All right, so we have been going through the
Old Testament and going backwards in order
between the prophetic books, the poetical
books, the historical books with the judges
last month and so now we're back to the books
of Moses, the Pentateuch, and we'll be in
Genesis this month and the next month we'll be
in Genesis as well and we'll go through
those things and I just think it's great and I
think it's amazing and we'll talk about
it in the sermon, how God uses the Old
Testament in so many ways and how he connects
it all
together.
He was talking about that before church.
It really is amazing and hopefully I'll be
able to bring that out today as we learn from
Genesis 15 about Abram who would become
Abraham.
So Genesis 15, 1-6, God's Word says, "After
these things the word of the Lord came to
Abram in a vision saying, 'Do not fear Abram.
I am a shield to you.
Your reward shall be very great.'
Abram said, 'O Lord God, what will you give me
since I am childless?
And the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damas
cus.
And Abram said, 'Since you have given no
offspring to me, one born in my house is my
heir.'
Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him
saying, 'This man will not be your heir,
but one who will come forth from your own body
, he shall be your heir.'
And he took him outside and said, 'Now look
toward the heavens and count the stars, if
you are able to count them.'
And he said to him, 'So shall your descendants
be.'
Then he believed in the Lord and he reckoned
it to him as righteousness."
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we love you and thank you for
your mercy towards us today just as we
learned from Sunday School.
We learned as we worship you today that you
were so worthy that you've given us so many
gifts that we can't even imagine.
But I pray today that you'd bless the
preaching of your word for your people, your
message
inspired by the messenger, that you'd bless
our minds and hearts with your truth.
Thank you for Christ in His name.
Amen.
All right.
One summer, many moons ago, when I was in
Bible College, I worked at a summer camp in
North Port, Florida, which is an hour or two
south of Tampa there, and it's in snowbird
country.
There are a lot of old people there, but I
worked at a summer camp and the kids, the
community would come and we'd teach them and
every day we'd have a chapel.
And in that chapel, all the workers would lead
singing and we would sing the common children
's
church songs, all with the motions and
everything.
After we sang, the preacher would come out,
the pastor of the church, and he would give
a little chapel message before we went on with
the day's activities.
We sang a lot of those songs, but one of the
songs that we were not allowed to sing, he
had a conviction that we couldn't sing, "
Father Abraham had many sons."
I don't know if you're familiar with that.
After this, if you've not ever heard that, go
ahead and YouTube, you can find its very
popular children's church song.
But he said that the kids don't understand it,
it doesn't have, it's not deep enough
for them or whatever, and he just didn't want
to spend the time having a fun song with
motions and stuff like that.
And it's true that the song is pretty simple,
"Father Abraham had many sons, I am one of
them and so are you."
So let's all praise the Lord and then you
would do a motion like the hokey pokey.
I agree with him that it's probably not the
best song to sing when you're trying to teach
kids about the word, but the truth is, "Father
Abraham had many sons and I am one of them
and so are you," if you believe in the Lord,
if you have faith like Abraham had.
And that's what we're going to be talking
today about Abraham's faith.
And before God changed his name, Abraham was
Abram, and Abram is the subject of the second
part of the book of Genesis.
The first 11 chapters talk about the history
of the world up until Abraham, and then the
last section of the book of Genesis is the
history of Abraham's children until they
get to Egypt.
So he is really the centerpiece of the book of
Genesis, and really it's God's call on
Abraham that is the centerpiece.
And so we talked last time about the reason
Genesis was written.
So Moses is called by God to go to Egypt and
release his people after 400 years of slavery.
And so Moses is inspired by the Holy Spirit to
write the book of Genesis to teach the
Hebrew people who they are.
It has been 400 years of Egyptian slavery.
You can kind of forget where you came from.
It's been 240 years, 48 years in America, and
many of us have forgotten where we've
come from.
And so it's not hard to see why the book of
Genesis needed to be written for the immediate
need of the Hebrew people.
But what's so amazing is that in Moses'
writing of that book and with the inspiration
of the
Holy Spirit, he wrote it for that purpose.
Who are you, Hebrew people?
But in that, in the very first 11 chapters,
every major doctrine that is taught throughout
Scripture from Genesis to Revelation has its
beginning and its seed in the first 11
chapters
of Genesis.
And then it is expounded in the rest of it and
it goes on.
So it's just really, I just want you to grasp
that as much as I have trouble getting stuff
across sometimes, really understand that, that
thousands of years before Christ and before
the New Testament was written, all the doctr
ines that we studied, that we spent years going
through the epistles of Paul and the Gospels
of John and Matthew, all those doctrines had
their start in Genesis and how really amazing
that is.
We saw this week at the conference, the first
two messages came out of Genesis and they
connected with the next two messages that were
the state of man before the fall connected
with the eternal state of man is very clear,
it really blows my mind.
So that last chapter of the first section,
chapter 11, the end of it is a genealogy of
a man named Shem.
Shem was one of the three sons of Noah.
And so the chapter 11 goes through the geneal
ogy, Shem had this son and then he had this son
and they had this son and so it's several
generations and the very last part, the last
generation that Moses talks about is Tara and
Tara is the father of Abram.
And so we get, we get, there's a connection
between Abram and the son of Noah, Shem.
And then right when we get into chapter 12, it
goes right in to God, just out of nowhere
calling Abram to leave his nation and follow
God.
And so there was no, no explanation about Abr
am's character, no explanation about who
he was or what he had, what his job was.
It was just, was God said, look, you move from
where you're at and go to a place where
I'm going to call you and I'm going to give
you, he made a bunch of promises, what we'll
get into.
And the reason that I want this to be brought
out before we get into some of Abram's life
is that God is the one who had the plan.
And Moses is bringing out that right from the
beginning of Genesis, there's a weaving
of a tapestry of God's hand in history.
And he has a purpose that goes all the way
through and to a man named Abram who had,
he changed his name to Abraham and his family
would go all the way and, and eventually end
up into a man named Jesus Christ, who would
start the church.
So this is, this is the history of the Hebrew
people, but it's also a history of, of God's
people and God in his sovereignty is working
all this out and it really is amazing.
So according to God's will, he picks this man
out of a sea of other men in, in a place
called Ur of the Chaldeans.
And he picks this man for his own purposes to
be the father of a mighty nation.
And that nation would later birth Jesus Christ
and, and Jesus Christ would be our savior
and the savior of all, whether they're Jew or
Gentile, who would believe it.
And so this is who Abram was.
He was the one that God picked.
And so I want to go to Genesis 12 and the
first three verses is where out of nowhere,
God calls this man named Abram seemingly out
of nowhere.
It says, now the Lord said to Abram, go forth
from your country and from your relatives
and from your father's house to the land,
which I will show you.
And I will make you a great nation and I will
bless you and make your name great.
And so you shall be a blessing.
And I will bless those who bless you.
And the one who curses you, I will curse.
And in you, all the families of the earth will
be blessed.
And so Abram did.
He picked up his family and left everything he
knew in the land of Ur and moved to Canaan.
He settled there in a place called the Negev
in Canaan, where God would eventually give
him the land.
But it wasn't all roses.
There was a famine in the land of Canaan.
So he went to Egypt and he moves down to Egypt
to find food.
And there was a famine and the famine ended
and Pharaoh kicked him out of Egypt.
So he goes back to Canaan and while he's there
, God is just blessing him and just giving him
so many things.
And he has servants and a big cadre of people
and cattle.
And he gets so big that he actually is like
his own little nation there, his own little
nation state where he goes and wars against
other kings and and prospers there.
And so it's after all this, all this section
where Abram is already following the word
of the God, he's obeying him and doing all
these things that Moses shows us here in our
passage today in chapter 15, that Abram is not
just the father of the physical nation
of the Hebrews, the Jews.
He's also the father of a spiritual nation,
which includes us.
And Paul would later call him in Romans 4, the
father of all who believe, all who have
true faith.
And so that's what we're going to look at
today in chapter 15 is that Abram does have
many sons and we are some of those sons and
how that all works out.
So in our passage here in Genesis 15, verses
one through five, I want to show us that the
promises of God precede faith 15, one through
five.
After these things, the word of the Lord came
to Abram in a vision saying, do not fear Abram
.
I am a shield to you.
Your reward shall be very great.
Abram said, Oh Lord, God, what will you give
me since I am childless in the air of my house
is Eleazar of Damascus.
And Abram said, since you have given no
offspring to me, one born in my house is my
heir.
And behold, the word of the Lord came to him
saying, this man will not be your heir, but
one who will come forth from your own body.
He shall be your heir.
And he took him outside and said, now look
toward the heavens and count the stars.
If you are able to count them and he said to
him, so shall your descendants be.
So he followed God's word and left his home.
He listened to him as he moved him from the Ne
gev to Egypt and then back to the Negev
and Canaan.
And he experienced the blessing of God as he
grew in wealth and cattle.
And so he goes in the last chapter.
So this is after the last chapter.
This happens with Abram.
In the last chapter, he battles with some
other king states.
These kings had came in and battled against
other kings, just his neighbors.
They were just, you know, fighting because
that's how they gained land.
That's how they gained their wealth.
And in that they kidnapped Lot.
Lot was Abram's nephew.
And so Abram got wind that they kidnapped Lot
and plundered his good.
So he went at night and he rescued Lot.
So he was big enough to have his own army, if
you will.
And so he rescues Lot and he takes the loot
that the people had plundered.
And then God sends a priest named Melchizedek,
the king of Salem or the king of peace to
Abram.
And so Abram worships with the priest and
gives him a tithe.
And then the kings, after that, the kings come
and say, hey, look, we were losing, obviously,
and you came and won the battle for us.
We're going to give you a share of the loot
because this is the normal way that they
gained
in that time.
But Abram declined their offer.
Look at Genesis 14-22.
Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have sworn
to the Lord God most high, possessor of heaven
and earth, that I will not take a thread or a
sandal thong or anything that is yours.
For fear, you would say, I have made Abram
rich.
I will take nothing except what the young men
have eaten and the share of the men who
went with me, Aner, Eschel and Mamre, let them
take their share.
So Abram said, no, I'm not going to, I'm not
like you guys.
I'm not going to build my kingdom like the
other kings around me, like an earthly way.
I'm going to follow what God has told me and
he has blessed me so far.
Everything that I have is due to him, not
because of some earthly king.
So he was showing those around him that he was
different and he was.
There was nothing in him that would be the
reason for God to pick him or bless him.
There was nothing that he did.
It was solely based on God's choice.
And so now we get to our passage in chapter 15
and verse number one.
It says, after these things, the word of the
Lord came to Abram in a vision saying, do
not fear Abram.
I am a shield to you.
Your reward shall be very great.
So Abram denied the normal way that men of
that time would get stuff.
And God says, look, don't worry.
I'm going to be your shield.
Your reward is going to be very great.
God said, look, trust in me and all this stuff
will come to pass.
So this is the pattern that we see in
scriptures that God makes promises and his
people trust
in the promises of God.
But when God makes promises, they're not in a
vacuum.
It's not just something like we don't know who
God is or how he operates.
We have a sure hope when the Christians have
hope it's in God that it's not in a vacuum.
It's God who makes those promises is a
trustworthy God.
He promises to be the shield for Abram.
Abram has experienced in the past since God
has called him that he keeps his word,
therefore
hoping Abram's hope in what God had said was
not in vain.
That's the logical progression of biblical
hope.
The world changes the definition of hope and
faith and calls it something blind.
Like there's nothing behind it like we like
look there we have science over here and we
can test this and whatever we have there are
priests and lab coats, but you can have
religion
over here.
You can have faith is just blind.
You don't believe in anything that makes any
sense.
But that's not what biblical hope or faith is.
God is not calling Abram to have blind faith.
He's already proved in the past that he does
what he says.
So he says I will be your shield and your
reward will be very great.
And Abram has every reason to hope to believe
that God's word will come true because of
the past that God has done.
So when Abram believes that the promise that
God makes and he acts on it, he is exhibiting
true faith in what God, the God who's making
the promises.
It's not out of the ordinary.
When we explain to people, the gospel, when we
give them the promises of God that he will
save them from their sin because of what
Christ has done for them to have question
evangelism
does not just go and say, Hey, here's the plan
of the gospel.
Okay.
I just believe it.
Generally there's there's conversation.
There's apologetics.
There's defenses that have to be made.
Generally people have questions and we all
probably had the same things happen before
we became we came to Christ and Abram was no
different.
He had gone through two or three chapters of
things where God tell him, do this, do that.
And he did it.
And he'd never questioned God and any of those
things.
But now God is telling him, I'm going to be
your shield and your reward is going to be
very great.
And so now Abram first, first time mentions
questions that he has about God's word, about
what he's telling him.
And he says in verse two, Abram said, Oh, Lord
God, what will you give me since I am
childless and the air of my house is a laser
of Damascus.
Abram said, since you have given no offspring
to me, one born in my house is my air.
So Abram was an old man.
He was, it was a hundred years old and his
wife was old too.
They were passed the time where normal childbe
aring can happen.
Their bodies were already past that.
And so now God is telling him, look, I'm going
to give you all of this, this great reward
and all these descendants and all this is
going to happen.
I promise you, I give you my word, this is
going to happen.
And Abram saying, well, how I'm an old man, I
'm nobody, how is this going to work?
So you're going to give me all of these
rewards and it's going to die off of me
because there's
no one to inherit all these rewards.
I'm going to have to give it to my servant,
Eleazar.
So in that time, if you want it, if you didn't
have a child, you would pass on your stuff
to one of your servants.
You would actually adopt your servant as a son
so that he could inherit all of your
possessions and he would take care of what you
had and your burial and stuff like that.
And Eleazar was the one who was queued up, but
he wasn't of Abraham.
He was of Damascus.
But here's what God said to Abram, verse four,
"Then behold, the word of the Lord came
to him saying, 'This man will not be your heir
, but one who will come forth from your
own body, he shall be your heir.'
The Lord said, 'No, that's not what's going to
take place, Abram.
He is not going to be your heir.
Someone from your own body, which the word
actually means your bowels from the inside
of you.
It's going to be your son that's going to be
your heir."
And so God promises, he gives his word to Abr
am that your descendants will come from
you.
He won't be someone you have to adopt from
somewhere else.
So of course, we, thousands of years later,
with the word of God, get to look back and
see how it all worked out.
We could read in the next couple of chapters
how God works that out in his life and how
he gives him Ishmael and he gives him Isaac.
And we can look back and see that we have a
Jewish people now, and Ishmael's descendants
are the Arabs, and they're fighting still
today, just like it was told back then.
And we can see the history of thousands of
years of the Jewish people.
But Abram didn't get that benefit.
He was looking at, "Hey, I'm a hundred years
old.
It doesn't work anymore.
Hers doesn't work anymore.
How are we going to have a baby, right?
How is it going to happen?
How are we going to have descendants?"
But God says, "No, you will have descendants.
I will keep every one of my promises to you,
Abram."
Abram asked a question and it was okay.
It's okay to ask questions.
And so God graciously takes him outside and
gives him an illustration of how he's going
to keep his promise.
Look at verse five.
And he took him outside and said, "Now look
toward the heavens and count the stars if
you are able to count them."
And he said to him, "So show your descendants
be."
Five years ago, Rachel and I and Josh went to
Arizona and we traveled from Phoenix to
Grand Canyon and back and we made a bunch of
stops in Sedona, Route 66.
I love Arizona.
The weather, I like the heat without the
humidity.
It's great.
All everything.
The Grand Canyon is absolutely amazing.
But on the east side of where the Grand Canyon
is, there's the Navajo Reservation.
And we used Airbnb and we were actually able
to stay in the Navajo Reservation in what
they call a Hogan, which is an old Indian clay
house structure.
And where we were at in the reservation, there
was zero electricity and zero running water.
We had to use an outhouse.
It was interesting.
But one of the, my, it's not, it was for me.
Oh, one of the favorite memories that I have
from that whole trip is it taking the clots
out of that Hogan, dragging them outside and
laying down on the cot, looking up at the
stars.
Because there was no light pollution.
I saw hundreds of thousands of more stars.
Not that I counted them, but then you could,
even in country, Louisiana, and it, it was
very memorable.
So I can see, I mean, just imagine, put
yourself in the sandals of Abram as he is
walked outside
of his tent and looks up at the sky and says,
look, God says, look, count the stars.
That's how many descendants you're going to
have.
And I want you to think about this.
Yahweh, the creator of the whole universe, is
giving Abram a personal illustration of
his power to keep his words.
He created every one of those stars, Psalm 147
verse four, since he counts the number
of the stars.
He gives names to all of them.
He knows exactly how many stars they are
because he's the one that puts them there and
exactly
where he wanted them.
And he's maintaining their, their path
throughout the universe as we speak.
And we are just seeing millions and millions
of stars that we've never before in the
history
of mankind seen because of new technology, a
new telescope that we put out there.
And you know what?
There's millions and millions more that we don
't have the ability to see and will probably
never see until Christ comes back.
He created them specifically for his own glory
.
That is his power.
And so he takes this old, childless man that
had nothing in him that would be, cause him
to be chosen.
He wasn't a great king or anything.
He takes them outside and with patience and
with grace says, Hey, you don't believe me?
Look what I can do.
I created these.
Count them.
That's how many descendants you're going to
have.
What an amazing God.
Philip's been going through Ephesians.
We're just talking about it, but when he went
through Ephesians three, one of the things
that stuck out in my mind is that God was able
to do far more abundantly beyond all that
we ask or think according to the power that
works within us.
And then Paul says that again later or earlier
in the chapter, he says Paul was made a
minister
according to the gift of God's grace, which
was given to Paul according to the working
of his power.
And Philip explained that it wasn't that God
had the store of power and he was pulling
it out and divvying it up to all the different
ministers of the gospel.
No, it was according to.
It was in proportion.
So God's infinite power.
He was blessing us and blessing Paul in
proportion to that power and to that grace
that he was
doing it according.
So now God is showing, Hey, Abram, this is a,
I can bless you with descendants.
I have the power to give you descendants
according to the same power that I created all
of this.
I created your, your body.
That's old.
Whatever I want, we're like, wow, God.
And he's like, I just spoke it.
I just said it and all the stars appeared.
He did.
God could have said, Hey, Abram, he could have
set thunder and lightning and tornadoes and
shook the earth and an allowed booming voice.
He could have said, trust me.
Just why are you asking questions?
But he didn't.
He was grace and with patience.
He took Abram outside and showed him the stars
.
He showed compassion on Abram and he shows
that same to us.
Psalm 103, 13.
So just as a father has compassion on his
children, so the Lord has compassion on those
who fear him for he himself knows our frame.
He is mindful that we are but dust.
And this is exactly how he treats us.
So, so if you have a question about God's
promises, if you have find your faith, wait
and you're favoring, then go and ask him, read
the word and and he will show you that
he keeps his promises and that he is worthy of
your faith.
He calls us to test him.
He says, taste and see that the Lord is good.
How blessed is the man who takes refuge in him
?
And that's not a testing of a cynic.
He takes honest questions from hundred year
old childless men who were promised great
rewards like no one's ever been promised
before.
They had no frame of reference, but God showed
him God, God promised him and God's promises
precede faith because we are creatures of
doubt.
And we learn when we experience God's faithful
ness that he is worthy of our trust and he's
worthy
of our faith, that our hope will be well
placed when we place it in God.
Paul explains this in Romans chapter five,
verses one and two says, Therefore, having
been justified by faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through
whom also we have obtained our introduction by
faith into this grace in which we stand
and we exalt in hope of the glory of God.
Now we're getting slightly ahead of ourselves,
we're going to talk about this concept in
our next verse.
But I want you to see that God works this way
on purpose.
This is how God works.
He makes promises and that is what our faith
is based on.
So we're justified by faith in Christ.
And because we are justified by faith, we have
peace with God.
Now we take that for granted, we take that
easy, but we have the holy God of the universe
,
the creator of each one of those stars and we
've broken every single one of his loss.
But because of what Christ has done and the
faith that he's given us, we're able to come
before him in peace.
We're able to come before him with boldness,
Hebrews says, not with knee shaking, but as
a father and make our requests.
And then it says we exalt before him, we exalt
in glory.
That means we revel.
We boast in the glory that we have, not
because of ourselves, but because of what
Christ has
introduced us to in God.
But then the next part of these verses, we ex
alt, we revel, we boast in what God has
given us and glory that we'll have in that
final state.
But the next part of the next passage, verse
three says, not only this, not just that we
boast in the glory, but we also exalt or boast
or revel in our tribulations, knowing that
tribulation brings about perseverance and
perseverance, proven character and proven
character hope and hope does not disappoint
because the love of God has been poured out
within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who
was given to us.
So we boast and revel and exalt and trib
ulation and pain and suffering, knowing because
of
the past, because we have experience with God
that he keeps his promises.
So as we go through this tribulation and this
problem today, we remember, hey, I had a
problems before I had tribulations before and
look what God did.
He brought me through those.
So now that I'm facing this tribulation, I can
face it with hope.
And in the end of it, I won't be ashamed
because I know how God takes care of me
because he's
done it in the past.
Does that make sense?
That's the that's the we exalt in those we
because we learn about God's graciousness.
God's faithfulness, his trustworthiness.
And so the more we go through, the less our
faith waivers the next time.
And one day we'll see his face and our faith
will become site.
And then we'll have all those experiences to
exalt in in the future.
May God give us the grace to go through the
trials and tribulations of his life with true
hope in him and all those promises that preced
e faith.
True faith in us and here in the next part, we
're going to learn how the faith brings
a reckoning of righteousness, the imputation
of righteousness by faith alone in verse
number
six.
Then he believed in the Lord and he reckoned
it to him as righteousness.
We believe that verse by verse preaching, exp
osition is the proper way to do this.
And we believe that because we are commanded
by Paul to to preach the whole counsel of
the word, the word of God and skipping over
verses are obviously not the way you follow
that command.
Sometimes it takes a long time to fill up
several years and two churches to get through
the book of Matthew.
Remember that?
You remember, we threw you a little party
afterwards?
Great cake.
I actually have a picture of the cake that
Rachel made at Larry Creasy's house.
Verse by verse, just line upon line, five
years to get through it.
But some preachers, and I'm not usually one of
them, can take several sermons to get
through one verse.
Right? I know Martin Lloyd-Jones would just go
and dissect every word and I have a hard
time with that.
I like to see the big picture and I'm not
usually as verbose as others.
But if you were to spend several sermons on
one verse, this verse would be one of them.
And this verse has inspired several New
Testament authors, Paul and James, to explain
the reality
of justification by faith alone.
This verse sets the foundation, the bottom
layer of the exposition of the New Testament
into what faith is and how faith works in
salvation.
So back in Genesis 3.15, what is what we call
the prototype gospel.
So Adam and Eve had fallen in the sin and
because of that sin, God gave them curses.
And in one of those curses, he gave to Eve, he
said that the seed of Eve would have his
heel bruised by the serpent and that the seed
of Eve would crush the head of the serpent.
And we know now that that was Christ.
And we learned all about those curses that
happened at the Here We Stand conference on
Friday night from Brother Brian.
So how will a holy God be able to accept
sinners like us, those who break the law into
his holy
kingdom and still maintain his own justice?
What could be done for us being so far past
the mark of unrighteousness to be put back
into good standing with that holy God?
So what this verse is explaining is how God
does that.
God puts us back into his good graces by his
grace through faith alone.
And when we believe, as Abraham did, God reck
ons us as righteous.
So let's unpack this verse number six.
Let's read it again.
He believed in the Lord and he reckoned it to
him as righteousness.
The very first part of this verse says that he
believed in the Lord.
So what did Abram believe?
He believed more than just that God would give
him a bunch of sons.
He believed all of the promises of God so far
that the very first promises that God
gave him when he called him out of Ur of the
Chaldeans in Genesis 12 one.
This is what he believed.
He believed all of it.
Now the Lord said to Abram, go forth from your
country and from your relatives and from
your father's house to the land which I will
show you.
And I will make you a great nation and I will
bless you and make your name great.
And so you shall be a blessing.
And I will bless those who bless you and the
one who curses you, I will curse and in
you all the families of the earth will be
blessed.
God brought him to Canaan and told him that
his descendants would inherit the land there.
But he also told him that that his descendants
would be the ones that all the families of
the earth will be blessed in.
And that descendant, I should have said, that
descendant would be Christ, the seed that
would crush the head of the serpent.
So the great nation that Abram's descendants
would become would be the great blessing to
all the world, which is us now.
So God brings him outside at night.
He shows him the great power that he had.
And Abram believes God, not just about the
stuff that he would get, the blessings of
the cattle and the servants and the land, but
all of it.
Abram believed and had faith that God was
trustworthy.
And look at the next part of that verse, verse
six, then he believed in the Lord.
It says that he believed in the Lord, not just
that he believed the Lord.
He believed the person of the Lord.
He believed everything that God had said and
that he believed that God was trustworthy.
He placed all of his trust in God.
And then the last part of that verse says, and
he reckoned it to him as righteousness.
God reckoned it.
He reckoned Abram's faith as righteousness.
Now we as Southerners understand the word reck
oned, right?
I reckon so.
But where does it come from?
Well, if you read the ESV and the LSB, they
use the word count there.
And so God saw that Abram trusted in him, that
Abram believed in him.
And when he saw that, he counted that faith as
righteousness.
And maybe you've heard the word imputation
before.
This is such an important concept.
Imputation is a financial term.
If I write you a check from my my bank account
and I hand it to you, you go to your bank
and you cash that check and you have them
apply it to your account.
So they impute the funds from my bank account
onto your bank account.
Now sometimes the funds may not be there, but
with an infinitely righteous God, he will
always be able to back up his accounting, his
imputation, his credits.
So in Adam's fall, we send all.
So this is what original sin is.
The fact that Adam's sin was imputed to each
one of us.
It was transferred from from his life to our
life.
We all are sinners because of Adam's sin,
Romans 512.
Therefore justice through one man, sin entered
into the world and death through sin.
And so death spread to all men because all sin
ned.
But through faith, God imputes the
righteousness of Christ to every one of us.
He reckons his righteousness to our account.
He counts us as righteous because of the
righteousness of Christ.
Romans 517, for if by the transgression of the
one death rain through the one, much more
those who receive the abundance of grace and
of the gift of righteousness will reign in
life through the one Jesus Christ.
So then as though through one transgression,
there resulted condemnation to all men, even
so through one act of righteousness, there
resulted justification of life to all men.
And Abrams justification, his being made right
in the sight of God justified was a result
of his faith alone.
Now he had followed God for a while before
this point.
He listened to God, he moved from his land to
a new land.
He obeyed, but it wasn't until this point that
he had true, justifying faith.
Calvin said the sequence of time must now be
noted.
Abram was justified by faith many years after
he had been called by God, after he had left
his native land and had become a voluntary
exile, after he had been a conspicuous mirror
of endurance and self control, after he had
devoted himself wholly to holiness, after he
had practiced himself in the spiritual and the
external worship of God and had led an
almost angelic life.
So it follows that even at the end of life, we
are brought into God's eternal kingdom
by justification by faith.
Then he says, "The truth holds.
Men are justified by believing, not by what
they do.
It is by faith they obtain grace, and grace
cannot be earned as a payment for works, since
Abram, with all his preeminence and virtue,
after a long life of unique service of God,
was yet justified by faith.
The righteousness of each perfected man
consists in faith alone."
And that is the same way that we are saved
today.
Abram, thousands of years ago, was justified
by faith alone, and us, thousands of years
after Abram, and thousands of years after
Jesus Christ, we are justified by faith alone.
Nothing that we do can earn that justification
.
All the good works that we do, all the charity
, all every act of religion that we do, done
outside of true faith in God, by grace alone,
will do nothing to make your standing before
God better.
There is no Peter before the pearly gates
going through the checks and balances of how
good
or how bad you were.
You will only enter the glory of Christ in
heaven forever by an external righteousness,
the righteousness of Christ himself imputed to
you, and that is it.
Romans 4, Paul exposited this verse that we
read today.
He started off like this, Romans 4-1, "What
then shall we say, that Abraham our forefather
,
according to the flesh, has found?
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 credited to him as
righteousness?
Now to the one who works, his wage is not
credited his favor, but as what is due, but
the one
who does not work, but believes in him who
justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited
as righteousness."
So my question to you today is, are you
resting in Christ alone for your salvation?
Are you resting in the justification of Christ
's righteousness alone in your life?
Just by grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ
alone?
Anything else is a miss of the mark.
Are you relying on your church attendance,
relying on some church sacrament or ordinance
that we do, the ceremonies, the singing, any
of it?
If you are, then you need to reckon, count all
of that as rubbish before God and trust
in him alone, outside of anything else.
Put your faith in him, in his person, like
Abraham did, the father of the faithful.
And if you do that, if you are trusting in him
, remember, he is worthy of that trust.
He has never let us down, he has never gone
back on his word, and he will never do that
until the end of time.
He is infinitely good, and he is infinitely
powerful, and he can do everything he says.
So go forth in this life in faith in him.
Next part of this chapter is the Abrahamic Co
venant, which we'll go into next month.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we love you, and thank you
for your faithfulness to us, that you are
worthy of our trust, that you have created all
things.
Because of that, you are worthy of our worship
, just for who you are, like Philip said.
I pray that you bless us today, may our faith
and never waver in who you are.
But when it does, we praise you that you are
gracious and that you are good and patient
with us.
Thank you, Lord.