ROMANS 4:1-12 RIGHTEOUS ACCOUNTING2015 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Romans 4:1-12 Righteous Accounting

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2015.

Here as we continue on in Romans chapter 4, Paul is building upon the things that he's been sharing already from Romans chapter 3. And so last week we spent a little bit more time looking at that, the righteousness that God provides apart from the law.

In Romans chapter 3 verse 21, he talks about the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed. And then he said it's being witnessed by the law and the prophets. And so now as we go into chapter 4, Paul is giving us some of those witnesses.

He gives us the example of Abraham and the example of David. Now, the example of Abraham comes from the law. It comes from the portion of the scriptures that we refer to as the law because it comes from the book of Genesis.

And then David is referred to and known as a prophet. And so he's referring back to the law by looking at Abraham as the example and the prophets by looking at David as the example. And so he's building this case and continuing to establish this righteousness that God provides apart from the law.

And so I titled the message this morning, or this evening rather, as we look at Romans chapter 4, verses 1 through 12, Righteous Accounting. We're continuing to consider righteousness, and he gives us some accounting principles here in chapter 4. Now, accounting may not be your favorite subject. It might not be something that gets you pretty excited, but it's something that's really important to Paul's point here in Romans chapter 4.

He uses the word accounted eight times in these verses. Although it's translated sometimes as accounted or imputed, it's repeated. The original Greek word is repeated eight times. So in verse three, you see that Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Righteousness.

In verse 4, he says that the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. In verse 5, you see that his faith was accounted for righteousness. In verse 6, you see that the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes, same word as accounted, God imputes righteousness apart from works. And then in verse 8, blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. Then verse 9 says,

We say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness.

In verse 10, the question, how was it accounted? And then in verse 11, it's answered that righteousness might be imputed to them, that righteousness is accounted to us. And so this idea of accounting as righteous is really important to what Paul is saying here. He says the same word over and over again because he wants us to understand what he's talking about.

This word accounted, it's a word that speaks of a calculation or a computation. It means to reckon, to count, to calculate, or to count over. And this is the way that righteousness works. It's

that you and I as believers in Jesus are accounted righteous, that God does some math, he does some accounting, and he comes to the conclusion that we are righteous because of our faith in Jesus Christ. And that is a huge part to understanding the gospel message. We have been already talking about justification, which means that we have right relationship with God by faith in Jesus. And

And Paul is explaining here how that's possible by using this example of Abraham and David, but also showing how these things are true consistently across the board in Abraham's life, in David's life, and now in your life and my life, that we have a righteousness available to us that's apart from works, but

but that is accounted to us. And so there's four points I'd like to walk you through as we go through this passage together. The first point is found in verses one through three, and that is that you have nothing to boast about.

You and I, we have nothing that we can boast about, that we can be really proud of. That is the beginning of the gospel message. In verse 1, it says,

Now again, this is the continuation of what Paul's been talking about in chapter 3. And he concluded chapter 3 with a bunch of questions. He was asking, where is boasting? Since justification is by faith, what do we have to boast about? He asked, is God the God of the Jews only? And is he not the God of the Gentiles also?

And then he goes on to ask the question, do we make the law void by believing or teaching that justification is by faith? And so now he's going to answer those questions by dealing with this example of Abraham. Now for the Jewish person, Abraham was the supreme example. I mean, he was the Hebrew of Hebrews because he was the father of the Hebrew people, the father of the Jewish people.

And so he looks at Abraham as the ultimate example and he says, what did Abraham accomplish with his own strength or with his own efforts? Is Abraham the father of the Hebrews because he worked so well? Is he the father of the Hebrews because he performed so well is essentially the question that Paul is asking. Was Abraham righteous because of his works?

In verse 2, he goes on to say, if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. So if Abraham had this position of favor, if he was righteous before God because of something he did, he could boast about it. He could say, look what I have done.

But even if Abraham had something to boast about with his performance, with whatever works he could have accomplished, Paul is making the point that whatever Abraham could have done, it would not have been enough to impress God. It would not have been enough for Abraham to boast before God. He might be able to boast before us,

and lift up his good works or lift up his performance and we might be impressed, but not before God. Isaiah tells us in Isaiah chapter 64 verse six that we are all like an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. All our righteousnesses are like filthy rags. We need a righteousness that's apart from our efforts and

Because our righteousnesses, the best that we can do, the best that Abraham could do, the best that any of us could do, he says, is like filthy rags. And so we have nothing to boast about because the best of the best of the best that you and I can do is filthy. It's not righteous. It's still dirty. It's still insufficient.

And so he uses Abraham as the example and he says, Abraham, even if he had done some impressive things, he didn't have anything to boast about before God. And then he proves this by quoting from Genesis chapter 15 here in verse three. He says, for what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Here, Paul quotes from Genesis chapter 15.

And he uses this to say, look, God is not impressed by anything that Abraham has done. Abraham is not righteous because of his works or his performance. We know how Abraham is righteous. Because in Genesis chapter 15, verse 6, it says, he believed the Lord and God accounted it to him for righteousness. And so it was Abraham's faith that

that rendered him righteous. Not his works, not his efforts. And what was it that Abraham was believing God about? Well, as you look at Genesis chapter 15, you'll see Abraham was talking with God about his situation of not having any heirs to inherit. He was a wealthy man. He'd been blessed by God abundantly.

but he didn't have a son to pass on his materials or his wealth to. And so he was telling God, you know, one of my servants is going to be my heir because I don't have my own children. I don't have a son. And God responded to Abraham and said, no, that's not going to be your heir, not this servant, but one will come from your own body and that will be your heir.

And then it says that God brought him outside and said, look towards the heavens, count the stars if you're able to, and that's how many descendants you will have. Your descendants will be as the stars in the sky. And it tells us in the next verse, Abraham believed the Lord and he accounted it to him for righteousness. And so Abraham believed God when God said, I'm going to give you a son.

The servant will not be your heir, but the one that I provide for you, that will be your heir. And you're going to have more descendants or as many descendants as the stars in the heavens. And Abraham believed what God spoke. Abraham believed as God gave him this promise. And because he believed, God says, Abraham, Abraham.

you're righteous. You're a righteous guy because you believe the promise that I make. Warren Wiersbe says this. He says, God gave a promise and Abraham responded with amen. It was this faith that was counted for righteousness. Abraham said, amen. I believe the promise. And so God says,

I will count you now as righteous. Now, I have here a little chart that we'll walk through as we go through the points today to talk about this righteous accounting and how God accounts us as righteous. So here, as we start at the beginning, you have a starting balance of zero. So let's just pretend that I was going to begin, let's say tomorrow, I start my own company.

I call it PJ's Tech Support. And I start this company to help people with their tech issues. Now, if I'm going to start a company tomorrow, I'm definitely starting with a zero balance. I don't have money to invest in this business that I'm starting. I'm starting at zero. And so in starting this, I have nothing to boast about, right? In a similar way, you and I, apart from Christ, have nothing to boast about.

You could stand before us or you could stand before God and try to boast about things, but the reality is you have no righteousness. You have no good works. You have nothing that's worthy of any kind of boast. We're starting at zero. That's our condition as human beings, that we have nothing right.

good in and of ourselves. In fact, as the prophet Isaiah said, the best that we can do is like filthy rags. And so we're starting with nothing. We have nothing to offer, no goodness, no righteousness, nothing that we're able to count as righteous. Now that leaves us then with a zero balance.

And what we need to understand about that is that a zero balance of righteousness is insufficient for salvation. We cannot inherit eternal life with nothing, without being righteous. We need righteousness. We need to reach this standard of perfection. We need to be able to meet the measure that God has set in order to spend eternity with him.

And so we're starting with nothing. We have nothing to boast about, nothing that we can offer God, no righteousness that we can present. We have nothing. Well, not only that, but as we go on now into verse 4 and 5, we see Paul makes the next point that not only do you have nothing to boast about, but you are owed nothing. You don't have anything coming in. You don't have any promises of righteousness that will be received from

Again, apart from Jesus Christ. Check out verse 4. He says, And so here Paul begins to help us understand righteousness a little bit better by contrasting grace and works. Now, works produce wages. And so you can relate it very easily to your own employment. So you go to work.

and you earn wages. When you get your paycheck at the end of the week or on the 15th or last day of the month or whenever it is that you get paid, I'm pretty sure you don't count that paycheck as a gift.

Right? You're like, oh my goodness, my boss is so generous. Like he lets me work all these hours doing difficult things. And then, you know, he just gives me this extra gift on top of it. That's not the way that paychecks work. Paychecks, well, those are the funds that we've earned with our efforts. They're wages. They are what is owed. And in fact, if your employer does not pay you

well, then you're not receiving what you are owed and that's illegal. They are required because you've earned it. You deserve it. It's due to you. And so works produce wages. It produces something that is owed to you because of the work that you've done, as opposed to grace. Grace, on the other hand, is a free gift. Now, wages are not grace. Wages are owed.

And so your boss can't say to you, hey, you should just be happy that you get paid at all. Well, no, I shouldn't just be happy that I get paid at all. I earned it. I did the work. I put in the effort. I put in the hours. This is what is due. And so wages are earned and wages are owed. Now,

Understanding the difference between wages or works and grace then, if righteousness was obtained by works, then that would mean that it was something that God owed to us. And that is completely opposite of what the scriptures declare and describe. It would put us in the position of being able to tell God, I earned it. I deserved it.

You have to give me righteousness. You have to count me as righteous. You have to let me into eternity with you because I earned it. And that's what Paul is saying here. To him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. It's owed if it's by works. Now, many people do think this way.

That salvation is accomplished or earned by a bunch of works, by doing certain things.

And it's easy for us to slip into that same kind of mentality, even if we know better theologically, but we kind of slip into this mentality where we expect to be blessed or we expect for good things to happen because we do good things. You know, we've been reading our Bible, so life should go better. You know, we've been doing these things that we think are religious or spiritual, and so these aspects of our lives should be better.

But we need to be very careful with that line of thought because, well, righteousness cannot be earned. It cannot be deserved. It cannot be owed to us because we've been doing so good.

And religion is a system of works. It's a system of what we do so that then God owes us righteousness or that God owes us life or salvation or forgiveness. And that's completely the opposite of what the gospel is all about. Verse five, he says, but to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Right?

This one's really important. Let me read this again. Verse 5. Notice what Paul says here. Righteousness, not only is it not earned, but it's not given to those who work. To those who work in order to be righteous...

He says, righteousness will not be given to them. Instead, righteousness is given to those who believe on him who justifies the ungodly. And so it's not just that our works are insufficient. It's not just that we can't do good enough in order to be saved or in order to be righteous. It's not just that. But Paul takes it a step further and says, if you're trying to be righteous by your works...

Sometimes we try to approach salvation as kind of like a combination deal. Okay, I'll believe in Jesus Christ and I'll do the best I can to present myself as worthy before God. Still trying to earn it, but kind of, you know, let me just combine the two. I'll work hard to be saved and I'll look to Jesus to be saved.

There's no combo deals. There's no, you can't do that. Paul says, if you're trying to work to present yourself as righteous before God, then you will not be counted righteous. So it's not just, you know, that's kind of like a not that wise kind of thing to do, you know, to try to work to prove yourself righteous or to work for your salvation. You know, it's not that smart. It's not that wise. You know, you kind of want to stay away from that. No, it's, no, don't do that.

Because if you're trying to work, if you're resting and trusting in your righteousness or the best that you can do, he says, then you will not be counted righteous. He says to him who does not work, it's the one who stops working that's accounted righteous. It's the one who stops trying to do it by themselves or in their own strength.

I really like the way that William MacDonald explains this. He says, This is the idea here.

It's that we must stop working, renounce any possibility of us being owed or deserving of salvation, throw out any opportunity, and acknowledge that I can never be righteous by my works, by doing good things, or by attempting to follow God's law.

Paul makes the point here in verse 5 that God justifies the ungodly. First, you have to accept. You have to acknowledge, I am ungodly. That's who God justifies. God doesn't justify the godly. The godly don't need to be justified. He justifies the ungodly. That's where we need to come and say, I'm not righteous. I'm ungodly. I'm not able to earn or to deserve salvation or righteousness from God.

I cannot earn anything by my works or by my wages. And so continuing to consider what this looks like as far as accounting terms are concerned. Again, if I'm starting PJ's tech support tomorrow, I start out with a zero balance. And I also have nothing coming in. I haven't done any work yet. Now, if I do some work...

for you, let's say, and I can give you a bill for $100 for whatever it is that I did. Well, the invoice is out there, and so now you owe me $100, and so I would have $100 coming back for the work that I did. Now, when it comes to salvation, though, when it comes to righteousness, you and I, we start out with nothing. We have nothing to boast about, nothing that we can present to God and say, look, here, I'm righteous. And also, well, we are owed nothing, right?

God doesn't owe us righteousness because we can't earn it. We can't deserve it. We can do nothing of our strength, of our efforts, based on our performance, that puts God in a position of owing us righteousness, owing us salvation. We have nothing to offer.

We have nothing coming in. We can't work hard enough. We can't be faithful enough in our Bible reading or our devotions or our church attendance. We can't stay away from bad things long enough. We are owed nothing. There's nothing that's going to come in that's going to provide any kind of righteousness on the basis of what we have done, our efforts, our works.

And so we start out with nothing. We have nothing to boast about. We have nothing coming in. So we're still at zero, still falling short of the glory of God, still unable to spend eternity with God. But then Paul continues in verses six through eight, gives us point number three, and that is that the debts that you owe are forgiven. So even though you have nothing to boast about and you're owed nothing, the

provision that we have in Christ is amazing in that it's a forgiveness for our debts, for our sinfulness. In verse 6, Paul goes on to say, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. Paul gives us an example from David.

He is going to quote now from Psalm chapter 32, verses 1 and 2, here in verses 7 and 8. Now again, he's looking at these two examples of Abraham talking about the righteousness of God that's apart from the law as testified, as witnessed by Abraham and by David, by the law and the prophets. And so David speaks about a blessedness, and a blessedness that doesn't come from God.

Something that we can do with our strength. The one who is blessed is the one who has righteousness accounted to them. And that's what real blessing is all about. It's righteousness that's based on faith. If righteousness was based on works, that would not be a blessing. That would be stressing righteousness.

because there would be, well, all of these works that had to be fulfilled or we could not be righteous. The word blessed, as David is talking about it, many times we translate that as, oh, how happy, and that's a good way to understand it. But I also like the way one dictionary defines it as being fully satisfied, being fully satisfied.

That it's not just a temporary happiness, a temporary, you know, okay, you know, things are better. I feel better now. But it's a being fully satisfied and being fully satisfied by God, by what God has done, independent of our circumstances and independent of what we might be facing.

And so he quotes David here in verse 7. He said, And so David talks about this blessedness that's not from works, but instead is from God.

God's grace. He says, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. Now, David here in Psalm chapter 32, this is after his sinful act of adultery with Bathsheba and then murder to cover up that as he put to death Bathsheba's husband. And then this time of, um,

trying to keep that sin hidden, not dealing with it, not confessing it before God, before Nathan comes to rebuke David. And once Nathan comes and rebukes and confronts David, then David repents. And it's true repentance. He turns back to the Lord. Psalm chapter 51, as well as Psalm chapter 32, reflect the heart of David in his repentance to God. And so here he describes this blessedness of forgiveness.

And he recognizes the blessedness of forgiveness because he just spent the past year or so under the weight of guilt, under the weight and the burden and the trouble of not dealing with his sin, of his sin not being forgiven. And so once he's confessed, once he's turned back to God, after Nathan confronts him, he notices the contrast. He can see it quite clearly. He spent all this time with this great burden upon him.

But then now he's able to say, oh, blessed is the one who's forgiven. Blessed is the one whose sins are covered. Again, verse 8, blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. The one that God doesn't charge sin to their account. That one is blessed. Are you blessed? Do you know what David's talking about here in Psalm chapter 32? There's a blessedness that comes from forgiveness.

Well, forgiveness is something that is given to us by the grace of God. Now again, Paul's continuing to use this accounting word here as he talks about the Lord not imputing sin. And so here's what it looks like on the books. You start with a balance of zero. You have nothing coming in, no righteousness that can be accredited to your account, but you do have payments that are due.

you do have debts that are owed because, well, you are sinful. And so this puts us in a terrible position, having no righteousness of our own, having no righteousness coming in, nothing that we could earn, nothing that we could do to achieve righteousness. But we have a debt that is owed that we cannot pay because, well, we cannot earn righteousness to pay back this debt.

Even the best of the best of the best that we can do is like filthy rags. And so it's like having a bill due for a million dollars. It's something you can't pay. It's something you can't address. You can't fix. And if you had this bill due for a million dollars, you would understand the burden that it would be.

I mean, it would be this huge cloud over you continually of this massive debt that you owe. In a similar way, apart from Christ, this is the position that we are in. We have this massive debt. We are sinful.

And people try to make up for this sin in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of good works, in all kinds of systems or sacrifices. But there's nothing that can compensate for this debt that is counted against us. And we cannot get rid of this debt or forget about this debt by just distracting ourselves either. We've tried that before as well. It's guilt that is upon us.

Guilt for sin weighs heavy upon us. And so David says, blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. I like how the New International Version puts verse 8. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him. And so for the one who receives this righteousness from God that's apart from the law, the person

chart changes a little bit. And that is the debt is canceled because of Christ. And so blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against them. God will never count your sin against you. The debts that you owe are forgiven when you believe in Jesus Christ. This is the righteousness that's accounted by faith.

It brings forgiveness, and it's a gift. Forgiveness is not earned. And God's promise here is that your sin will never be counted against you. How is that possible? Well, it's possible because Jesus paid the debt. And because he paid the debt, that charge, that debt, will never be counted against you. And David says, that's true blessing. That's what blessing is really all about. It's that forgiveness.

for the debt that we owe, forgiveness for the sin that we commit. I think Paul gives us a good example of this in the book of Philemon, verses 17 and 18. Philemon is sending a slave back to his master. And as he sends the slave back to his master, he had had an opportunity to spend some time with the slave. As he had run away, somehow he encountered the apostle Paul. And

in the process of running away and meeting up with the Apostle Paul, this slave had become a Christian. And so Paul is now sending this slave back to the master, and he knew the master. He knew him. And so he writes a letter with him, and he says, I want you to receive him back as a brother and not as a slave any longer. He says in verse 17, if you count me as a partner, receive him, the slave, as you would me. So Paul,

Treat him, relate to this slave as if it's me. And however you would treat me, treat your slave this way. But then verse 18, he says, if he has wronged you or owes you anything, put that on my account. Put that on my account, Paul says. So if he's ripped you off and he owes you thousands of dollars, Paul says, subtract that from his account and put it on my account.

Charge me with whatever his wrongs are, whatever he owes you. Put it to my account. And here, Paul gives us a really good example of what Christ has done for us, where Christ has made the same declaration. Whatever wrongs you have done, Jesus says, charge that to my account. We're going to take it off of your books, and we're going to put it on my books.

I'm going to pay for this debt. I'm going to pay the price for your sin. The debts that you owe are forgiven. Every sin that you've ever committed, every sin that you've ever engaged in, that you've ever persisted in, it's paid for. All the wrath that has been stored up that we've been talking about for the past few weeks, it's been paid for. And Jesus says,

For those who turn to him, for those who believe in him, he says, anything that you've done wrong, it's going to be charged to my account. Put it on my account, and I already paid the price for it. This is true blessedness. This is what it means to be fully satisfied, to be forgiven. And it's a forgiveness that doesn't come by working, by effort, by performance. It's a forgiveness that comes by faith.

by believing God at his word. And so the debts you owe are forgiven. Well, the final point, as we look at verses nine through 12, is that righteousness is deposited. Verse nine says, "'Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only "'or upon the uncircumcised also? "'For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham "'for righteousness.'"

So he's talking about this blessedness that David's been talking about. And he says, does this only come to certain people? Who gets to receive this blessedness? Now, for the Jewish person of Paul's day and of Jesus's day, they associated righteousness with being Jewish. In their minds, these were interlocked. They could not be separated. If you wanted to be righteous, you had to become a Jew.

If you wanted to be saved, you had to become a Jew. You had to convert to Judaism. If you were a male, you had to become circumcised. And you had to follow the law. And that was the only way to be righteous as far as they were concerned. Their idea of righteousness was, you must, you must, you must. You have to become a Jew. You have to become circumcised. You have to follow the law. But Paul is asking the question here,

How did Abraham get his righteousness? Is righteousness only reserved for the Jewish people, for the circumcised? And Paul is making the point here that doesn't make sense when we say that Abraham was accounted righteous by faith. In verse 10, he says, how then was it accounted while he was circumcised or uncircumcised? He says not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. Paul is making it very clear here.

He's making sure that we get it. I mean, keeping it very simple. Even kind of a little bit too much redundance here for us. You know, sometimes it's like, okay, circumcised, uncircumcised, circumcised, uncircumcised, circumcised, uncircumcised. We can kind of think, what is Paul talking about? Why is he going through all this detail? Because he wants to make sure it's clear, completely crystal, that we get full picture, that we get the full understanding of what he's saying here.

He says, think about when Abraham was counted righteous. When this happened back in Genesis chapter 15, which is what he was referencing earlier, was Abraham circumcised at that time or uncircumcised at that time? Now, if you'll go back to the book of Genesis, I don't mean right now, but you want to go check it out later on, you'll find that Abraham was uncircumcised in Genesis chapter 15, when it tells us that Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Right?

In fact, Abraham was declared to be righteous in Genesis chapter 15, 14 years before God instructed him to be circumcised. 14 years before God gave him the sign of circumcision for him and his descendants. And so he not only was declared righteous before circumcision, but before he even knew that that was something that God was going to ask of him.

And so Paul is driving the point home here. Abraham was not righteous, first of all, because of his works. He didn't have anything to boast about. He didn't have anything to present to God and say, look how righteous I am. But he also was not righteous because of some ritual, some religious thing that he could do. He was not righteous because of that. He was uncircumcised when God declared that he was righteous.

Warren Wiersbe says, And so he's making the point very clear. Righteousness is given to us by the grace of God. Salvation is given to us by the grace of God. Forgiveness is given to us by the grace of God. He goes on in verse 11, He says,

And so here Paul describes circumcision as a sign and as a seal. As a sign, it speaks about the righteousness that Abraham had because he believed God.

And so his obedience to that in circumcision was the sign that he believed God and had been accounted righteous. And it's a seal showing that he continues to believe, showing that he continues to walk by faith. Now, circumcision was very important for the Jewish people. It's not something that we usually talk about on a day-to-day basis, right? It's not something that's

integral to our culture as it was for the Jewish people. But for them, this would have been radical. These would have been radical thoughts for them to consider, that righteousness could come apart from circumcision. They thought righteousness was attached to that. Now again, we can get caught up in similar types of thinking, and some people do, that, well, you have to be baptized in order to be saved, that righteousness is attached to baptism.

And if you don't get baptized, you can't be saved. And there are those who would teach that. But similar to circumcision, baptism is a sign. It's a representation of something that God has done, of the faith that has already existed, that you've believed God. And then it's the sign, it's the evidence that, well, I believe God and so I'm baptized because I believe in Jesus Christ.

And so he explains in verse 11, this all took place in this way so that he could be the father of all those who believe. So Abraham is the father of the faith, not just for the Jewish believers, not just for the Jewish descendants, but for all who believe.

He is the model. He is the father of all who believe that even if we are uncircumcised, even if we're not of Jewish descent, even if we have not converted to Judaism, that righteousness can be imputed to you also.

Verse 12, he continues that thought. He says, And so he's making the point here, both conditions are covered, circumcised and uncircumcised. Abraham is the father of both.

He's the father of the uncircumcised by believing God at his word and being accounted righteous. And he's the father of the circumcised by continuing to believe God and walking in faith with God. And so Jew or Gentile, he's the father. He's the example for us all because he believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. The commentator Thomas Constable says, trust God.

in God's promise is what constitutes faith. And that results in justification. Trust in God's promise is what constitutes faith. Believing God at his word, believing God at his promises, that's faith. And for us...

His promise is that Jesus died on the cross for our sins as our substitute, that he fully satisfied God's demands, the wrath of God that was due against us. He fully satisfied the law on our behalf. He fully satisfied everything that was needed, completed everything that was needed for us upon the cross. That's the promise.

that believing in Jesus Christ, you might have life in his name. And so faith is for us to trust in God's promise. God gave Abraham a promise. I'm going to give you an heir. And not only that, but your descendants are going to be as numerous as the stars. And Abraham trusted God's promise. In the same way, we are called to trust God's promise of deliverance, of salvation, of forgiveness, of eternal life.

That's given to those who believe in Jesus. And when you believe in Jesus, God accounts you righteous. He deposits righteousness to your account. Again, how does this look on the books? Well, you have a starting balance of zero. You have zero accounts receivable. Nothing's coming in. No righteousness that you could earn or that you're owed anything.

You have no accounts payable because you've been forgiven because of what Christ has done. So you did owe a debt, but that's been wiped out. And so you don't owe anything more for your sinfulness. But then what Christ does is he deposits righteousness. Your account is full. You are accounted completely righteous so that God relates to you as if you are as perfect as Jesus.

He relates to you as if you are as righteous as Jesus, because his righteousness is deposited to your account. It's something that can only be given. You can't earn this righteousness. You can't take this righteousness. It can only be given, and he gives it when we believe, not when we work and

Not when we perform. He gives it when we believe. Righteousness is deposited into our account. If I decided to be a really nice guy and give you a million dollars, first of all, if I had a million dollars to give, and then I decided to be a nice guy, and so I go to your bank and I say, here's the account number of Ronnie Juarez. I want to deposit this million dollars into his account. They would let me do that.

Now, if Ronnie wanted to come to my bank and say, hey, I want to take a million dollars out of Jerry's account, they would not let him do that. It doesn't work that way. I can give it to his account, but he can't take it from my account. That's the picture here. Jesus went to your bank and he said, I'm going to deposit my righteousness. You can't take it. You can't earn it. You can't work for it. You can't steal it. You can't sneak in some way and get it.

There's no bank heist that's going to be successful in that. No, it has to be given. Righteousness is deposited into your account by Christ. And so that's the only way that we can have a positive balance. That's the only way that we can have righteousness. There's no other way to be righteous. You don't start out righteous and you don't have any righteousness that's owed to you.

You have debts that you owe, unrighteousness that you have to pay for. And so without Christ, without the work of the cross, we're hopeless. We have no hope of righteousness. We have no hope of salvation. We could never be right with God. But the way that God has established justification, the way that he has established salvation and righteousness is

is by faith apart from the law so that when we believe, even though we have nothing to boast about, even though we haven't earned anything, even though we owe a great deal, because we believe, he deposits righteousness to our account. David Guzik says, remember that righteousness is also more than the absence of evil and guilt. It is positive good.

Meaning that God does not only declare us innocent, but he declares us righteous. It's not just not guilty, the debt is wiped out, but he adds righteousness to your account so that God relates to you, the Father relates to you, as if you are as righteous as Jesus. This is an incredible truth, but it's one that we need to grasp hold of so that we stop, number one, we stop boasting.

recognize, I don't have anything to boast about. And Paul will see in another letter, what do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, then why do you boast as if you did not receive it? Everything that we have has been given to us. Our strength, our health, our blessings, salvation, forgiveness, everything.

It's been given to us, our gifts, our opportunities to serve. It's God who gives us everything. We have nothing to boast about, nothing that we can hold up and say, look at me, look how great I am. We have nothing to boast about. But not only that, we can't earn anything. So we need to accept these truths so that we stop trying to work. Because if we're trying to work, Paul says, you can't be counted righteous that way.

If you're trying to work to earn righteousness, you're showing, you're demonstrating, you're proving that you don't believe because you still keep trying to work. The author of Hebrews is going to come back and deal with this as well as he talks about the rest.

The rest that is found by faith in Jesus Christ, where you stop working, where you stop trying to present yourself approved to God by your efforts, by your performance, where you stop trying to approach God on the basis of what you've done, or you stop staying away from God because of the bad things that you've done. We need to accept these things so that we walk with God by faith, that we continue to spend time with God by faith.

that we don't try to boast of our own efforts or our own strengths or resources, that we don't try to earn or be owed anything from God, that we don't try to pay off debt that's already been paid, that we don't try to work to compensate, try to pay back, you know, for those sins that we committed. The only thing that we can do is receive. That's all that we can do. Righteousness is deposited.

It's given to you so that you are saved by faith. You are saved by grace. All you have to do is receive that gift. This is important for us, not just for the initial, I'm going to believe in Jesus and start following him. But this is important for us day in and day out, that we continue to walk by faith. That we don't start out by faith, believing and receiving what Christ has done for us, and then try to work from there on out.

but that we continue to trust God, that we continue to approach God, that we continue to walk with God, to know God, to spend time with God, to receive from God, not on the basis of what we have done or what we've earned or what we deserve or anything else, but that we approach God on the basis of what he has done. And so this evening, I wanna encourage you to remember how righteousness is accounted.

It's not about what we can offer. It's about what He has done. And our job is simply to receive, to believe God's promise and receive what He has done for us. Don't work. Believe. Let's pray. Lord, I lift up our hearts to You this evening, and I pray that You would allow these truths, Lord, to become permanent in our hearts as we so easily go back to that tendency of trusting in ourselves, of

trying to earn or trying to pay back for things that we've done or trying to relate to you on the basis of our works, our efforts. Help us, God, to catch those things. Help us to catch our hearts that we would not continue down that path, but that we would turn back to you and remember the goodness that you offer towards us, the blessedness that you offer towards us. We're not deserving of it. You don't owe us anything. We can't earn it.

And we have nothing to offer you in exchange. But Lord, I pray that you would help us to receive it, to believe you at your word, to receive the goodness that you have for us, the grace, the righteousness, the forgiveness, the everlasting life. And Lord, I pray that you would allow these things to set us free. Lord, that we wouldn't walk around with the burden like David did for so long, the great guilt that was laid upon him. But Lord, that we would be set free to enjoy the forgiveness.

that you offer to us. And Lord, that we would not walk around with the burden of trying to present ourselves as righteous before you. But Lord, help us to recognize that's impossible. We can't, but you don't require it. Lord, you justify the ungodly. And so help us to come to you with that confession, with that acknowledgement. We're unworthy, we're ungodly, but we believe you at your word when you say that we can trust in you, we can turn to you

We can confess and be forgiven. We can trust and be given life. We can walk with you because of what you've done for us. And so, Lord, help us to do that. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.