The Promise Secured (Faith, Grace and Certainty)
This is an exegetical sermon from Romans 4:13-17. It explains how the foundation of our hope is built on faith. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Justin Bragg at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA. Audio unavailable.
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:: The Resolved ::
Justin Bragg (elder)
Romans 4:13-17
“The Promise Secured (Faith, Grace and Certainty)”
I don’t relate well to the idea of inheritance and heirs and all. My parents don’t have money, and when they die, I will gain nothing from it. I don’t take the idea of handouts too well – I’m a ‘work for what you get’ kind of guy. Jealous/condescending of those given fortune rather than those who earn it.
Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie running around ‘playing’ the simple life. Political theory that all inheritances of large sums of money should be given in part to the rightful heirs, but most of the money should be placed into welfare systems for those who don’t have moms and dads to give them rich, unearned inheritances of ridiculous amounts of money.
I have to focus here, last week Nate helped me see what the inheritance of the believer is, and I started to think about it and I started to really like it. Continue tonight on this discussion of inheritance of the world (pretty big deal).
We’ll start where we left off last week with vv 13-15. Abraham and his decedents are the heirs/recipients of the promise of eternal life.
Read v 13
I Corinthians 3:23 “all things are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”
This is a great hope – a cause for security.
Come to 16-17 tonight, and it just gets better.
Paul wants you to get this – he is dead serious about you getting this – he wants you to bank your entire hope on the promise of being an heir – so he is going to show us what God has done to make this promise guaranteed and certain.
Keep this question in mind: what has God done to make sure, certain, firm and guaranteed – the promise that his people will inherit the world?
Vv 13-15 showed us that God has made this promise, and showed us the negative consequences of trying to be saved and inherit this promise by the law principle:
If we attempt to obtain this promise by the law, we devalue faith, nullify the promise, and get wrath.
But here in 16-17, we turn to the positive of the promise – the fortunate consequences of seeking to be justified by God – not on the basis of the law and morality, but by faith, the path pursued by Abraham.
Faith
The first question that comes to mind in v 16 “that is why it depends on faith” – what is “it” referring to? What depends on, or is by faith?
Go back to v13 read. Paul is saying that the promise is ours by faith, but says more – “the righteousness of faith.” Remember chapter 4 is about justification by faith, A righteousness that is not our own. The righteousness of God credited to our account through faith
So what is “by faith, or depending on faith” in v 16? The righteousness of God that obtains the promise for us is by faith. The promise is ours by faith – but faith in what? Faith in the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. That is credited to us by faith. And God imputes his righteousness to us through this faith. And on the basis of that imputed righteousness, the promise is secured for us. That we will be heirs of the world.
This is the promise – the righteousness of God is ours by faith, and those who are made righteous by this faith will inherit the world
Grace
V 16 “that is why” or “for this reason” it depends on faith
What is this referring to?
What is the reason the promise depends on faith
The reason that the righteousness that obtains the promise is by faith is because if it were by the law, the promise would be nullified. Why? V 15 – “for the law brings wrath.” If you try to use the law of commandments to be right before God, you will fail, and you will only get wrath. Because justification is by faith alone, and all works before faith are self-wrought rebellion, it is not an acceptable righteousness.
“Since trying to keep the law of commandments as a way of justification only brings wrath, therefore the righteousness that obtains the promise for us is by faith, not law.”
Now a new thought in v 16, another reason why faith is the only way to obtain the promise – the foundation
Faith is the only way to obtain the promise because faith is in accordance with grace. The promise depends on faith “in order that the promise may rest on grace”
The reason it depends on faith is because faith establishes grace. They belong together. Where law and works belong together – the law telling you what to do, and works trying to fulfill what you are told to do. Faith leads you to grace, and grace leads you to faith. You can’t have one without the other.
Grace is the unmerited favor of God apart from human works, and it comes to us by simple acceptance – which is faith. Faith establishes grace. Therefore we must have faith, since it is grace we need. Faith is the only way to get to grace.
Certainty
Why is it important that the way to inherit the promise rest on, or be in accordance with grace?
The next clause in v 16 tells us “in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring.”
What Paul is up to:
His precious and practical aim is your certainty. Your certainty that the promise of being an heir of the world will come true for you, an imperfect, stumbling, believing, justified, sinning saint. Paul is taking us somewhere – he is stretching our minds to bring us to the place where we can be sure, to know as a guarantee, to be certain that we are heirs – that the promise talked about last week is in fact yours – definitely.
What is the foundation in v 16 for a guaranteed and certain promise?
3 simple steps: faith… grace… guaranteed promise
Ponder this, don’t just hear it and move on – listen closely:
What is it really that guarantees the promise that you will be an heir of God’s promise? Your faith is essential, but the reason: Faith is the only condition of the heart, the only response that accords with grace. God’s grace is the deepest foundation of our guarantee that we will in fact inherit the promise of being heirs of the world
That we will not sink into futility and death, but will live, as fellow heirs with Jesus of this world.
How does Paul say it in v 16? Why is faith so essential? Because it accords with grace. Why is this so important? Because God’s grace is what gives the guarantee.
Our eternal future can be guaranteed only if it rests on, or depends on God, on his grace. Grace is the free, undeserved work of God to bring his people to glory.
Grace is the great big mighty purpose of God to make sure we get our inheritance
It is the only ground of our guarantee. And faith is the only condition of the heart that accords with that free undeserved work.
Grace
Elaborate upon this grace that Paul is talking about. Taste how good grace really is – grasp it and take hold of this unbelievable promise-guaranteeing power.
What is this grace? How does it guarantee that you will obtain an inheritance?
Look back Romans 4:4-5
“Not to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift [literally: “in accordance with grace” – the exact phrase found in v 16, “in accordance with grace”] but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”
Paul here is talking about how to be justified
– How to have a righteousness that will ensure the promise for you
Notice the opposites of grace and faith
Opposite of faith is working
Opposite of grace is due or debt
Grace is the purpose of God to give you the righteousness to receive the promise you don’t deserve – it overwrites our demerit
And what condition accords with this grace?
How can this grace be attained?
Faith alone – the restful experience of grace in our lives
Piper “faith is the restful experience of the work of grace in our lives. If we think of that first act of justifying faith in Christ, we can say faith is to grace what seeing is to light and what hearing is to sound and what waking up is to the alarm clock. Faith corresponds to grace the way tasting sweetness corresponds to honey on the tongue.”
What am I stating here? Am I saying that God’s grace awakens faith?
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying, and that is why grace guarantees that we can and will obtain the promise of becoming heirs and eternal life.
We see it in v 17
16 ends with grace guaranteeing the promise to all Abraham’s offspring, both Jews and gentiles, because all are his offspring by faith
V 17, quotes gen 17:5 to show that Abraham was going to be the father of many nations, then in the rest of v 17, he says something about Abraham’s faith.
Why call attention to this kind of sovereign, divine activity? Because in Abraham’s faith we see the sovereign, omnipotent, free grace of God. In order for Abraham to have a guarantee that he would inherit the promise, God must bring life from death, and call into being what does not exist. Vs 17 is a description of what Paul means by the grace that guarantees the promise.
The grace of God made Abraham the father of the nations when it was impossible for Abraham to be a father at all. This same grace, as we see here in v 17, will bring deadness to life, will make non-existence exist – that is what grace does
That is why grace is the foundation of the promise.
It is the only power great enough to guarantee that we will live forever, and that we will receive what God tells us he will do. We can’t raise the dead. We can’t create something from nothing.
But God can raise the dead. He raised Lazarus and Jesus Christ from the dead, and he will one day raise all his believing, justified children from the dead. God created the entire existence of the universe out of nothing.
This mighty, powerful God has done all of this, and will do all of this for his people to guarantee the promise that he has given them. That is the meaning of grace
Grace does that which is humanly impossible.
Without the birth of Isaac, the promise to Abraham will have failed. But Isaac does not exist, and humanly cannot exist. Abraham is ninety-nine years old. Sarah is ninety and barren all her life. Human works and resources have been tried:
A concubine named Hagar and a son named Ishmael. But God says, no.
The promise will be fulfilled and guaranteed not by my cooperation with your human resources, but by my sovereign grace to do the humanly impossible.
Ephesians 2:4-5 tells us that grace is precisely this: it is the work of God to raise spiritually the dead – to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.
The fact that Paul inserts the words “by grace you have been saved” right after “we were dead and God made us alive” shows that grace is just what Romans 4:17 makes it out to be: The work of God “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”
And what does he call into being for us?
Faith is the gift of God ‘s grace the way seeing is the gift of light and the way hearing is the gift of sound and the way tasting is the gift of honey on the tongue.
This is faith. This is certainty.
An agreement or accord with grace that gives life to the dead
And calls into being that which does not exist.
Sovereign grace guarantees,
Above your fickleness and frailty and fleeting tendencies,
That you will inherit the world.
