faith and the sufficiency of Scripture in understanding this doctrine.

Please open your Bibles to Romans 4, find verse 1. I'll be reading the first five verses of Romans 4, 1 through 5. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter-than-honey word of God. Romans 4 verse 1. What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. Would you pray with me?

Oh Lord, come and feed your sheep, come and lead your flock, come and bless this vine of yours that you would come and pour your grace out upon your people who love your name and who love the words that are written here. I pray that you would give us understanding that we might love these wonderful words and find our lives so compliant to them. Amen. Please be seated. The apostle is continuing his discussion on justification by faith alone.

You know, I read a story a while back of a little girl who saved enough money for a Father's Day gift for a present for her dad, but she was concerned about one thing. So she went to her mother and she said, Mother, I want to buy something for dad, but I bought this present on installments. And she said, I can't be going downtown every month to make payments. And she said, is there a store anywhere where they let you pay for the whole thing at once. And you know, people think often about salvation like this.

If you keep the payments up, then you can keep your salvation. You can earn your way by making payments to God. You're on the installment plan. In Romans here, particularly in chapter three and chapter four, Paul is telling the Roman church that believers are not on the installment plan, that Jesus Christ paid the price once for all. And this passage is helpful on a lot of fronts.

You know, in my experience, one of the most common questions that little children ask me is how are the people in the Old Testament saved? This passage gives the answer to that question. And so justification is illustrated. The entire chapter of Romans four is here to tell us that justification has always been by faith in both the Old Testament and the New Testament and that as verse 16 says that it is a faith that it might be according to grace. Salvation rests on the promises of God.

And here the Apostle Paul is laying before us various examples and the first example of justification by faith is Abraham himself. And Paul is actually continuing what he was speaking of in the previous chapter, where he's talking about boasting in your salvation. And in chapter three, verse 27, he said, if you're justified by faith, boasting is excluded. So he's still talking about that. You know, boasting, having pride in our works, thinking that we somehow gain access to God through our works and things like that, but he's just said in the previous chapter, boasting is excluded.

And now as we turn over into chapter four, Paul gives us actually four case studies to help us understand why boasting is excluded for our salvation. And you can see them, I listed them there. There are these four illustrations listed in your outline. And the first one is Abraham, that's verses one through five. And then he will deal with this next week, David in verses five through eight.

And then the third illustration is circumcision in verses nine through twelve and then the fourth illustration is keeping the commandments are you justified by any of these things and the Apostle is just gonna work through them interestingly enough if you look at the things he's going to deal with, he was, he mentioned these things just in the last part of chapter 3. So now he's going to be expanding on each one of them by number. And Paul's very logical in the way that he works through this. So Abraham is the example that we're looking at this morning. It's really hard to overestimate the importance of Abraham to the Jews.

The Jews believed that Abraham was justified by works. He is the most prominent figure in the Old Testament and to the Jews. In fact, I mean, you have, In Genesis chapter 12 to chapter 25 is all dedicated to Abraham. When you get to Hebrews chapter 11 in the hall of faith, Abraham gets the most words. So Abraham towers in significance.

And the Jews wanted to use Abraham to prove that salvation was by works. You know we've been talking about justification for a long time already And Paul will not stop talking about justification till we get to chapter eight. So fasten your seat belts. Because we're gonna continue to talk about justification by faith. But I was pondering, why would the apostle Paul spend so much time in the book of Romans on justification?

Isn't it just that simple? You know, that you're justified by faith alone and not by works. Why does this require such a lengthy and detailed treatment? Is this just another, you know, one of those Christian subjects that's just disconnected from the realities of life? I mean, hey, I check the news cycle every day.

Nobody's talking about justification by faith alone in the news channels that I'm looking at. Al Jazeera's not talking about, Jerusalem Post, CNN, the drudge report, none of these people are mentioning justification by faith. All they can talk about is everything but justification by faith. So why is the Apostle Paul spending so many words to talk about justification by faith? Is this just an irrelevant church subject?

You know, is the war the most relevant subject? Is the economy, inflation, AI, are these the most, you know, important subjects? But of course, the subject of justification by faith isn't hitting the news, but it really should. And the Apostle is, he's correcting a misunderstanding of salvation. And so I've divided what we'll be dealing with in justification under three headings, three questions that you see in your outline.

And the first question is what does Abraham have to boast about, verses one and two, and then what does the scripture say, verse three, and then in verses four and five, what did Abraham believe? We're gonna spend the most time on that question. What did Abraham believe? So the first question, you know, what does Abraham have to boast about? Verse 1, what shall we say, what then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?

For Abraham was justified by, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. So is there anything that Abraham has to boast about? No. In the previous chapter, the apostle already said boasting is excluded. We talked about pride and how we try to boost ourselves up and make people think that we're just so wonderful.

You know, we hope that people catch us praying and, oh no, I was fasting. You know, we want people to know how holy we are. But boasting is excluded in justification by faith. He says that Abraham would not have anything to boast about before God. When God called Abraham, he was a moon worshiper, he was an idolater.

You know, at the same time, He was a wealthy man, he was a businessman, he knew how to multiply resources. And he had an army, he had a 318 person army. You'd say, here's a man's man for you. You know, When God called him to sacrifice his son, he took his son in obedience to do that. He gave a tithe to Melchizedek, Hebrews seven talks about.

If you knew Abraham, You would say, this is a righteous man. But for Abraham, boasting is excluded because He wasn't saved for his own righteousness. And in fact, there are many things that Abraham did along the way in his life that were very bad. But he was saved by grace. So that's what verses one and two deal with.

The second question is what does the scripture say? That's verse three. What does the scripture say? This is the most important question that you can ask at any juncture on any subject that you have before you. Any problem, any issue, anything that's going on in your life, this is the most important question.

What does the scripture say? Not what does your heart say? Not what does your culture say? Not what your government says? What does the scripture say?

A scripture is sufficient. And Whenever we're dealing with a subject, and particularly a subject as weighty as this, justification by faith, we must ask, you know, what does the scripture say? You know, our encouragement, you know, here in this church is to believe that scripture is sufficient, that scripture is all you need. This is the the Reformation doctrine of Sola Scriptura and you know the the pastors of your church so desire to continue to encourage all of us to prioritize the word of God every day to actually prepare yourself to hear the Word of God when we come together. You know, in fact, you know, for many years the whole discipleship formula in this church is to try to get the entire congregation focused on the words of God.

And we do that very intentionally and it's something that we believe is helpful to the people of God. You know that's why we read so much scripture in our services because we want we want a congregation focused on God and his Word, not the personalities of the leaders or or even the sweetness of the fellowship. All those things are so nice, But we really want people focused on God. And then that's why we have a men's Bible study on Tuesday morning and we read the passage of scripture that we're gonna preach on in the coming week. And what we want is to walk through that passage, have men walk out with one thing to take with them in the day and then go back and teach the people that they're living with or that they're around, whether they're single or whether they are married.

And we want that study to continue. And then the elders are gonna send out a letter before prayer talking about the passage of scripture that we're gonna preach on on Sunday. And we're actually, it's a pastoral letter actually, where we want people to get dialed in, we want to remind people what we're preaching on. And then when we come together on Wednesday night, we're gonna be praying about that text that we're preaching on on the coming Sunday. And then we come together on Sunday, we're gonna read the text and then we're gonna preach on it and then we're gonna have a fellowship meal and then we're gonna encourage everybody to talk about it during their fellowship meal.

And then we're gonna encourage people when they go home to talk about how they're applying it in their families. And then on Tuesday morning, we're gonna continue the cycle. So that's sort of the discipleship formula of this church. So hey, that's why we really want full engagement in the word of God, from men's Bible study all the way through. So desire to ask the question, what does the scripture say?

That's the whole thing. To be focused on the scripture is so critical. You know, I saw a really funny video the other day and it was talking about how people spend so much time on their phones. And it was a picture of, if your Bible was your phone, you'd be doing this all day long You'd be doing and then you'd be walking, you know, you'd be walking, you know looking you know Looking your Bible because you spend so much time on your phone But if your Bible was your phone, you'd probably be in your Bible a lot more. It's really important.

I read this great statement by Noah Webster about the Bible. The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good and the best corrector of all that is evil in human society, the best book for regulating the temporal concerns of men. So what does the scripture say? What does the scripture say about salvation by faith or by works? And that really brings us into the answer, verse 3, for what does the Scripture say?

Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Abraham believed God. That's what the scripture says. That's how Abraham was saved. It was because he believed God.

And I want to walk through several things that flowed from this book, this testimony here. What did he believe? The Bible tells us very clearly what he believed. Now, the first thing that I wanted just to make clear, he believed God. That's the summary statement.

Everything in his life was to trust God. He believed God. And that's really one of the most in question. This is, he believed God with no limits. This is a quotation from Genesis chapter 15 verse six.

It's actually the first time the word believe shows up in the Bible is in Genesis 15 and we read in verse 4 and behold the word of the Lord came to him Abraham saying this one shall not be your heir but one who will come from your own body will be your heir then he brought him outside and said look now toward heaven and count the stars if you're able to number them and he said to him so shall your descendants be, and he believed in the Lord, and he accounted it to him for righteousness. So Abraham believed that he could trust God. And when God called Abraham, he just believed God. In Hebrews 11 8 it says that when God called him, he left his country even though he didn't know where he was going. When God calls someone, he calls them to go in places they don't know they'll go.

They'll experience things that they don't know. They'll end up in places that they don't know. But Abraham believed God. No matter where God, God would take him. It was like, In some ways, Abraham was a little bit like, you know, running in the fog.

You know, many years ago I remember running on the beaches in Southern California, and in the early morning it's very foggy, then the fog burns off. But sometimes you'd run in the fog and you could barely see, you know, what was in front of you. If you stayed next to the water, you knew you weren't going to run into anything. But Abraham was like running in the fog, and God would just tell him what to do as he went along in his life. He went out not knowing where he was going.

By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country dwelling in tents and God called Abraham God in Genesis 12 we read that Abraham the Lord said to Abraham get out of your country if that wasn't bad enough, leave your family and your father's house to a land I will show you. God's call to Abraham was a difficult call. He had to leave everything. This is the pattern of those who are saved. He left his country.

It says that God called. We read earlier about the effectual call when God calls a person. I read William Perkins was commenting on God calling Abraham and he said, God is a general. He commands his children to walk in his ways and he calls his children to believe and repent and to receive and to obey. But God called Abraham and you know, maybe there's someone here God is calling.

When did God call Abraham? This is so interesting. God didn't call Abraham until he was 75 years old. A lot of life had gone by. God let him lie many years in blindness.

This was God's sovereign hand. He spent many years in vanity. I encounter people all the time who say they just regret that God saved them later in life and I Understand why that would be for sure the earlier the better but God saves us when it pleases him And Matthew in Matthew 20 verse 6 we learned that God calls some at the 11th hour in their old age, like Abraham, 75 years old. And so he left his homeland, he left his relatives. And this is very much, I think, consistent with what Jesus told his disciples.

He said, if anyone wants to be my disciple, He must deny himself and follow me, Luke 923. The apostle Paul told the Galatian church, he said, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me and the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God. So Abraham was willing to follow whoever the Lord would take him. You know, we talked about this when we were in the book of Revelation and Revelation 14.

There are those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These are the redeemed from among men. So the first question makes me just want to ask all of us, do you believe God? Do you believe that God is? The second question is do you believe that he is?

Not just that you do you believe God, but do you believe that he is? Hebrews 11 6 says, he who comes to God must believe that he is. Abraham believed that God was everlasting. Abraham believed that God would outlast all the idols of the world. And so he believed that God is.

God has told us in his word, he says, I am. He's the everlasting Father. That's what Abraham believed. Do you believe that God is everlasting? Do you think that God will outlast all the shenanigans of the world?

The third thing, he believed that God was a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. That's Hebrews 11, six. I'll just read the text. But without faith it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must first believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

You know, at some point, a person realizes that God is good, that all of God's ways are good, and they only want God. And they believe that he's a rewarder, that he's always good to his children, even in their trials. But Abraham believed that God was a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. The fourth thing that he believed is that he believed that he was a friend of God. James 2 23 and the scripture was fulfilled which says, Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness and he was called the friend of God.

You see then that a man is justified by works and not by his faith only. In other words, Abraham believed that God had befriended him. Do you believe that you are a friend of God? Oh, that's such an important question, isn't it? Are you a friend of God?

And then fifth, he believed that God raises the dead. He believed that God was able to raise up Isaac. You know, God told him to go sacrifice his only son, Isaac. But Abraham believed in eternal life. Abraham believed that God was able to raise up his son.

You know, in this passage which is described in Hebrews 11, 9, says that Abraham reasoned within himself that God was able to raise his son Isaac. That's why He reasoned within himself. And it's interesting, the language is that there's something that went on in his own heart. He believed in his heart that God would raise up his son. That's why he took his son to the mountain to sacrifice him.

He believed that if he obeyed God that his son would rise from the dead. It's so hard to grasp that, isn't it? It's very interesting too in that passage. He says, take your son, your beloved son. It's actually the first occasion of the word love in the entire Bible.

Take your son whom you love. It's the love between a father and a son. But then God command, Not only did God command him to sacrifice his son, then God Sends an angel to send him another command. In other words, hold back your hand. Don't do it There's a sacrifice in the bush He said do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.

Will Abraham believe that God raises the dead? Do you believe that God raises the dead? Six, he believed that Jesus was his savior. Now, think about this for a minute. I'm saying that Abraham, who lived 2,000 years before Jesus, believed that Jesus was his savior.

How in the world? Well John 8 58 answers the question very clearly. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he was glad. Abraham saw the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ 2,000 years before. That's what this means.

And it also says that he was happy. He was glad Abraham was a happy man because he saw the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to cover over all of his sins. It says Abraham Rejoiced He was in a state of gladness and he rejoiced like his body moved in the same way that we sang and our bodies moved and we rejoiced when we sang today. He rejoiced to see my day. Hebrews 11, 13 speaks about this as well, about those who died in faith.

These all died in faith not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Abraham believed that Jesus Christ was his Savior. Is that what you believe? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is your Savior? The seventh thing he believed is that through him, all the nations would be blessed.

Verse, or Galatians chapter three, verse eight. I'll begin at verse seven in Galatians three. Therefore, know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. Only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand.

God preached the gospel to Abraham saying, in you all the nations shall be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. Abraham believed that all the nations would be blessed by the Lord. And you know, anywhere the Bible has gone, a nation and the people there have been blessed. You know, the Bible is such a blessing to every nation that embraces it.

I mean, the Bible is the source of understanding what's beautiful and what's ugly. The Bible makes it very clear what is good and what is evil. Music comes out of the Bible. Medicine and taking care of people. So many things come out of the Bible.

A biblical worldview is such a blessing to a nation. But do you believe that through the gospel all the nations will be blessed? Eight, he believed that God would make a great nation out of his faith. Genesis 12, 1 through 7. He believed in the gospel, but that the gospel would be a blessing to the nations.

And so in Genesis 12, two, the Lord says, "'I will make you a great nation.'" By the way, the church is a holy nation. Our gathering here today is a fulfillment of this. I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

All the families of the earth that embrace the gospel will be blessed. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Isn't that amazing? Do you believe that God is making a great nation out of the faith of Abraham? You know there are people who say that that Christianity is in decline. I do not believe that.

I see no evidence of that. I do see nominal Christians leaving churches, But in every country that I'm aware of, the gospel is expanding. People are being saved. And even though you might have worldly churches that are getting smaller and smaller because the worldly people are leaving. That's no indication that there's a decline in Christianity.

The Bible promises that his kingdom will expand. I believe that. I believe it's expanding right now. I think that the liberal press has a motive for telling you that Christianity is on the run. Because they want you on the run.

Ninth, Abraham believed that God would justify the Gentiles. Galatians 3, 5 through 9, I'll begin in verse 6, Just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Have you noticed how often this phrase is repeated in the New Testament that Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him to righteousness? Therefore know that only those that are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, In you all the nations shall be blessed.

That's the phrase here that foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles. Because Abraham believed that God would justify the Gentiles. I was reading a commentator that I have, James Montgomery Boyce, and he made a list of seven promises that Abraham believed. He called them the seven I wills. I will show you the land, I will make you a great nation.

I will bless you. I will make your name great I will bless those who bless you. I will curse those who curse you and I will give you this land So God God made promises to Abraham and Abraham believed the promises. I think that's the whole thing. Abraham believed God.

He believed God and he followed God. And he was saved not by his works, but by his faith that God was God. And we know that Abraham's faith was not a perfect faith, that he was a sinner saved by grace, but he did believe what God had promised him. And it's very clear that Abraham was not searching for God when God called him. And neither was Paul searching for God when God called him.

But God was seeking him. But look at verse three. How did all this work? How was Abraham justified? It was accounted to him as righteousness.

This is so important. It was credited to him as righteousness. This is actually an accounting term, and it appears 11 times in Romans 4. It's in verse 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 22, 23, and 24. This word accounted is prominent in this chapter.

And it's a mathematical term. It's a banking term. And justification is a legal term. Accounted is an accounting term. And the Apostles trying to help us grasp the significance and the depth of justification.

And it's pictures moving and its pictures moving of wealth from one account to another. And You take the righteousness of God out of one account and you move it to another account. You move it into the account of the sinner. You transfer the resources into the sinner's account. And so the righteousness of God was accounted.

In other words, it was transferred into Abraham's account. Abraham did not work for it at all. You know, if you read the book of Ephesians, it becomes very clear that he's talking about the wealth of the believer. And this is the greatest wealth of the believers to have the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And The most astounding thing to me is that God would look upon any of us as righteous.

God looks at you as righteous. He sees the righteousness of his son, who sacrificed his life, who took the punishment that you deserve. He took the punishment and he transfers his righteousness. And in the sufferings of Jesus Christ, the worst of you, all of what you've done your whole life was laid upon him. The worst of you is laid upon him, and the best of him was laid on you.

That's being credited unto righteousness. So God looks upon believers as righteous. Righteousness is a constant, not a variable. Righteousness is a constant, not a variable. And it doesn't depend on how you feel about yourself or on what you have done.

This is the scandal of the gospel. This is not fair. This is not right, right? But aren't you thankful that God would be such a kind savior? And then in verse four, he talks about working, how ridiculous it would be to work for this.

He says, now to him who works the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." And what he's saying is, like when you when you go to work, you expect to be paid. You have an agreement. You work a certain number of hours, you do a number of duties, and you are owed. And it's right for you to say, pay me what you owe.

And what the apostle's saying is that salvation doesn't work like that. If you're, if you're working, then you can expect the payment. But if it's for grace, you will get grace. Now in verse 5 is the most outrageous, the most unfair, the most unjust idea in the entire Bible, verse 5, but to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. So do you believe that God justifies the ungodly?

Do you believe that he's justified you? Now, justification by faith may not be in the news, but it's the best news that could ever hit the news. We've already been shown how relevant this is because you know in the first three chapters of Romans we're told that man is under condemnation and then and then at the end of all that we're told that all boasting is excluded because salvation is by grace and that God desires to see his children to see themselves as as they really are before God and that is justified and that you have a church that's not boasting in their own righteousness and looking down on one another and that you have a church when they look at one another they see the robes of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And all of this means that God's children are not on the installment plan. You don't pay every month because the price was paid once.

The accounting is finished And the accountants have found that the account is full. The ledgers are paid and nothing is owed. That's justification by faith. I'm just going to close by reading a section on justification in the Baptist confession. Chapter 11 paragraph 3 on justification.

This sums it all up. Christ by his obedience and death fully discharged the debt of all those who are justified. And by the sacrifice of himself through the blood of his cross, underwent instead of them the due penalty to them. So making a proper real and full satisfaction to God's justice on their behalf. Therefore they are justified entirely and solely by free grace so that both the exact justice and the rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.

Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank you for your gift. We thank you that we're not justified by works. We're so thankful that you desire a humble church. We are so grateful for all of what it means to believe and to believe in these glorious things all our life long.

We thank you that you save in your own time. And I pray, Lord, maybe today someone will be saved who will believe God and it will be accounted to them as righteousness. Amen.