The sermon titled 'Faith That Walks' by Scott Brown discusses the concept of justification by faith and refutes the false gospel of salvation by works. The speaker uses examples from the lives of Abraham and David to prove that salvation has always been through faith alone. He emphasizes the blessedness of those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. The sermon also explores the significance of circumcision as a sign and seal, highlighting that salvation is not dependent on rituals. The apostle Paul's aim is to encourage believers to walk in the steps of Abraham and live a life of obedience to God.

Yes, please find Romans 4 and verse 5, Romans 4 verse 5. And I'll be reading to verse 12, the next section in our text. It really is thrilling to be able to consider the great things God has for his people, what he wants to do, the kind of family, the kind of culture that he designs, a culture of the grace of God, a culture of a people, how about this, a people who know that they're not cursed. They're not cursed. Praise the Lord.

This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. Romans 4 verse 5, But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is accounted for righteousness just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.

Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only or upon the circumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised not while circumcised but while uncircumcised and he received the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised that righteousness might be imputed to them also, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith Which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised Let's pray Lord we thank you for these words. I pray that all of us in our hearts would deeply Bring these words into the innermost beings of our souls.

These are words of life. These are helps from heaven This is truth that we need Oh God that you would come and and help us to find all of our hope in your words. Amen. Please be seated. So the apostle Paul, he's continuing this long argument about why he's not ashamed of the gospel.

He's giving one reason after another why he's not ashamed of the gospel. And he's giving one reason after another why he's not ashamed of the gospel. And now He's in a section where he's making it very clear that he's not ashamed of the gospel because salvation is by faith alone and not works. And he's using various people and situations to prove it. The last time we were in this passage, he used Abraham as a proof that salvation was by faith and not new.

Now he's turning to David to give another proof. He's saying justification by faith isn't new. Paul's saying I'm not bringing a new doctrine. And he uses this word blessedness to describe it. I love that word.

It's all over the Bible and it's such a rich testimony of the goodness of God and the kind intentions of God's will toward his people that he would have a people who are blessed, that they have a sense of their blessedness, that the curses of the law have been withdrawn, and they're no longer a cursed people. This is the people of God. This is what God is doing in the world. And he's deriving this from Psalm 32. And I was so glad that our brother read the Psalm earlier in the service.

But The last verse in Psalm 32, at the first verse he says, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. At the very end he says this, and this is God's will for this local church and for all of those who know the Lord Jesus. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice. You righteous. You righteous.

Oh really, are you righteous? And shout for joy, all you upright. That's the end of Psalm 32. That's such a central part of the message. You know, the apostle Paul told the Corinthian church, he says, I'm a fellow worker for your joy.

That's what he is right here in the doctrine of justification by faith. You know, he desires also that the Romans would rejoice in hope. And So all these things are designed really to shape the consciousness, even the feelings, even the sense of fellowship with one another, that we are a justified people. And so what the apostle Paul's been doing though, he's been shooting down false gospels one after another. You know, it's like he's a skeet shooter.

And he's shooting them down as they fly over. You know, You've heard of the Iron Dome, you know, the Israeli defense missile system where when missiles are coming into their airspace, they have a computer system that shoots down the rockets that are headed toward their targets. You should see it. It's amazing how this thing works. But what is the apostle Paul's doing?

He's shooting down all the false gospels. He's shooting down the slings and arrows of the devil that would seek to discourage the believer, to help them to believe that actually their justification is by works, that if they just get a little bit better, God would be a little bit nicer to them. They would be more acceptable to God if they could just fix this or that type of thing. And so he does all this by explaining the doctrine of justification by faith and how various kinds of people have experienced it, and like we've already seen with Abraham, Abraham was justified by faith, not by works. And so the apostle is, he's proving the Old Testament doctrine.

He's not contradicting the New Testament doctrine of justification by faith, but that the Old Testament proves the New Testament doctrine of salvation. And he's making it very clear that justification is by faith alone. Now we're in chapter four. Hey, take a look at chapter four. I'm gonna give you a quick, super duper quick fly over it so you can see the logic.

Paul is using four examples to prove justification by faith in chapter four. The first one is in verses one through four, one through five, that's Abraham. Now he turns to David in verses six through eight, and then he turns to circumcision as another example, verses nine through 12, and then he turns to the keeping of the law in verses 13 through 22. Four illustrations of how justification by faith alone has always been the way that God has saved his people. The Old Testament saints weren't saved differently at all.

They were saved in the exact same way. So Paul's just pounding away, and then in the last two verses of the chapter, he summarizes the whole thing. So that's chapter four. And then in chapter five, it's just so beautiful. Well, we'll get there someday.

So this illustration of David begins in verse six. Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works, did you notice the jam up of doctrine in these words? There are so many heavy hitter, big-ticket, million-dollar theological words in that one sentence. And then he says in verse 7, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin.

Verse 8, there's that word again, wham, blessed. What is he trying to say? What is he trying to get across to this Roman church? He's, it's captured in this word blessedness of the people of God. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.

So this second case study is David. And he uses Psalm 32, which David wrote, to prove his doctrine of justification. And so David is the case study. But notice all along here what is David doing? Remember in verse 3 he said, what does the scripture say?

He's proving the doctrine by Scripture. He is correlating Scripture with Scripture. He's taking Psalm 32 and he's correlating it with what he's saying here in to the Roman Church. This is the this is the interpretive principle of Scripture interprets Scripture. That's how you interpret Scripture.

You say, oh, the Bible's full of contradictions. Well, read the rest of the Bible, please, because Those can be resolved by scripture interpreting scripture and what people often do is they just blithely say things like this, but it's because they don't know the Bible and the Bible answers the Bible and so that's how you interpret the Bible and It's you know, The scripture is living and active and it's sharper than any two-edged sword. The scriptures are so wonderful. In this church, we so want everybody to be resting on scripture. Like even in the preaching, you'll notice in the preaching, we want you to rest on the words.

We think the words are sacred. We think every word of scripture is sacred. And trust in the words. You know, when scripture is read, hang on the words. Have you ever done that?

You just wanna hang, oh wait, that word went by too fast, I wanna go back to it, you know. Hang on the words of the Bible. You know, I heard this story of a young man who was saved in Texas, and he was so excited about his faith and he was in San Antonio, Texas and he would go and he would find a place where there are lots of people you know walking by in a public place and he would take his cowboy hat and he would put it on the ground and Then he would run around the cowboy hat and he would say it's alive It's alive and then a crowd would start gathering, you know, and and he would say it's alive It's alive. And finally when the crowd got big got big enough he would finally go up to the hat, and he would pull it off, and there was his Bible. And he would talk about how helpful and wonderful and alive the word of God is, you know, that penetrates everything in your heart, shows you who you are, tells you where you're going.

It really tells the story of your whole life and the whole world, it's alive. And that's what Paul's doing. He says, what does the scripture say? Well, that's the question you should always be asking whenever you bump into some hard issue. And that's what the apostle Paul is doing.

So he goes back to Psalm 32, what does the scripture say? And he goes back into the life of David. Now you know he's illustrating, in Psalm 32 he's illustrating David's lowest point in his life. He's illustrating what happened on that day when kings should go out to war. And it's recorded in 2 Samuel 11 verse one.

And it was when David's lusts overcame him. And he committed adultery. And Psalm 32 is written in that context. So the apostle, while David is, while David is a towering figure, he's a man after God's own heart, Paul doesn't take us back to that part of David's life. He takes us back to David's lowest point in his life.

And that's Psalm 32. And it's so worth reading over and over again. But Multiple times in Psalm 32, David, he breathes out this sort of this diamond of justification. And it's all wrapped around the word blessed. And there are several words, you have them in there outline.

Blessed, forgiven, covered, impute. He uses all these words to help us understand how the Old Testament doctrine of justification is just like the New Testament. And he's using scripture to do it. And the first word is blessed. Blessed, the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works.

That's verse six. The word blessedness appears in verse 6 7 8 and 9 you get the idea This is the heart of the text. This is what this is what the Apostles trying to say Another interpretive principle If a word is repeated a bunch of times, you get some kind of idea on what the theme is. And blessedness is such a theme here. And There are so many ways that this word is used in the Bible of course in the Beatitudes it it has to do with happiness, it's often the equivalent of happiness and The fact that Your burdens of guilt have been lifted as meant to make you happy.

I hope you are today. You know, we're going to take the Lord's Supper coming up. That's, it's the cup of blessing. It's the cup of happiness. And it's not without self-examination, but it is it's the cup of relief and the good news blessed blessedness is a is a condition of satisfaction and contentment in the provision of God and We know this though blessedness is not the same thing as a trouble-free life it's actually a it's a condition of the heart and He's talking about the blessedness the rest of knowing I'm right with God because of God.

And it's the blessedness of knowing my sins are not mine to bear anymore. It's the blessedness of knowing that you have the blessing of God on your life. The blessing of God on a life, the greatest blessing on any person is justification. Because This blessedness cannot be overwhelmed by anything that happens in the world Whether you're in prison or in the palace This is the kind of blessing but it goes beyond that To have blessedness is not to be cursed. You're not cursed.

The people of God are not a cursed people who are justified by faith. It's such an amazing message. And so that is the first word, blessed. And then the second word that he's using is the word forgiven. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, lawless, without law, rejecting the law, ignoring the law, not obeying the law, whose lawless deeds are forgiven.

And To forgive means to release, to send away, to let off the hook. It's like a fish caught and you let him off the hook and you let him go. And he darts away. To release is to relieve from legal obligation. It's to send away, it's to banish, it's to cancel.

And the whole idea of forgiveness is illustrated in the scapegoat in the Old Testament. It's a remarkable image, you know, under the sacrifices for sin in the Old Testament. You had two goats that were brought to the priest and one, the first goat would be sacrificed for sin. The second goat, the priest would lay his hand on that goat and he would confess the sins of the people, all the people, figuratively. He would confess the sins of the people and what did he do with that goat?

He sent it away. He sent it away. Your sins are sent away. The guilt that you have, the confession, you should confess but know what happens with your confession. It's sent away and you're no longer cursed.

And that's found in Leviticus 16, 21 and 22. And he shall put them upon the head of the goat and he shall send them away by the hand of the man that is in readiness into the wilderness. Sends sin into the wilderness Where no one is and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a Solitary land and he shall let go the goat goat in the wilderness Leviticus 16 21 and 22 And this idea is all over the Bible, like your sins are put into the bottom of the sea, not just in the wilderness, but they're also thrown behind your back in the Bible. And they're also stomped, and they're also separated as far as the East is from the West. You get the idea?

So God desires his people to have such a sense of relief from the condemnation of their sin. Is that true with you today? That's why John the Baptist when he saw Jesus in John 1 29 he said behold the Lamb of God who takes away, takes away the sin of the world. That's the whole idea of this blessedness and this forgiveness. And there are many examples of forgiveness in the Bible.

David is just one of them. This example in Psalm 32 is at the lowest place of David's life. Maybe you're there. Maybe You've been there. But even if you're at the lowest place in your life, you need to understand that there's hope in justification by faith alone.

And then covered, that's another word, covered. Sins are covered over. One illustration after another. Do you get the idea? I mean, Paul's relentless.

He doesn't want you to miss the point. So he gives you this side of the diamond. Oh, let's go over to this other side of the diamond. Now, Let's go around to the top and look down. You know, so he wants us to see all the different sides of the diamond of justification.

But covered is, in other words, drawn from the Old Testament on the day of the atonement. The priest sprinkled blood on the mercy seat and the blood covered, the blood covered as a symbol of righteousness. Isaiah talks about this In Isaiah 61, one of my favorite passages in Isaiah, Isaiah 61 10, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he has clothed me in the garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness." But then he gives us illustration.

What's that like? As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments and as a bride adorns herself with jewels. In other words you ought to be just as happy about that as when you when you're getting married. Most people are really happy when they're getting married or thinking about getting married you know I think you know what I'm talking about. And this when you're clothed in the robes of righteousness, then it's supposed to cause you to rejoice.

I will rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for he's covered me over in the robes of righteousness. What a wonderful thing. And the fourth word is the word imputed or accounted. It's the same word accounted.

It's translated imputed in the New King James Bible but as you know we talked about this this accounting word accounted. The Paul uses this accounting word, accounted. Paul uses that for justification. To account is to put wealth to the account of a person who doesn't have wealth. It's to take the righteousness, the wealth of the active and the passive obedience of Jesus Christ and impute it upon the sinner.

And so this is this matter of accounting. And so this is what God did with David. It was accounted to David as righteousness in the same way that it was for Abraham. So why all of this? Well the Jews were very concerned with how can you do enough to be saved?

How much do you have to do to be saved? How can a sinner get right with God? Is it possible? What do you do with your sin? And the answer is this.

The penalty of sin is not set aside The penalty of sin is paid in full But not by you was paid in full by Jesus Christ and That's why in verse 5 he says he justifies the ungodly The only people that are ever justified are ungodly. And so the apostle, he's shooting at all these enemies of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Like for example, there's this popular idea that most people in America have embraced. It's a flat out false gospel. And they call it Christianity.

And that's why when you go down to the Pride Parade, everybody says they're a Christian. And they believe, they believe the kind of thing that, you know, it comes from the idea that Some people need more grace than others. You find this in the Christian community. You know, you have two people, one grew up in a Christian home, it was a well ordered home, it was a wonderful home. And then you have a person that grew up with a home that was a wreck and caused a lot of damage.

And the person who grew up in the home, well, it's thought that they didn't need as much grace as the person who grew up in worldliness. And that's not true. One person doesn't need more grace than the other because sin runs so deep that the grace of God is our only hope. And the other idea, the related idea is that your life is characterized by both good and bad. And when you die, you add up the columns of your good and your bad.

And if the bad outweighs the good, you go to hell. If the good outweighs the bad, then you go to heaven. That's why everybody thinks they're going to heaven, because they think their good outweighs the bad. Everybody would say their good outweighs the bad. We're so self-flattering.

Would you send yourself to hell? Well, no, because your good does outweigh the bad. This is a false gospel. And the Apostle Paul is exploding. It's like he's out there like a skeet shooter shooting them down one by one.

And you know, if you go back, if you've been with us in Romans, you know that the apostle, first of all he says that the wicked immoral people of this world are condemned. And then he, oh, then you think, well of course, you know. But then he says that the moral, that the moral people are condemned. And then he says that the religious are condemned. This is chapters one and two.

And so he's dealing with these false gospels that man can be justified by his works. But biblical Christianity makes it clear that salvation doesn't come because you've been weighed in the balances and your good works have out weighed your bad works. This is how salvation works. Now most people, even secular people, believe that about their own sense of righteousness. You know, if they're good enough to the environment they'll be good enough for the universe, you know.

And if they're nice enough people, then they'll come back as something better than a rat. So the world religions are all based on self-righteousness, even the atheists. Atheists are the most self-righteous people in the world. They have the greatest, most powerful law of salvation by works. So the Apostle Paul, he's just exploding, he's machine gunning these missiles, you know, coming into the soul to actually, to humble the pride of man.

So, And that's because sin runs so deep. And then when we get to verse nine, and he talks, the third example is circumcision. And what he's saying here is that salvation is apart from right or ritual or for ordinance. So he's taking another example after David. So Abraham, David, and now circumcision.

He's giving these examples. And what happens to us, what happens to people, is they give their rites and their rituals power that it was never meant for. The rituals don't have power in and of themselves. And circumcision is that. It's a, he calls it, it's a sign.

And so this illustration is laid out here. We've already read the text, but by the way, so many of the religions of the world, they rely on the ceremony and the rite. You know, the Mormons do, the Roman Catholics do, the Church of Christ does. Most Muslims are circumcised and have rights and rituals, you know, like Ramadan, that justify them before God. As long as you get to it, you know, you have the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church, you know, if you can, if somebody's dying, you've got to somehow get over there and sprinkle some water on their head so that they don't go to hell.

It's the rite that saves you. That's the whole idea. And the Apostle Paul is exploding the whole matter of salvation by rights, by extreme unction, or any form of cleansing that's outward. And that we get acceptance by observances. And He's talking about the danger of relying upon ritual, going through the motions.

Because it's a lot easier to do the ritual than have the reality. It's actually easier to sprinkle a little bit of holy water than hunger for holiness. And so what he's saying is that It was just a symbol. It wasn't the real, it was the symbolic because we're not saved by rituals. And we're saved by the circumcision of the heart, which the Bible talks a lot about.

You know, there are many signs that you have in the Bible, and the sign of baptism, the sign of the Lord's Supper. You know, some of you have wedding rings on. It's a sign. It's not the marriage. It just symbolizes the marriage.

If you take the ring off, it doesn't mean you're not married. It's just a sign that you're married. And So he says, you know, how can a person become a Christian? Verse nine, does this blessedness come upon the circumcised only or upon the uncircumcised also? Well, that's who can be, the uncircumcised can be saved.

The people with no rights and rituals can be saved. We learned earlier that the lawless are brought into relationship with God before they know the law. And the illustration again is Abraham because he was he was brought out of paganism out of moon worship God called him when he was a moon worshiper Joshua 24 to and he was on the other side of the river. He was worshiping the creature rather than the creator. He was in unbelief and God called him and he admitted his lostness and he followed God.

And then not only who can be saved, anybody, you know, the uncircumcised can be saved. The worst people you can imagine that you know can be saved. Don't get faked out by someone's looks. Because the uncircumcised can be saved. The most uncircumcised can be saved, if you know what I mean.

And then when can someone be saved? Before or after circumcision? Well, verse 10, for we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness, how then was it accounted? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.

So in Genesis 12, God called Abraham, he's 75 years old. Now there's a little bit of cloudiness of how long it was from the time he followed God and the time he was circumcised. It was at least 14 years, maybe 28 or 29 years. So his circumcision didn't come over a decade past his salvation. And that's what the Apostle's making.

He's making the argument. He's saying that your circumcision, or like in New Testament terms, your baptism doesn't save you. Okay, so maybe you got baptized well after you were saved. Well, that doesn't mean you weren't saved before. And so Abraham was saved, but he wasn't saved by his rituals.

It's like the apostle Paul told the Corinthian church in St. Corinthians 5, he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Jesus Christ became sin for us so that he might be our righteousness. And then he talks about what is circumcision in verses 10 and 11. How then was it accounted while he was circumcised or uncircumcised?

Then he says that it's a circumcision, in verse 11, is a sign, and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised. So his circumcision was a sign and a seal. And God gives many of those signs and seals. We're very familiar with the Lord's Supper and Baptism in the New Testament. But Passover was a sign.

It wasn't the real thing. It was a reminder of the real thing. The rainbow was a sign. It wasn't the real thing. It was a sign of the real thing.

In the same way that a wedding ring is not the real thing, it's the sign of the real thing. The Sabbath is also a sign. I was just reading in Ezekiel 20, just a couple days ago, And he says, moreover, I gave them my Sabbath to be a sign between them and me that they might know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them. The Sabbath, the Lord's Day, is also a sign. It's a sign that you are a believer, that you have entered into his rest.

And in fact, this whole chapter, over and over again, God is telling the children of Israel that he's sending them into captivity because they refused to practice the sign of the Sabbath. That's why they went into captivity. They would not keep the Sabbath. It's a very serious thing. Modern churches don't think it's a very serious thing.

We think it's a very serious thing. Read our confession, the Baptist Confession of 1689. It matters. But it's just a sign. It's not the real thing And then what's the effect of the sign this is in verse 12 Because the doctrine of justification by faith actually includes and implies two things.

One is that man is not justified by works, but if one is justified, they will want to obey and they will do works and they will create Christian culture in their hearts, among their friends, in their families, in their government, in their church, they will be creating Christian culture. They will walk in the faith of Abraham. They'll walk in the steps of Abraham. And you know one of the great neglects, you know, in modern preaching is that there's no call for obedience. There's no call to walk in the ways of the Lord.

And it's really a terrible mess. Because justification doesn't stand alone. That's why James said, faith without works is dead. Faith that is true faith is not alone. And so the apostle gets to that.

He's talking about Abraham, who's your father, okay? Just, if you could just get this picture. Your father Abraham is walking, and you are walking in his footsteps. That's the doctrine of sanctification. The Apostle Paul has a really hard time talking about justification without talking sanctification.

You'll see that as we go on in Romans. He'll always loop back to the how pivotal it is to obey the Lord and to walk in the ways of the Lord. And he's shooting it down these false Gospels. It's the false gospel that says it doesn't really matter what I do I'm off the hook I can live any way I want. No, run the race with endurance, you know, obey the Lord.

That's really what he's saying here. And so we read these words in verse 12, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also. And the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but Who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while he was circumcised So those who are justified should not neglect walking in the ways of the Lord and to cry out to God for revelation for any ways that they're not walking in the ways of the Lord and to cry out to God for revelation for any ways that they're not walking in the ways of the Lord because Abraham is our spiritual father and The fruit of Abraham's circumcision was walking. And the fruit of justification of the believer is to walk in the steps of Abraham. And Abraham was doing that while he was uncircumcised.

He left his country and he didn't even know where he was going. He just knew that God was going to let him know what the next step would be. Everybody's in that situation. We don't know what the future holds, but we know that God will sustain us through the future. And Abraham believed that God is, and he's a rewarder of those who seek him.

And so he walked. God talked and Abraham walked, and that's the pattern of Christianity. And he left what was familiar. And It seems like I read a commentator who was saying that the language here, it doesn't picture walking side by side, but it's walking behind. It's walking in the footsteps of Abraham.

You know, I was walking with my grandson through a dense field of foliage the other day. He knew where he was going. I didn't know where he was going. He knew where the deer were. And so I was putting my feet right in his footsteps behind him.

I was walking behind him through this dense brush going through this field. And I think that's the picture because you know Abraham is our spiritual father and we're walking in the steps of our spiritual father. You know God commanded Abraham in Genesis 13, 7, arise walk in the land through all its length and its width, for I give it to you. Walk in the land. That's beautiful language.

That's what you are doing. You're walking in the land, walking in righteousness, walking free from guilt and the shame of the curse of the law. You're not a cursed people, but you're people who walk in the ways of the Lord. You're creating Christian culture, you know, where men are men and women are women and families are actual families and churches are actual churches and and and the Word of God is true it's for true for everything it applies everywhere in your life there's not one single part of your life that scripture doesn't apply to. You're walking.

It's like, and this is not new, in Genesis 524 Enoch walked with God. In Genesis 69 Noah walked with God. In Matthew 11, the lame walk, in 2 Corinthians 5-7, we walk by faith not by sight, and in Ephesians 5-8, we walk as children of light. In Ephesians 5-15, we walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise. In Proverbs 13, he who walks with the wise will grow wise.

In 1 John 1,7, if we walk in the light as he is in the light. We have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. It's very interesting if you go to Hebrews 11, which was funny, I was reading this just this last week because of my normal reading. And it's all about people who walked with God. Hebrews 11.

And then you get into chapter 12. He says, you know, walk with endurance. Run the race with endurance. Because the Christian life is not only a state of being but it's a state of walking. To walk in the steps of your Father Abraham is to walk in the ways of the commands of God.

We all leave behind us footprints in our homes and in our communities. We're all leaving footprints. We all leave footprints in the sands of time. And your children will see your footprints. And may it be so that your footprints have always led them into righteousness and holiness.

That your footprints have always led them to good things. That you never led them into anything. You know, he who causes one of these little ones to stumble, it's better for a millstone to be hung around his neck and be thrown into the sea. But your children will see your footsteps. And Perhaps your grandchildren will see your footsteps and your great grandchildren will see your footsteps.

All of us are leaving footprints in the sand And the Apostles very concerned that we might think that justification would cause us to forget about the importance of our footprints. You know, it occurred to me that, you know, I've been working on publishing different books over the last few years and I'm in the midst of doing about five more. But I was reading this and I thought, you know, why am I doing this? And frankly, my motive is I want my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren to see my footprints. I want them to know what I believed.

I want them to know what I believed. I want them to know what I where I desired to walk. I wanted them to know what my priorities were. And I wanted to show them a vision of God and his greatness, his goodness, everything. And I realize everything that I've tried to publish over the years has to do with footprints, footprints in the sand.

Everybody leaves footprints in the sand. And you know, maybe, maybe as you're walking, maybe there's some hurt or shipwrecked person who will see your footprints and they'll know the way to go. They'll understand that there is a path of life. They'll understand that the Word of God is a lamp into your feet and a light into your path. And they will know somebody in this world who believed that God's ways were pleasant ways and all his paths are peace.

That's Proverbs chapter 3. But this has to do with walking with God, not abreast, but behind. So Paul is shooting down all these false gospels in this. You know, a friend of mine wrote a poem and he sent it to me. And you know, this is Thanksgiving time, right?

We're all gonna celebrate Thanksgiving. What a joy it is that God would put us in a nation where there's an actual holiday to give thanks to God. Isn't that amazing? America is the best place in the world. There are only three nations that do this, we're one of them.

But this friend of mine, he wrote this poem and he called it the pilgrim's heart but he talks about Abraham and I was so taken by it so I want to read it to you and that will close our service and then we're gonna send you out to a day of delight to give thanks here in the congregation to reminisce about every good thing you've heard in the preaching and the singing and then you're gonna go home and you're gonna get ready and you're gonna have a feast and it's gonna be so glorious and you're gonna give thanks. The pilgrim's heart. Deep in the heart of a pilgrim there burns a sacred coal. By the way, this is a long poem, just FYI. Deep in the heart of a pilgrim there burns a sacred coal.

By the way, this is a long poem, just FYI. Deep in the heart of a pilgrim there burns a sacred coal plucked from heaven's altar, buried deep in his soul. A holy white hot fire of faith and hope in him who plucked him from the mire and cleansed him from his sin a vision of the future a hope for things yet birthed He seeks God's will with courage as in heaven bet on earth. His feet solidly planted, his face like flint is set. He walks the ancient pathway, the path with no regret.

A life flung at God's mercy, come cross or nail or whip, he trusteth in his maker and his will, all wise providence. Like Abraham the ancient, beyond the stars he looks. He sees the one who promised and wrote them in his book. When suffering rolls like thunder and trouble falls like hail, He holds the rudder tightly and pulls in on his sails. He counts not his life precious.

For Christ, he counts all lost. He gladly gives up house and lands to shoulder his own cross. And so he leaves his homeland and looks unto the sky. He lives life as a nomad before the burning eye. He sets his course for distant shore, a fierce but promised land.

He trusts the God of pilgrims who guides by his good hand. He nurtures faith's bright ember. He will not let it die. This pilgrim, wrought, heartache, yet still gazing toward the sky for future generations, for godly seed he prays to see God's word established and myriads praise his name. His storm tossed ship at anchor, his feet on foreign soil.

He sets to work to build a dream with sweat and blood and toil. A place of love and freedom and glory for his God. These are the things that drive him to his fierce and hostile sod. Weathered hands he grips the plow, his eyes search for the prize, sweat pours down his furrowed brow, hot tears pour from his eyes. No turning back for this man, His gaze is fixed straight ahead Pursues the upward calling let dead men bury dead.

He stands and fights the good fight, for brother and son and wife, he clingeth not to this world, or countest dear his life. His heart bursts with thanksgiving. His lips erupt in praise. To him who brought him safe thus far and his amazing grace. Deep in the breast of Pilgrim, there burns a holy fire.

No man or imp can quench Christ alone is his desire. I'm happy to know the author. His name is Gil Arterburn. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for your glorious gift of grace, your justifying grace, your imputation of your righteousness, So that you would look upon us as the righteous and We would be joyful in your house all our lives in the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. And now Lord, I pray that you would bless this local church with all the happinesses of justification and all the walking that is implied by it. Amen.