What Paul has done in Romans 4 is to clearly show us that faith in God is the only way in which we can become justified or declared righteous in the eyes of God because of the righteousness of Christ put to our account by our faith in Him.

But instead of speaking of faith in an abstract way he chooses an individual who actually placed his faith in God and then was reckoned righteous. Of course his name was Abraham.

Paul showed us that this faith in God was not some mystical, magical wonder which only manifests itself in super humans. He showed us that even pagans like Abraham who worshipped false idols were called upon by God to place their faith in the Creator.

And then Paul explains what this faith involved. It was a simple trust in God and a trust that God was not only willing to bring us into a right relationship with Himself but also had the power to accomplish that which He promised.

But faith always involves some action which demonstrates that we trust God at His word. Therefore Abraham is recorded as leaving his home in Haran and following where God lead.

It's recorded that Abraham trusted God at His word so much that he was willing to let God take Isaac, knowing that God was true to His promise and would bring Isaac back from the dead, if necessary, in order to fulfill the promise made to Abraham, 'In your seed will I make you the father of many nations'.

And last week we saw that Abraham's trust in God and His word encouraged him not to waver in unbelief. In fact, instead of wavering we see in Rom.4:20 his faith grew strong and he gave glory to God.

In spite of all of his circumstances which screamed of the impossibility of Abraham becoming the father of many nations, he looked beyond the impossibility of his own abilities and he looked to and trusted in the truth that with God nothing is impossible.

That's the faith which Paul speaks of in regards to Abraham. He was willing to take God at His word and then to act on that faith by obeying the Lord knowing full well that God could be trusted in every area of his life, even in bringing the Messiah through his seed.

This was the great promise which Abraham understood to be the ultimate fulfillment where God would give to all mankind what He gave to Abraham, and that is the Seed to come who would take away the sin of the world, so that all men could be reconciled to God, and as Abraham, be called the friend of God through faith.

We know Abraham understood this by what we read in Gal 3:16 "The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," [Gen. 12:7; 13:15; 24:7] meaning one person, who is Christ."

That faith of Abraham in God, as we've been saying over the last couple of Sundays, was reckoned to him as righteousness. But Paul didn't write all of this to simply memorialize Abraham so as to put him on some sort of pedestal.

No, he wrote this to encourage all of us in that what Abraham obtained through faith we too may have by faith in our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Rom 4:23 "The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone,
24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness--for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification."

Verses 23 through 25 speak of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it is this gospel from God in which Abraham believed. He believed that God was able to bring the promised Seed to life after it had been put to death.

And our redemption is found in Christ who was brought back from the dead. Jesus Christ is alive and well and is calling all men to repent of their sin and their feeble attempts where self thinks it can accomplish a righteousness which is pleasing to God.

Christ's righteousness is credited to our account as we, like Abraham, trust that God is faithful to His word and will give us His righteousness by faith which will declare us to be not guilty, and declares us to be a friend of God.

But without the resurrection of Christ we have not hope. Without the resurrection of Christ we have no righteousness. Without the resurrection of Christ we are still in our sins.

But praise God, Jesus accomplished what men could only consider impossible. ..... When the apostle John was given the Revelation of Christ he recorded these words concerning our Lord in Rev 1:17 "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last.
18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!....."

What does the resurrection of Christ mean to you and me? I'll let Jesus Himself tell us. Speaking to Martha, the sister of Lazarus..... Joh 11:25 "Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;
26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

He's asking Martha the same thing He asked Abraham. 'Do you believe Me? If you do then trust Me.'

As Christ was resurrected from the dead for our salvation; to deliver us from our transgressions; to give us our justification, He promises that we too will be resurrected at the very end to a life of eternal joy and happiness in His presence.

Paul says, that life of eternal hope begins today as we place our faith in Christ for our justification. Justification from God is a legal status we did not formerly possess.

Outside of Christ our legal status before God was "guilty as charged". To be justified in Christ, by faith, is to be given a new status by God and declared by Him, "Not guilty".

What does it mean to be not guilty? Paul tells us in Rom 5:1 "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,"

Now this is very important for the Christian, not only from a legal standpoint, but also from a personal standpoint. There isn't a criminal in this world who wouldn't want to be declared not guilty, even though they were.

But, to be pardoned of sin is only part of what all of us want. It's one thing to be left off the hook for criminal behavior but it's entirely different to enter into a peaceful relationship with a person from whom we were estranged.

The word estranged is a good one because it describes our condition outside of Christ with our God. The Random House College Dictionary defines estranged as 1) To turn away in feeling or affection. Alienate the affections 2) To remove to or to keep at a distance.

We hear this term in regards to relationships gone bad. An estranged daughter or son who wants nothing to do with the parent. The affections they shared have been turned away. They've distanced themselves from each other.

An estranged wife or husband, who once shared the beauty of a marriage, now experience none of the love and emotions they shared while together.

And the word most often used to bring them back to a peaceful relationship is reconciliation. We as beings created by God are designed to have fellowship with our Creator. But, because of sin, not only are we guilty, we are estranged in the sense that we can't enjoy the affections of our God and we are at a distance because of our sin.

God comes to us and makes the way for reconciliation. He not only takes away our guilt in Christ, He makes for a peaceful relationship whereby we can be His friend.

This is what Abraham was to God by faith. Jam 2:23 "And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend."

Imagine being in a relationship with God whereby He has forgiven our sin and then say's "you are My friend". A friend that sticks closer than a brother.

David tells us in Pro 17:17 "A friend loves at all times," You and I have friends that will let us down. Not God. He will never let us down. He is a friend that loves us no matter what.

This is what Jesus tells us in Joh 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I command."

What does He command? 'Trust Me, love Me with all your heart, soul and mind.'

To be at peace with God is not some event which we just consider on our death beds. We've all heard the expression..... 'It's time for you to make peace with God.'

God's answer to that is, 'I've made real peace with you by taking your guilt out of the way so that we don't have to be estranged. Come to Me, you who are weary of this estrangement and I will give you rest and establish a peace which only I can give through the blood of My Son and His resurrection from the dead.'

When God declares us not guilty, and then enters into a relationship with us that is now based on peace, not enmity, we as believers don't have to be worrying..... 'Is God angry with me? Is He going to cut off this relationship with me?'

That would be like saying, because my hand is twitching therefore I had better cut it off to stop the twitch. Or, because my son disobeyed me I will have to disown him.

If God is the One who establishes our relationship with Himself, and He says that nothing will ever sever that relationship, then we can live in that peaceful relationship not fearing an imaginary sword which we sometimes place above our head, thinking that God will cut us to pieces.

There's a big difference between receiving discipline from a loving Father and being cut off from that loving Father which, in Christ, is impossible for those of us who love God and are called according to His purpose.

Paul says this peaceful relationship comes through the One who suffered the wrath of God on our behalf; Who paid our penalty in full so that we may declared not guilty.

Col 1:19 "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,
20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
21 Once you were alienated [to estrange away] from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.
22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation--
23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant."

I like the way Charles Hodge puts it..... "We are no longer His enemies, in the objective sense of the term, but are the objects of His favor."

And Paul tells us that by faith in Christ we have entered into this peaceful relationship. He says in Rom 5:2 "through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God."

"Access by faith into this grace in which we now stand." The word access is also rendered admission or introduction. The Greek word from which we translate these English words is very interesting.

The Greek word is Prosagoge. William Barclay gives us a little insight into the beauty of this word which Paul uses under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Barclay says, "It is the regular word for introducing or ushering someone into the presence of royalty; and it is the regular word for the approach of the worshipper to God. It is as if Paul was saying, 'Jesus ushers us into the very presence of the King of Kings; and when that door is opened what we find is grace; not condemnation, not judgment, not vengeance, but the sheer, undeserved, incredible kindness of God."

But Barclay goes on to say that prosagoge has another picture in it. "In late Greek it is the word for the place where ships come in, a harbor or a haven. If we take it that way, it means that so long as we tried to depend on our own efforts we were tempest-tossed, like mariners striving with a sea which threatened to overwhelm completely, but now that we have heard the word of Christ, we have reached at last the haven of God's grace, and we know the calm of depending, not on what we can do for ourselves, but on what God has done for us."

Jesus is constantly before the Father on our behalf, bringing us into His presence and demonstrating to the Father that we are covered by the blood of Jesus, so that when the Father looks on us He sees His Son standing in our place and representing us before the throne.

The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father and when we are in Christ by faith we experience that same love from God which can never separate us from the Father any more than the Son could be separated from the Father.

That's a peace that passes all understanding. But we don't have to fully understand that kind of undeserved peace to rejoice in it by faith, knowing that we can stand before God in that grace with great confidence because He has accomplished it all and says, 'It now belongs to you by faith.'

This is the hope that Abraham had, and it's the hope we exult in as well as Paul says there in verse 2. "We exult in the hope of the glory of God."

Other translations put it, we rejoice or we boast in the hope of the glory of God. You and I have a hope in Christ which can only be realized by faith in God. In fact that's the nature of hope.

Heb 11:1 "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
2 This is what the ancients were commended for."

The ancients, like Abraham, did not actually possess the city whose architect and builder is God, in this life. But despite the fact that they didn't actually see it with physical eyes they did see it by faith with spiritual eyes to the extent that they were sure beyond a shadow of doubt that it would be realized, because God was the One who made the promise.

Paul makes the same point in Rom 8:23 "Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?
25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

There is a connection to being promised a toy as a child and then actually receiving that toy. The child may be promised that he or she will be given a certain toy on Christmas day.

The toy is not actually in their possession, but the promise of the toy is just as good because, as a child, you trust the one who made the promise, your parent.

And so in July you're rejoicing that you have had put to your account the game Mall Madness which you will actually receive in December. That's hope. We wait for it patiently, sometimes. But, none the less this is the stuff upon which faith is exercised.

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Why? Because we trust the One who promised, our heavenly Father.

But the difference between hope, based on human ability, and the hope in God's promises is that God always comes through with His promises.

But, some of you might be thinking. 'I thought I actually possessed my salvation. You do and you don't. That child was just as certain of receiving that toy as if it were a reality. The only thing that separated the child from the actual toy was time.

The promise is just as good as the reality in the sense that you know that it is going to be there for you. Regarding our salvation, we know that all things have been put to our account by Christ because of His promise to us.

But are we at this moment actually face to face with our Creator? Are we at this moment actually ruling and reigning with Christ in heaven? Are we actually dwelling in that heavenly city which was promised to Abraham and us when Jesus said, 'I go to prepare a place for you?'

No. But there isn't anything we don't have to look forward by faith in regards to this and much more, because as far as Christ is concerned you do possess it. We just happened to be waiting for time to catch us up with the reality of it.

Yes, our salvation is real today. Yes, we have a place in heaven with our God today. Yes, we are justified, reconciled, forgiven today. We are being sanctified and will one day be glorified as we come into the very presence of our Creator.

But, hope in what we actually possess is not hope. That's why faith must be the center of our relationship with Christ. Our Lord is constantly saying, 'trust Me and My promises. Though you only see dimly as in a mirror, one day you will see it all very clearly.'

It's the dim part of life which throws us sometimes. But, the word of God is that which is a light to our path and lamp to our feet, especially during those times of dimness.

And by faith we trust God's word and His promises. But when we have such a hope from God we are motivated to rejoice, to boast of Christ, to exult in that hope with others.

By faith we can live in the reality of our possession which awaits us in Christ. As individuals we are called upon by God to serve and love Him and carry out His will. As a church we are called upon to be an Army for Christ and to go out in His name taking this glorious hope to a dying world.

But we've got to trust God and live by faith and take Him at His word that He desires to use, and will in fact glorify His name through us. William Barclay quotes a woman by the name of Ann Hunter Small, a great missionary teacher. She said, 'A church which is alive dares to do anything.' But that daring only becomes possible to a man and to a church who take God at His word."

Let me close with an encouragement from a letter Paul wrote to Titus. Tit 2:11 "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.
12 It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,
13 while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,
14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."