The Justification of Faith

My prayer today is that there is someone who really needs to hear this message, even more than I needed to hear it and I needed to kind of work through this passage this week, that you needed to hear this message and it actually opens up what faith is all about to you in a way that you had never considered before, and we have that in this passage. Now, as we started this series off five weeks ago, this is week five now, we found that the real issue behind Romans, why Paul wrote it in the first place, not only because he wanted to get there, but because he had seen that there were a lot of divisions within the church between Jews and Gentiles and in Roman society, very stratified, five different like levels, and that power and privilege were the two issues that were really being dealt with in this letter, and that that ran counter to Paul's understanding of the gospel, that it isn't Jew versus Gentile, or religious versus irreligious, or male and female in divisions, or slave versus free, or any of the other issues that stratified their society and pitted one group against another, but in Christ, through his cross, all these groups are mended and brought together, and a relationship with God at the core of it. We have a mended relationship back with God where we were once broken, and this is absolutely important. It's not just because we want to be egalitarian and treat everyone the same, but because we have, by faith, equal, full access to God and his goodness and his grace, and we see that in the person of Abraham, and so Abraham becomes the case study for Paul of why this is true, that it isn't something novel, that it isn't something new that Paul just came up with. He didn't change Jesus' words or his understanding, and Jesus didn't change what God was doing since the beginning, but faith has always been, all the way through, the way that we are connected to God and each other, and by grace that we are saved through that faith. We're going to read 1 through 5, and then 13 through 25, not quite the whole chapter. 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? 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. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be the heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be heirs, faith is null, and the promise is void, for the law brings wrath. But where there is no law, there is no transgression. That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring, not only to the adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all. As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations. In the presence of God, in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist, in hope he believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations. So he had been told, so shall your offspring be. He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead since he was about 100 years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. But the words it was counted to him were not written for that his sake only, but for yours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. So today we're going to be looking at faith and the teaching of justification. I know a huge word. We've talked about that a few times. Justification by faith. And you might say to me right now, John, aren't all religions about faith? And you'd be right, in a way, totally right. Every religious system is about believing in things that cannot be proven. For instance, Hinduism and Buddhism believe that time is kind of cyclical, that there has really been no beginning to this universe and no end. It just keeps going and going. And that cannot be proven. It's just believed. And Daoism, for example, believes in the flow of the universe, the Dao, behind all things the way, kind of like Star Wars. And it cannot be proven. It's just believed. Even atheism is a faith. I don't know if you realize that. But atheists or someone who asserts there is no God cannot prove that there is no God. They have to believe that by fa...