Finishing up my herbs. And a question? ** Only one kind of person

Romans 4: 1 - 5 September 13 2018 (highlighting verse 5)

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 in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,

Compare these two stories…

A faithful missionary spends her life working in a poor country, she feed the poor, and ministered to the sick. When she was old and dyeing, she was asked if she believes she will go to heaven. She answers, “Because I have devoted my life to serving Him. I have denied myself for decades. I hope that I have added enough merits that God will accept me.”

When she dies, she faces God’s eternal wrath because her faith was in her own good works, not in the shed blood of Jesus Christ alone.

Meanwhile, on death row a serial killer awaits execution. He mercilessly tortured, raped, a young woman. A chaplain visits this killer and finds that he has been reading the Bible, and has been convicted him of his terrible sins and is anguishing about dying and facing God. Because he realizes that he deserves to go to hell.

Then the chaplain shares the Gospel and explains that if he will believe in and trust in Jesus Christ, who died for the ungodly, that God will forgive him of all his sins.

And he truly does believe, and humbly bows his head and he falls to his knees, and asks the Lord to forgive him of his terrible sins... and he trusts in Christ for salvation.

[And] this man goes to his execution at peace with God. And spends eternity in heaven.

Now, if you have a sense that this isn’t not fair… that surely the selfless missionary deserves to go to heaven… and the murderer deserves to go to hell…

…then you are not understanding the key message that Paul sets forth in our scripture verse today…

Listen carefully to verse 5 of our text today… Because Paul makes one of the most outrageous claims in all Scripture… “And to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted [credited] as righteousness.”

 Wow!  God does not justify the one who tries to do their best in their own merits.

But we are being told that God justifies the ungodly…

You see, God justifies only one kind of person…  …the ungodly.

Not the ones who think they are good enough…

To be justified, we must recognize that we are ungodly and deserving of God’s righteous judgment.

 

As a matter of fact, we must be willing to deny any value we ever thought our works might have.

We simply… believe on Jesus Christ… Then Christ, in His grace, justifies us… and declares us righteous… and credits His righteousness to our account, which makes us acceptable to Him.

Spurgeon, in his book “All of Grace” says, 

“God invites sinners to come at once for salvation, just as they are.

Come in your disorder… Come with your confusion… Come with your despair… Come filthy, naked, and dirty… Come with all of your sin… Come to Jesus, crucified for sinners! 

God bless...