It's Time for Some Good News | Part 1

Romans chapter 4 is a passage for those who believe it's time for some good news.

Grace is the unmerited favor and kindness of God shown to one who does not deserve it and can never earn it. Now the good news is the grace. Paul has been telling us about the bad news. And he has summed it up in Romans chapter 3 verse 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

That is the bad news that makes the good news good. Welcome to Love Worth Finding featuring the dynamic biblical teaching of Adrian Rogers. In Romans chapters 1 through 3, the apostle Paul addresses the fate of heathens, hypocrites, and humanity.

It's really bad news. But Romans chapter 4 tells us about the good news of grace. I love the definition Pastor Rogers gave of grace. The unmerited favor and kindness of God shown to one who does not deserve it and can never earn it. He said, you will be saved by grace or you won't be saved at all. Well, what else does the Bible say about this kind of grace? If you have your Bible, turn to Romans chapter 4 as Adrian Rogers begins the insightful message, it's time for some good news.

I heard a country song one time that said something like this, if it weren't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all. And I think some of us are feeling today as we read the newspapers, if it weren't for bad news, I wouldn't have any news at all. But thank God there is some good news.

And it's time for some good news. You know, preachers never get tired of telling the story of John Newton. He lived hundreds of years ago. He wrote books and he wrote sermons.

But you're probably not familiar with any of those. But he wrote a song that if you've been around churches at all, and even if you don't go to church, you probably know the song. It is called Amazing Grace. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see. Let me tell you about John Newton. He didn't start out as a songwriter. As a matter of fact, he had a very godly mother and a very wicked father. His father was a sailor and his mother prayed for him and committed him to the Lord. But as a youngster, he was rebellious and ungodly and he, just as a boy, very young, he left home to become a sailor like his father. And John Newton got engaged in the slave trade and he became a slaver, buying and selling slaves, but then his fortune reversed on him and he, John Newton, became a slave of slaves. As a matter of fact, his mistress, who owned him, had him chained to her table and all he would get to eat were scraps that fell from her table.

That's how low this boy, this man, got. Some sailors, however, had given to this cursing, drunken, ungodly, lascivious young man a copy of a book by Thomas A. Kempis called The Imitation of Christ and he began to read that aboard that ship. And one day a ferocious storm came up at sea. John Newton was on the deck.

They thought the ship was going down. A great wave washed over the deck of that ship and washed John Newton off the deck and into the angry sea. He cried out to God for mercy. Another wave came and washed him back on board.

That was all he needed. He got right with God and he wrote the song, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. And when he said a wretch, he wasn't just using hyperbole.

He really meant it. Now, what is grace? What is grace? May I give you a definition of grace? Would you listen to it very carefully?

Listen to every word of it. Grace is the unmerited favor and kindness of God shown to one who does not deserve it and can never earn it. Now, let me give it to you again. Grace is the unmerited favor and kindness of God shown to one who does not deserve it and can never earn it. And may I tell you something already? If you're saved, you're going to be saved by grace or you won't be saved at all. Now, the good news is the grace. In chapters 1, 2, and 3, Paul has been telling us about the bad news, about sin, wickedness, degradation, depravity, all of the things. He's been talking to the heathen. He's been talking to the hypocrite. He's been talking to the Hebrew. He's been talking to humanity. And he has summed it up in Romans chapter 3, verse 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

That is the bad news that makes the good news good. And so let's begin reading here in chapter 4, verse 1. What shall we say then that Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath worth to glory, but not before God. For what, saith the scripture, Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness? Now to him that worketh is to reward not reckoned of grace, there's our word, but of debt.

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Now actually, what we're going to do in our study today, we're going to see the gospel according, the good news, the gospel, and that's what the word gospel means, is good news. We're going to see the good news according to three men, according to Abraham, according to David, and according to Paul. Now first of all, I want you to see the grace, the good news that was discovered by Abraham. You see the very word, it says, what did we say then? What has Abraham, our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? Do you see that word, has found?

It's the word we get our word Eureka from. It speaks of a discovery. Abraham made a discovery. Now if you haven't been going to church very long, you might say, well, now wait a minute, who is Abraham? Well, if you were a Jew, you would know who Abraham is because Abraham is the brightest star in the Hebrew heaven. Abraham was the first of the Jewish nation of the Hebrews, and Abraham was the premier saint.

He's the beginner of the Jewish race. You could say the founder of their faith. They held Abraham in highest esteem. And in the Jewish mind, if anybody could behave himself into heaven, it would be Abraham. If anybody could get to heaven by doing good works, it would be Abraham. But the Bible says here that Abraham believed God. You see it in verse three, and that was counted to him for righteousness. Now all that is doing is just quoting Genesis chapter 15 in verse six, and it talks about Abraham, and it says, and he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him. That is, the Lord put it on his account for righteousness. Now you see, God had called Abraham when he was a heathen in the land of Ur and said, I want you to go into a land that I'm going to give you. He didn't even really tell him where he was going.

He just went out under orders, under sealed orders. But then the Lord appeared to him, and at this time was a very old man. He was impotent and childless, and his wife, Sarah, had gone through the menopause, and her womb was past reproduction. The Bible says, we're going to see later in this chapter that it was dead.

That is, she could not reproduce and have a child naturally. But God came to Abraham, and there in that passage of Scripture that I just referenced, and God said, Abraham, I'm going to give you a son, and through that son, you're going to have children. As a matter of fact, look up at those stars, Abraham.

You see all those stars. Can you count them? You can't count them, can you, Abraham? Well, Abraham, you're not going to be able to count the number of your descendants.

I'm going to work a miracle. I'm going to work a miracle in your life, and rather than arguing with God or doubting God, the Bible says Abraham believed God. He just believed God, and God said, all right, that's what I want, and I'm going to put you down as righteous.

Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. What did he believe God for? Well, he believed God for a miracle son. Jesus is a miracle son, isn't he?

Born of a virgin. And Abraham, you see, this all just prefigures Jesus. He believed God for a miracle son, and he also believed in God who could bring life out of death. Didn't Jesus come out of the grave?

He did. Well, just as God gave life to Sarah's dead womb, Abraham just believed this. He had an incredible faith in God. It prefigures the gospel of God's miracle son, his death, burial, and resurrection, and Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Now, that's what we're talking about right now. What does salvation by grace do, and what did Abraham discover?

First of all, listen. Salvation by grace, it respects God's glory. Now, look in verse 2. For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. Now, what that means is just simply this, that if Abraham could be saved by being good, he could boast about it. He could glory in his own salvation, but he could say nice things about himself, and that wouldn't be saying nice things about God.

But when Abraham believed God, he gave God glory. Do you know the best thing you could do to glorify God? People are trying to do all kinds of things to glorify God. I mean, to gain favor with God.

I have seen pictures of people who would take whips and flagellate themselves till they bleed. I've been to India and seen people do strange and horrible things where they would perhaps mutilate themselves or bathe in the filthy rivers or whatever to glorify God. People have hung by ropes and hooks and self-crucifixion in order to glorify God. People have gone on pilgrimages to glorify God. People have given great sums of money to glorify God. But do you know what glorifies God? He's believing God.

He's believing God. Now, sometimes when I go off to speak, people introduce me and they may say nice things about me. But then they might say, but there's one thing about Adrian, you just can't believe him.

I hope they'll never say that. But you see, no matter how many nice things you might say about me, if you say, but you can't believe him, you just cut the taproot of my character, didn't you? You see, the Bible says, believeth not God hath made him a liar. The greatest thing you can do to glorify God is to believe God. Faith pleases God because it glorifies God and because faith pleases God, God rewards faith. If you want to please God, believe God.

Believe God. You see, what is faith? Faith is not saying God prove it to me and then I'll believe it.

No, no. Faith is response, listen, faith is response to the nature and character of God. Faith believes God not for what God has done, but for who God is. You see, when my eye is right, my eye responds to light.

When my ear is right, my ear responds to sound. When my heart is right, my heart responds to God and that response, that response is faith. And that faith glorifies God. If a man could be saved by works, God doesn't get the glory. But when a man is justified by faith, God gets the glory. It's amazing how many people want to put together faith and works.

There's something about human pride that says I want to do it. Now suppose Bob were to say to me, Pastor, I love you so much and I have just struck oil and I'm very wealthy now and I'm going to buy for you, Pastor, a brand new automobile and I don't want a cheap one, I want one $50,000. Now he's going to buy a $50,000 automobile for me.

What would that be? Mercedes, okay. He's going to buy me a Mercedes.

See, I've got it on record now, you all heard that. And $50,000, he's going to pay for that Mercedes. And he comes to me and he says, Pastor, I want to give you this automobile. I say, well, Bobby, thanks a lot, fellow.

That's really nice. But Bobby, I can't just let you give me a car, like that's too much. Bobby, let me help pay for that car here. Let's see. Yeah, there it is.

There's a quarter. Thank you, Bobby. And so Bobby has paid $49,999.75 and I've paid two bits. And I'm driving that Mercedes and somebody says, Rogers, nice car you got? I say, yeah, Bobby and I bought this car.

Wouldn't that be ridiculous? Friend, let me tell you something. When you add your two bits worth of self-effort to the grace of God, you destroy the whole thing. You take the glory from Almighty God. If you go to Heaven, you're going to say, Jesus paid it all, and all to Him I owe. And don't you get the idea that you can add a little bit to it because when you do, you take away God's glory. You get the glory to yourself.

You say, look what I did. But the Bible says, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God.

Why? Lest any man should boast. No peacocks in Heaven. You know what they're going to be singing in Heaven?

The same who loved us and washed us with his blood. We were playing Daytona Beach in high school, and there was about three inches of water on the field. It was coming up over our shoe tops, and we were beating Daytona mainland, but it was horrible. It was wet.

Our uniforms were just soaking wet. Somebody put a pass in the air, and our defensive tackle, who was very overweight, had that pass just landed there and stuck. When he looked down and saw it, he put both arms around it. He had intercepted a pass, first time in his life. Now I want to tell you, he was the slowest man on our field, slowest man on the field. But you know, as fate would have it, he ran that thing back for a touchdown. We blocked every man three times in order for him to get down there. Here's the way that guy would run, right leg, left leg, right leg. But he ran it back. So would you know that I spent the night with that guy that night. We shared a room afterward.

All night long, I heard about him running those moves, running that ball back down that field. Well, I'd hate to spend eternity with a guy bragging about how he got to heaven. I want to spend eternity with people who are giving the lamb all the glory. And to him who loved us and washed us with his blood. What does salvation by grace do? It respects God's glory.

And I'll tell you what else it does. It receives God's gift. It receives God's gift. Now look, if you will, here again in verse 3. It was counted unto him for righteousness. Now that word counted is used a number of times in this chapter, but if you look at it in the English, you wouldn't necessarily see it because the same word is translated imputed and the same word is translated reckoned. Look, if you will, in verse 3.

It was counted to him. In verse 6, God imputeth righteousness. Verse 8, blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. The last part of verse 9, that faith was reckoned.

Verse 10, how then was it reckoned? The last part of verse 11 might be imputed. Go down to verse 22, therefore it was imputed. Notice in verse 23 that it was imputed to him. Notice verse 24, for us also to whom it shall be imputed. Over and over and over he's talking about something called imputation. Now don't you check me out. You say there you go with a theological word.

I don't want to hear anything about imputation. It has nothing to do with me. Friend, it has everything to do with you. It has everything to do with you because the way that you're going to get saved is for God to count something, to reckon something, to impute something to your account. Now this is what God does. God reckons or imputes or counts righteousness to you when you have the faith of Abraham. Now let me tell you something about imputation.

All right, now listen very carefully and it's all going to come together and make sense. Adam's sin was imputed to you. Adam's sin was put on your account.

You know our son David is a missionary. Joyce and I sometimes want to give him a gift and rather than sending him a check in the mail we just say, David, we'll put a check on your account. We'll just add it to your account.

It's there. You can write a check overseas because we're going to put it in your account over here. Now we impute that to his account.

The reason he can write a check for it over there is because we put it on his account over here. It simply means just to charge or reckon or put on your account. Next time you go to the department store don't say charge it, say impute it.

She won't know what you're talking about but then you can witness to her. Just say impute it. Charge it to my account.

Put that on my account. Now that's what it means. Now Adam's sin was imputed to you. You say, I didn't vote for Adam. What Adam did didn't have anything to do with me. Oh, well if Adam hadn't had any children where would you be?

Think about it. Adam when he sinned became a slave of sin and the son of a slave is a slave. And besides that you then inherited Adam's sinful nature and Adam's guilt was put on you.

Let me give you a verse for that. Romans 5 verse 12. Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin so death passed upon all men.

That is death was imputed to all men. We got it from Adam. Sin was imputed to you through Adam.

Got that? All right, now watch it. Adam's sin was imputed to you. Our sin was imputed to Jesus. That's what the gospel is all about. You're in chapter four. Look if you will in verse 25 of chapter four.

Look at it. It speaks of Jesus who was delivered for our offenses. Not for his own sin but for our offenses. Put down 2 Corinthians chapter five verse 21. For God hath made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.

You see that? God hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin. Jesus was the sinless spotless Lamb of God.

Thank God for that. But God made him to be sin for us. God didn't make him a sinner.

He was not a sinner but God made him to be sin. Adam's sin was put on me. My sin was put on Jesus. Jesus carried my sin to the cross. In Leviticus chapter 16 there's a ritual there. It's the story of the scapegoat.

Have you ever heard the term scapegoat? Well in Old Testament times God gave so many pictures and illustrations of salvation. And what they would do they would take two goats and bring those two goats to the door of the tabernacle. One goat would be slain. His throat would be cut.

The blood would be spilled out. That would picture Jesus on the cross in agony and blood dying for us. But then Aaron the high priest would take both hands and lay his hands on the head of the other goat, the live goat called the scapegoat, and confess the sins of the people upon the head of that goat. And then that goat would be led out into the wilderness never to return picturing our sins being carried away by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. And when Aaron laid his hands on the head of that goat the sins of the people of Israel were being placed, imputed, charged, reckoned upon the head of that goat picturing our sins being laid upon the Lord Jesus.

Now watch this. Adam's sin was imputed to you. Your sin was imputed to Jesus. And now thank God Jesus' righteousness is imputed to us. That's the gospel. His righteousness is imputed to us. Notice verse three. For what saith the scripture, Abraham believed God and it was counted, reckoned, imputed unto him for righteousness. Now that is the grace that Abraham discovered.

And coming up tomorrow, we'll hear the important second half of this message. Now, if you have questions about who Jesus is about what he means to you how to receive the grace that God is freely offering you go to our Discover Jesus page at lwf.org slash radio. You'll find resources and materials that will answer questions you may have about your faith.

Again, the website, lwf.org slash radio. And click Discover Jesus. Now, if you'd like a copy of today's message you can order one by calling 1-877-LOVE-GOD. Mention the title.

It's time for some good news. This lesson is also part of the insightful Foundations for Our Faith series. For that complete collection, all 27 powerful messages call 1-877-LOVE-GOD or go online to lwf.org.

Slash radio, or you can write us at Love Worth Finding Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. Have you experienced God's amazing grace in your life? Remember Adrian Rogers said, faith believes God not for what God has done, but for who God is. Thanks for studying in his word with us today. And we hope you'll join us tomorrow for part two of It's Time for Some Good News right here on Love Worth Finding. A listener wrote recently with this word of encouragement, I really appreciate Love Worth Finding's heart to continue making God's word and the applicable truths from Adrian Rogers available to the world. Well, it's our joy to share these profound messages and practical resources with you so that you can learn more about God's Word so that you can mature in your faith. It's only through your prayers and donations that we're sustained to continue that mission. And as a way to say thank you for your gift right now, we wanna send you our Why booklet collection. This bundle gives insight to the big questions we ask ourselves in the midst of the darkest storms in life. Request the Why booklet collection when you call with a gift at 1-877-LOVE-GOD. 1-877-568-3463. Or give online at lwf.org slash radio.