“The Just Shall Live By Faith”

Romans 1:16-17

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, “The just shall live by faith”.

God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodly behavior and the injustice of human beings who silence the truth with injustice. Every since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—God’s eternal power and divine nature—has been clearly visible, because they are visible through the things God has made.

So humans are without excuse. It takes a fool to says in his heart “there is no God”.

Although we know that God is real, we didn’t honor God as God or give Him praise and thanks. Instead, our reasoning become pointless, and our foolish hearts have become darkened. While at the same time we are claiming to be wise, we have made fools of ourselves.

We exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images that look like mortal humans: birds, animals, reality TV characters, and government leaders. So God turns us over to our hearts’ desires, which leads to the moral corruption of degrading our own bodies with each other.

We have traded God’s truth for a lie, and we worship and serve the creation instead of the creator, who is Blessed forever.  

Since we do not think it is worthwhile to acknowledge God, God turns us over to a reprobate mind to do and be entertained by inappropriate things, And to wait us out, to let us come to our self, and turn to Him of our own freewill.

We find that in this world…that it is filled with all kinds of injustice, wicked behavior, greed, and evil behavior. We are full of jealousy, murder, fighting, deception, and malice. We gossip (and love to hear gossip), we slander people, and we don’t trust in God.

We are rude and proud, and we brag. We invent ways to be evil, and we are disobedient to our parents. We are a people who are without understanding, disloyal, without affection, and without mercy.

Though we know God’s decision that those who persist in such practices deserve death, we not only keep doing these things but also approve of others who practice them. Yet, we condemn our self when we judge another person because the one who is judging is doing the same things.

Therefore, it is best left up to God to judge…for God’s judgment agrees with the truth, and His judgment is against those who do these kinds of things.

So it is that we find that …It is not the ones who hear the Word of God who are righteous in God’s eyes. It is the ones who do what the Word of God says who will be treated as righteous, because God has but down deep in us His Word.

So when they that have not accepted Christ instinctively do what the Word of God requires they show the proof of the Word written on their hearts, and their consciences affirm it.

Their conflicting thoughts will accuse them, or even make a defense for them, and on that day when, according to (this) gospel, God will judge the hidden truth about human beings through Christ Jesus, the truth will be revealed.

Nevertheless, even Paul admits that “I find myself doing the things I should not do, and things I should do, I find myself not doing”. “There is a battle going within me.”

So what are we saying then? Are we better off in sin? Not at all. We have already stated the charge: both Saved and Unsaved are all under the power of sin.

As it is written, There is no righteous person, not even one, There is no one who understands. There is no one who looks for God. They all turned away. They have become worthless together. There is no one who shows kindness. There is not even one. Their throat is a grave that has been opened. They are deceitful with their tongues, and the poison of vipers is under their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are quick to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and they don’t know the way of peace. There is no fear of God in their view of the world.

Now – we know that whatever the Word of God (the Law) says, it speaks to everyone, in order to shut every mouth and make it so the whole world has to answer to God. It follows that no human being will be treated as righteous in His presence by doing what the Law says, because the knowledge of sin comes through the Law.

So – then Preacher, how can the just live by faith?

If you will allow me, let us take a look at these three things: Righteousness, Faith, and Grace to better understand how it is a why it is that if we are to be Righteous in God’s site, that Faith is the key that unlocks to door of Grace through Jesus Christ our Lord. And as a result, “The just shall live by faith”.

As you study the Word and seek understanding you will find that …God’s righteousness comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all who have faith in (Christ). There is no distinction. All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, but all are treated as righteous freely by His grace because of a ransom that was paid by Christ Jesus.  So, that who so ever will; let him come, come to Jesus.

Nevertheless, through Jesus faithfulness, God displayed Jesus as the place of sacrifice (on the Cross) where mercy is found by means of Christ shed blood. God did this to demonstrate His righteousness in passing over sins that happened before, during the time of God’s patient tolerance.

He also did this to demonstrate that He is righteous in the present time, and to treat the one who has faith in God through Jesus Christ as righteous. And it was through the faith of Abraham, as we studied in Sunday School this morning, “that we have this key”.

The scriptures say: Abraham had faith in God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. The promise to Abraham and to his descendants, that he would inherit the world, didn’t come through the Law but through the righteousness that comes from faith in God. If the inheritance came because of the Law, then faith has no effect and the promise has been canceled.

You see,The Law brings about wrath. Therefore, where there is no law, there is no violation of the law. That is why the inheritance comes through faith (in God), so that it will be on the basis of God’s grace.

In that way, the promise is secure for all who will come to the Lord, not just for those who are related by Law (or the Word) but also for those who are related by their faith (in God).

When it was beyond hope, Abraham had faith in the hope that he would become the father of many nations, in keeping with the promise God spoke to him: Without losing faith, Abraham, who was nearly 100 years old, took into account his own body, which was as good as dead, and Sarah’s womb, which was dead.

He didn’t hesitate with a lack of faith in God’s promise, but he grew strong in faith and gave glory to God for what He promised. He was fully convinced that God was able to do what He promised. Therefore, his faith in God was credited to him as righteousness.

But the scripture that says it was credited to him wasn’t written only for Abraham’s sake. God had you on His mind. It was written also for our sake, because righteousness is going to be credited to us too. It will be credited to those of us who have faith in God – the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

Therefore, since we have been made righteous through Abraham’s faithfulness combined with our faith (in God), we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and His unmerited favor of Grace.

We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through Christ, and we boast in the hope of God’s glory. But not only that! We even learn to give God glory and praise in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

This hope does not put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. While we were yet sinners, at the right moment, Christ died for us all. And in this is the love of God shown to us, because while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

So, now that we have been made righteous by Christ blood, we can be even more certain that we will be saved from God’s wrath through Christ. If we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son while we were still enemies, now that we have been reconciled, how much more certain is it that we will be saved by His life? And not only that: we even have joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, the one through whom we now have a restored relationship with God.

So, in the same way that sin entered the world through one person, and death came through sin, so death spread to all human beings with the result that all sinned. Although sin was in the world, since there was no Law, it was not taken into account until the Law came.

So death ruled from Adam until Moses, even over those who did not sin in the same way Adam did – Adam was a type of the one who was to come… in the person of The Christ… who gave us the free gift of Grace.

But the free gift of Christ isn’t like Adam’s failure that brought on death as its reward. If many people died through what one person did wrong, God’s grace is multiplied even more for many people with the gift of eternal life— through one person Jesus Christ.

The judgment that came from Adam’s sin led to punishment, but the free gift that came through Christ to cover the many failures led to the verdict of not guilty. If death ruled because of one person’s failure, those who receive the multiplied grace and the gift of righteousness will even more certainly rule in life through the one person Jesus Christ.

I’m almost finished …

So now the righteous requirements necessary for life are met for everyone through the righteous act of one person, just as judgment fell on everyone through the failure of one person. Many people were made righteous through the obedience of one person, just as many people were made sinners through the disobedience of one person.

The Law stepped in to amplify the failure, but where sin increased, grace multiplied even more. The result is that grace will rule through God’s righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, just as sin ruled in death.

So what are we going to say? Should we continue sinning so grace will multiply? Absolutely not! Don’t you know that all who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

Therefore, we were buried together with Him through baptism into His death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too can walk in newness of life.

When we are baptized we are carried under the water a raised again, which is the symbol of being … united together in a death like His, and we will also be united together in a resurrection like His.

This is what we know: when we join the Church; when we join together with Christ – the person that we used to be was crucified with Christ in order to get rid of the body that had been controlled by sin.

We confessed our sins, acknowledge Jesus Christ’s victory, and join the Church. That way we wouldn’t be slaves to sin anymore, because a person who has died has been freed from sin’s power.  We have the hope that, if we died with Christ, we have faith that we will also live with Him.

and  I’m getting ready to close

We know that Christ has been raised from the dead and He will never die again. Death no longer has power over Him. He died to sin once and for all with His death on the cross. In the same way, we also should consider ourselves dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus.

Wherefore, don’t let sin rule your body, so that you do what it wants. Don’t offer your body to sin, to be used as a weapon to do wrong. Instead, we must present ourselves to God as people who have been brought back to life from the dead, and offer all the parts of our body to God to be used as weapons to do His Holy Will.

Sin will have no power over you, because you are not under the Law but under grace. So what shall we say? Should we sin because we are not under the Law but under grace? Absolutely not!

Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, that you are slaves of the one whom you obey? That’s true whether you serve as slaves of sin, which leads to death, or as slaves of the kind of obedience that leads to righteousness.

But thanks be to God, that although we used to be slaves to sin, we are learning to or are ready now to give wholehearted obedience to the teaching of “This Gospel”, which provides a pattern… to live by faith in God. Now that you have been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

Once you offered the parts of your body to be used as slaves to impurity and to lawless behavior; that leads to still more lawless behavior. But once you decide to follow Jesus, you should present your body as slaves to righteousness, which makes your life Holy.

When you were a slave to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What rewards did you get from doing things that you are now ashamed of? The outcome of those things is death…

But now that you have been set free from sin and become slaves to God, you have the reward of Holiness, and the outcome is Eternal Life.

The wages that sin pays are death, but now through the righteousness of God’s mercy gift through His Son, by your living by faith in God – you have Grace from God and eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

“The Just Shall Live By Faith” Delivered:10/6/2012