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Romans 3:27-4:10
27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
4:1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in1 him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.
[1] 4:5
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. We have spent the last 4 weeks now, really on a very small section in Romans 3. But today, we're gonna pick up the pace. We're gonna move a little more quickly through some verses.
Joel Brooks:Hopefully, we'll, you know, we won't stretch Romans out for a decade or so. So Romans chapter 3. We'll begin reading in verse 27. Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded.
Joel Brooks:By what kind of law? By a law of works? No. But by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
Joel Brooks:Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also. Since God is 1, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?
Joel Brooks:By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, 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?
Joel Brooks:Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
Joel Brooks:Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised?
Joel Brooks:It was not after, but before he was circumcised. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks, Aaron. If you would pray with me. Father, we ask that through your spirit, you would open up your word to us.
Joel Brooks:Not just open up Your word, but open up our hearts and our minds to receive that word. Jesus, I pray that we would hear Your invitation to us this afternoon. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:Okay. Be honest with me. How many of you completely checked out when I read the scripture? Anybody? Anybody?
Joel Brooks:Thank you. We've got a few honest people. I almost did, and I'm the pastor and I was reading it. So it's okay. The crazy thing is this, is that these are some of the most important words you will find in the entire book of Romans.
Joel Brooks:I mean, verse 28. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. That's pretty much the heart of the gospel. And yet, it's just kind of hard to work your way through this text. It's okay for Romans to be hard for you to acknowledge that.
Joel Brooks:There are times, you know, we talked about when we introduced Romans that the Apostle Peter even considered Paul's writings to be hard to understand. So give yourself a little grace. But Paul could be so dense at times that, you have to move slowly. I mean, we have spent the last few weeks simply defining terms. We've defined words like righteousness, justification, forgiveness, atonement, propitiation.
Joel Brooks:We've been slowly working our way through that. I have about 20 different commentaries on Romans. And they're scattered pretty much in every room of our house. My wife is just sick of me leaving them everywhere. But I've been gradually just working my way through them, because I need to go through them to understand, what Paul is talking about.
Joel Brooks:But I want to say that you don't have to have any commentaries to understand the text that's before you this afternoon. You don't you don't have to have any commentary at all. You don't have to have any knowledge of Hebrew or Greek. You don't have to have even a study Bible. There's there's no different translation possibilities here.
Joel Brooks:The only thing you really need to understand, the words before you, is you need to have raised teenage daughters. Okay? If you have raised teenage daughters, you you get this. I have 3 teenage daughters. Without a doubt, they have been my best commentary on this.
Joel Brooks:Now, for those of you who don't have teenage daughters, you can rest assured you can still understand this. It's just gonna take a little more work for you, because what I'm gonna need you to do is to remember back to the time when you were a teenager. To remember back to the time when you were in junior high or in high school. So I want you to open up that really painful area in your brain that you have closed off. Open it up and and go back in time with me to that period.
Joel Brooks:If you can remember that time, you probably remember, you know, you had a number of really good, nice teachers, but you probably don't remember anything from your classes. I don't. Because education didn't happen when you were sitting behind a desk listening to a lecture for 50 minutes. Your education during this period happened in those 5 minutes in between classes as you had to navigate the halls. That's when you learned about life.
Joel Brooks:Isn't it? Remember that? That's when you learned about the pecking order in life. You learned about the, you know, where your social standing was in life. You learned how things worked.
Joel Brooks:You saw the groups that you desperately wanted to be a part of. Maybe some friend circles you wanted to be in with that group there. And then, of course, the cafeteria was the greatest teacher of them all. Can you remember going into the cafeteria for the first time? And it's just, where do I go?
Joel Brooks:Where do I you so desperately just wanna belong. I mean, when I was a boy and I had to go into the cafeteria, it was just way before the time of cell phones, where now you could just like pull out a cell phone and act like you're looking at text or different things, you know, to kinda hide the the fact that you're being emotionally wrecked in this moment. I actually had to just stand there with my tray looking. Someone, please accept me. Please accept me.
Joel Brooks:And you're looking around and that's all you want is to get in. You want someone to let you in their circle of friends. Now the Biblical word for this is justification. That's the Biblical word for it. Justification.
Joel Brooks:Remember a few weeks ago, we looked how we defined the word forgiveness. And forgiveness is when you are pardoned and forgiveness says you are free to go. Justification, it says you are free to come. You are free to come and to be in my presence. And this is what you are looking for.
Joel Brooks:You're looking for an invitation to come in to some group. So how are you justified? How do you get in? Well, as a teenager, you had to prove you were worthy. Worthy of that group.
Joel Brooks:You had to prove that you were a good fit. And so, you would do things like you would try to do the same activities as this group. So, if you were in a school where everyone for some reason seemed to love cross country, well you know what? You would buy some running shoes and you would join the cross country club. Or if your school, everybody loved to play volleyball, make out, try out for the volleyball team.
Joel Brooks:Well, that's that's what you do. You would learn how to play volleyball. Or if your school was really big into their school plays, you never knew you liked drama so much, but now you wanna be an actor or an actress because you want in. And then of course, you would have to change your appearance. You would have to dress a certain way, style your hair a certain way.
Joel Brooks:Even if, you know, you wanted to look like you didn't care, it took a long time to get just the right look that you didn't care, because you still have to look good while also looking like you didn't care. I've, thank goodness, my 2 youngest daughters, they're in a school where they have to wear uniforms. Best invention ever. Like, best idea ever to have school uniforms. Because getting dressed now takes no time at all.
Joel Brooks:I mean, before it would have probably taken, you know, an hour for them to get ready. But now, their clothes aren't a statement. They're not out there trying to make a statement. They don't have to worry about what doors are gonna open or close to them that day based on their clothes. I didn't have that advantage when I was growing up.
Joel Brooks:I'm a child of the eighties and so I grew up when Izod shirts were a big deal. I don't know if you remember those, Izod shirts, they're probably still around. I don't know. I'm not cool or hip anymore. But, we were in a family that couldn't really afford Izod's.
Joel Brooks:But, my mom knew I really wanted to fit in. And so, what she did is she bought me one Izod when when I was little. And, and I wore that, but then I grew fast. Like, you know, I was probably like this height when I was in well, probably this height when I was in 5th grade. And then, I was this height in 7th grade.
Joel Brooks:I haven't grown since 7th grade. But, I went through a whole lot of clothes in that period. My mom bought one Izod and then she would cut out the alligator, the little alligator logo. And then, she would go to Kmart and she would buy another dress shirt. And then, she would sew on the little alligator.
Joel Brooks:And, I did that over and over and over. Because, she wanted to make sure that when I went to school, I could fit in. And, I so desperately wanted to fit in. How ridiculous is that? But can you remember that?
Joel Brooks:I mean, can you remember, like, how desperately you wanted to be a part of a group? And the truth is we don't have to look back to those teenage years to remember this because those desires to to fit in never went away. Today, we had, you know, a bunch of new college students coming in, a lot of freshmen, some of you might be freshmen as well here. And, you experience the same thing your 1st days on campus. You're experiencing that now.
Joel Brooks:You're you're on campus, first time you're away from your parents' household and you're just looking around trying to fit in, trying to get into that group. Some of our college students, they went the route of going through rush. That was a, you know, an easier way to just like get a part of a group. And they were devastated. Some of you were devastated when you did not get into the fraternity or the sorority that you wanted.
Joel Brooks:And why were you devastated? Because a group you wanted to get into said you were not worthy. You're not worthy. Others of you, you got into, you know, your fraternity or your sorority of choice. You got in there and you were absolutely elated.
Joel Brooks:I got in. And then, you realized the moment you got in, there was actually another circle in there. And you wanted to get into that circle now. And then he realized, you know what? If you get into that inner circle, there's actually gonna be another inner circle.
Joel Brooks:It never ends. You always want to get to the inside of some group. And you don't, you know, you don't outgrow this. Adults, you understand this because we still keep trying to justify ourselves. We try to justify our existence by showing people we do indeed have worth.
Joel Brooks:And the way we do this is we present evidence that says, look at me, look at me, I matter. Look at the cool places I've been to. Look at the important job or the important career I have. Look at the school I went to and the degree I got. Look at my my my good works that I've done.
Joel Brooks:Look at the neighborhood that I live in. Look at my ethnicity. Look at the color of my skin. Look at all these things. Anything that you think is gonna open up doors for you that presents you as worthy.
Joel Brooks:And what you're trying to do is to justify your existence. Sometimes we try to find justification through another person and you think, I am somebody if I have a boyfriend. I am somebody if I can get married. I am somebody if I can have children who love me. Any of you mom or dads ever, you know, blow up one time at dinner with your kids when you fix them a meal that they've rejected?
Joel Brooks:Any of you ever have that, you know, you just blow up and you find yourself, it's almost in slow motion as you're saying these things, because they were said to you when you were a child. And you're like, I slaved all day working in the kitchen. And this is the thanks I get, I do all of this for you. And yet your anger betrays you because you're not doing any of it for them. This is all about you.
Joel Brooks:The reason you were so angry is because you didn't get the validation you were looking for in doing this. You didn't get the affirmation you were looking for in doing this. This had nothing to do about your kids. It was you seeking justification from your kids. You wanted them to tell you you were worth something.
Joel Brooks:And we we do this all the time. What what the word that Paul puts on all of this, us presenting our evidence out there that that kinda says we're worth something to justify our existence, the word he uses for this is boasting. This is why Paul here introduces this idea of boasting, when he he meshes it with justification. It's an odd connection, boasting and justification. But Paul understands that one of the ways that we most commonly try to justify ourselves is by boasting.
Joel Brooks:What he means by that is, we like to point out to people how we're better than other people. How we're worth more than other people. How we are more deserving of acceptance. Now, of course, you just can't go up to another person and start praising yourself. I mean, you can't be that obvious.
Joel Brooks:And the word praise and the word boast are the same word there. But you can't just praise yourself. You have to do it in a more subtle way. I'm actually a master at doing that. I'm a master at praising myself.
Joel Brooks:I'm a master at boasting. I'm like the Yoda of finding subtle ways in which I could boast. Because I can make my boast about myself look like other things. I can disguise my boast, for instance, as a praise for another person. So I can, you know, maybe praise another pastor by saying, oh, that pastor, he is he is so good.
Joel Brooks:His church is booming. I mean, he is a really, really good preacher. Isn't he? I mean and, gosh. Isn't it just so great that he has such an amazing facility and he only has to preach once so he can stay fresh as he preaches and he's allowed to preach, like, 50 minutes.
Joel Brooks:I mean, like, what a gift that he has. Am I praising that pastor? No. I'm boasting. I'm subtly letting you know that, you know what?
Joel Brooks:If I had those things, man, we'd be booming. Paul, if I had those things, I'd be so much better. I can also disguise my boast as a moral outrage. So I can, you know, watch some politicians speak on TV and I can say, I mean, what a clown. What a buffoon.
Joel Brooks:Such a liberal idiot. And when I say something like this, what I'm doing is I'm letting others know, suddenly, this really isn't about them. It's that I see myself as so much better than, I'm more intellectual. I'm morally superior to this person. And then if I could get a few others to join with me in this, isn't that No and they're like, Yeah.
Joel Brooks:Now I form my group. Now we're in the end. This person's out. And what I'm doing in all of these things is, I'm jockeying for position. I need to show that I'm more worthy of other people.
Joel Brooks:I am worthy of Your acceptance. And of course, what I'm ultimately after is saying I am worthy of God's acceptance. In other words, I'm looking for justification. But what Paul is teaching us here is that my boasting shows that I do not understand the gospel. Or at least the gospel has not penetrated as deep as it needs to in my heart.
Joel Brooks:Because boasting is antithetical to the gospel. Because we cannot boast about our works if we're not saved by our works. That's why Paul says, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. In other words, if we were justified because we were somehow better than others, well, we could boast. But since we are saved by faith and not saved by anything we do or present, we cannot boast.
Joel Brooks:This means that if you catch yourself boasting, this should serve like a giant red emergency warning light blinking saying, you don't get the gospel. You don't get the gospel. You're trying to relate to God the wrong way. So, my my middle child just got her driver's license this week. Warning, I just want to warn you guys.
Joel Brooks:It's always this dilemma too when you're trying to, you know, help your child get a car. Because, you want to buy them a tank, essentially, to protect them. But then, you would be in danger if my middle child was driving a tank. And so, you're trying to find the right balance. But, so 2 of my daughters are driving.
Joel Brooks:But what I've told all of my girls is this, when it when it comes to cars and it comes to warning lights, you can ignore all of them. That's that's been my advice because that's how I grew up. That's the kind of cars I would have. They were always on. I mean, the tire pressure light, please.
Joel Brooks:Like, I mean, you could just, you just ignore that, you know, till kingdom come. So you ignore all the more the warning lights, they come, they go, except for 1. I said, if ever the oil pressure light comes on, stop the car immediately. You gotta pay attention to that one. Because if you keep driving when the oil pressure light comes on, you're gonna burn up your engine.
Joel Brooks:Boasting is your oil pressure light. When you begin to boast, that's the warning sin. You gotta stop. Stop. Stop now.
Joel Brooks:You don't get the gospel. You're trying to relate to God the wrong way. You're trying to build a justification or salvation based on works and not on grace. Not on faith. So if you look down on a political party, or if you look down on those liberals or those conservatives, look down on the millennials or the boomers, You call the anti maskers idiots or the maskers idiots.
Joel Brooks:You do this. You are trying to justify yourself through works. You're trying to show that you're better. Christians should be the most humble people on earth. Do you think that's how the world views us?
Joel Brooks:Do you think this past year when the world's looking at the people who go to churches, they're thinking, wow, the people who fill those buildings are like the most humble people I have ever heard talk. The most humble people I have ever seen. Do you think that's what they're thinking? Not at all. Because it seems like at least in the past year or 2, what's happened is the church by and large has forgotten about the gospel of grace.
Joel Brooks:And instead, we're adopting this gospel of patting yourself on the back. And seeing how much, saying how much morally better and superior you are than others, to others. Now one of the Paul's hammering that. Don't you feel this like he's just hammering this doctrine home? He's gonna do this really for 7 or 8 chapters.
Joel Brooks:But one of the ways he now moves on to really hammer this doctrine of justification by faith home with us is to say, all we have to do is look at the the founder of our faith, go to Abraham. And we're gonna look more at Abraham next week. We're just gonna kinda put a toe in the waters of Abraham this week. We're gonna we're gonna deep dive next week. But Abraham, father Abraham, did so many good things.
Joel Brooks:I mean, he was generous. He he prayed all the time. He, at one point, you know, he obeyed God by circumcising his household, him and his household. Another time he obeyed God by nearly sacrificing his son Isaac. If anyone can boast about something they do, it's Abraham.
Joel Brooks:What does Paul say about Abraham? Look at verses 1 through 3. What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather 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?
Joel Brooks:Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now Paul here is quoting from Genesis 15. This is when God makes his covenant with Abraham. God makes some extraordinary promises to Abraham, and then we read that Abraham's response to God was that he believed. And when he believed, God counted, it was counted to him as righteousness.
Joel Brooks:We do not read, Abraham believed God and he became righteous. That's not what you read. Nor do you read that because Abraham was righteous, he believed. Now what you read is that Abraham, when he believed God, it was counted to him as righteousness. And this word, counted, it's a banking term.
Joel Brooks:It's the word credited. And the idea is this, Abraham gave God his faith. God then received that faith and then he wrote it down on the ledger as righteous. Abraham is declared now righteous. And this was before Abraham had done anything.
Joel Brooks:All Abraham had to do is believe. That's it. It it sounds too easy. Doesn't it? All you have to do is believe.
Joel Brooks:I mean, you're you're thinking, well certainly Abraham has to do something. Or at least, you know, God said, you know, you seem to be a generally good guy. I'll make my covenant with you. But, that's not how it works. He just has to believe.
Joel Brooks:Once again, Paul hammers this home in the next verses. Look at verse 45. Says, Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. I think verse 5 there is the clearest statement we have in all of scripture to justification by faith alone.
Joel Brooks:How we are saved by faith and not by works. Paul says, to the one who does not work. Or in other words, to the one who does not try to earn anything. To the one who does not try to jockey for position. For the one who is not trying to measure up.
Joel Brooks:To the one who's not trying to prove their worth. To that person. To the one who does not work. But instead believes, believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted or credited as righteousness. Now when Martin Luther read that word ungodly, he fell out of his chair.
Joel Brooks:Martin Luther was also pretty dramatic at times. I mean, you read this, you're like, I mean, if it's the first time you fell out of the chair, it'd be well. But he's fallen out of his chair a number of times with different theology. But but so, he fell out of his chair when he read the word ungodly. God does not justify the righteous, he justifies the ungodly.
Joel Brooks:He justifies those who lie. Justifies those who sleep around. He justifies the porn addict. He justifies the one who is having an affair. He justifies the cheater.
Joel Brooks:He justifies the racist. He justifies the abuser. He justifies the controlling person, the bully. He justifies the un godly. It's just hard to believe.
Joel Brooks:I mean, right now, a thought experiment. I want you to imagine, think of that think of the one person that drives you crazy, makes your blood boil. You get so angry when you think of the person. Don't look at them right now. Just just think.
Joel Brooks:We all know who this person is here. Okay? Alright. No. Just just think of that that that one person.
Joel Brooks:It could be a politician. It could be whoever it is. Like, you think of that person and you, oh, you you just can't stand them. Now, I want you to imagine now Jesus walking up to that person, forgiving them. Jesus putting his arm around them, laughing with him, celebrating with him, embracing him.
Joel Brooks:How does that make you feel? Honestly, how does that make you feel? If it just kind of, you know, just kind of rubs rubs you the wrong way, it's because grace rubs you the wrong way. If that rubs you the wrong way, it's because grace rubs you the wrong way. You still want to believe that you are somehow more deserving.
Joel Brooks:You still want to be saved by works. You want a salvation in which you can boast. For some of this is this is really revealing about who you really desire. Picture yourself once again, you're back in the the halls of high school and there's that one group. You just you just wanna be in.
Joel Brooks:You just wanna fit in. Imagine if that group said, you know what? You're in. But everyone's in. Everyone.
Joel Brooks:Everyone now at the school, you could be part of our group. How do you feel in that moment? Like, well, well, I don't wanna be in if they're all in. I mean, part of the fun is that you would choose me that I could somehow prove that I had more value than them. And what you were saying in that moment is you wanted to be a part of this group because of your exaltation, not because you wanted to exalt that group.
Joel Brooks:And some of us approach God the same way. We wanna be saved by works, not because that exalts God, but because it exalts us. God's saying, if you desire me, if you actually desire me, all you have to do is trust Me. You're in. Will you trust Me?
Joel Brooks:Will you humble yourself and let go of all of those works and trust me? That's really what the word trust is or believe there, believe in faith is the same word. And, it's a transfer of trust. When it says that Abraham believed God, that we're saved by faith. It's a transfer of trust in which I used to trust in all of these things for my justification.
Joel Brooks:Trust in all these these things to say I am somebody and now you're letting go of that. And you're transferring that trust to Jesus and you're saying, I'm somebody because of you. I get in because of you. I trust you alone. You can't trust in both.
Joel Brooks:You've gotta let go of 1 and you've gotta hold on to the other. Paul says it this way in Galatians 6. He says, far be it from me to boast except in the cross of Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. As Christians, we have one boast, and it's in Jesus. We boast in His works, not ours.
Joel Brooks:Does this mean we just no longer do any good works? Not at all. Paul will address that later. It's a stupid argument. No.
Joel Brooks:We're gonna keep doing we're gonna keep doing works. But now for the first time, you can actually keep the law because you're not going to the law for salvation. So now you can sing the law to a different tune, to the tune of faith. Let me end this way with a simple invitation to you. For those of you who your whole life, you've always felt like you're on the outside, and that's all of us.
Joel Brooks:We always feel like we're on the outside, always trying to get into the inside of some group. I want you to hear that ultimately, that longing is a longing for God Himself. You're longing for God. And God is inviting you right now to humble yourself and to trust Him. And for those of you who look back on this past year, and you see that was a year full of boast, Will you pay attention to that warning light that's just blinking right now?
Joel Brooks:Will you repent and will you trust Jesus and celebrate a gospel of grace? Pray with me. Lord Jesus, we do thank you that you have saved us through sheer grace, and we relish in that. May it be our theme all the years of our life until we die. Lord, we thank you for your love for us and how you have relentlessly pursued us.
Joel Brooks:Lord, I pray we would let go of all the things we've been putting our trust in and we would transfer that trust to you and to you alone. Thank you that we get in. Lord, may you become the longing of our hearts in this place. And we pray this in the sweet name of Jesus. Amen.