What kind of “deal” do you want to make with God? (1) I think we agree that there are godless people all around us. The godless person denies God’s existence. They deny that God’s eternal power and divine nature are evident in what has been created. They do feel a compulsion to worship, glorify, or give thanks to God for anything. They desperately squeeze every ounce of meaning, purpose, and life out of created things.
"The Wicked"
(1) The Bible often refers to the god-less as “wicked.” But I can assure you, the godless do not see themselves as “wicked.” Fifty Shades of Gray. Fifty Shades Darker. Fifty Shades Freed. They reject any suggestion that sexual impurity, the degrading of their own body, shameful lusts, shameful acts, or unnatural relations could possibly be evil. Even as people receive in their own body the due penalty for their perversion, they dismiss the whole notion of evil as an ancient, medieval construct. “It’s time to be “freed” from antiquated notions of right and wrong, good and evil, sin and hell.”
Pleasure is the governing ethic of the godless. If something feels so good, how can it be so wrong? When pleasure is your governing ethic, all things become permissible. You envy the person who has what you don’t have. You murder whatever innocence threatens your prosperity. You create strife because you feel entitled. You practice deceit and malice, you gossip and slander the character of others. You disobey your parents because you think they’re so irrational, and unloving, and unkind. How dare they not give me everything I want? The godless and wicked feel the whole world is “obligated” to make them happy. For the godless and wicked, there is no greater existential threat to pleasure than God himself, and anyone who represents God.
The godless do not want a deal with God, they do not need a deal with God, their offended you’d even suggest it! No matter how aggressively a person tries to deceive themselves, death doesn’t lie. The way I understand Romans 1, is sometimes God allows people to die a million smaller deaths in the hope they come to their senses. So many people never come to their senses. “NO BIG DEAL” they arrogantly proclaim. “There is no God. There is no sin, no wrath of God, no immediate or eternal judgment…” Maybe you are a NO-DEAL kind of guy or gal. God declares, “you are without excuse.”
The "Moralists"
(2) I think we’d agree that there are moralists all around us as well. Friends there are just as many religious moralists as irreligious moralists. The moralist is always passing judgment, censuring others, condemning folks. The moralist is always spewing wrath, spewing their anger, spewing their outrage. Their game is “remove the spec while ignoring the plank in your own eye.” You can spot a moralist because they are most harsh with others on the same points that they themselves struggle. Subconsciously they believe if they can amplify the faults of others, nobody will see their own faults. Moralists think you’re so evil, you need a DIFFERENT-DEAL than they do. They think themselves so righteous, superior, intelligent, and greater, and better.
To the moralist God declares: “You are without excuse. At every point you judge others, you are judging yourself. You are showing contempt for the riches of God’s kindness because you think other people need more grace than you do! You are just as stubborn and unrepentant as they are.” It’s all right there in Romans 2. God will repay you according to what you have done. God doesn’t show anyone favoritism. He sees how self-seeking you are, how you reject the truth, how you follow evil. He judges every man’s secrets.
The "Achievers"
(3) In addition to the godless and moralists, our world is filled with achievers. There are just as many religious as irreligious achievers. Unlike the godless. . . The achiever often recognizes the beauty, holiness, and perfection of God. The achiever might even recognize biblical truth about sin, righteousness, and the judgment. They are sometimes the first people to point out that “a man reaps what he sows.” The achiever looks at the godless and says, “You fool, you’re getting exactly what you deserve. You’re getting about as much hell as you deserve; you’re getting about as much heaven as you deserve.”
Unlike the moralist, who mostly judges others, the achiever is comfortable judging himself. He wants to become a better person. He believes he can, and should become, a better person. He’s all about removing the plank in his own eye, “If I got the plank stuck in there, I can just as well get it unstuck, and I don’t need anyone helping me. I got this, just get me a bigger mirror so I can see myself more clearly.”
The achiever looks at the world and sees how there is “no one righteous, no one who understands, no one who seeks God, no one who does good, no one who fears God… everyone has turned away, everyone is practicing deceit, everyone is bitter and cursing, and shedding blood, and destroying peace.” The achiever looks at the spectacle of human depravity and says, “Well, not me. I’m going to be righteous, I’m going to gain understanding, I’m going to seek God and please God, I’m going to do good no matter how much it hurts me or costs me, I’m going to fear God, I’m going to reign over my tongue, I’ll shed my own blood out of dedication to God. I got this, God, just tell me what to do! Tell me what to say, where to stand, how to love, who to love…”
Achiever’s love checklists. “Tell me faults, tell me where I should improve.” Their often competitors. They derive a sense of pride out of one-upping everyone around them. The apostle Paul was a “religious achiever.” In Philippians 3 Paul wrote about his former life as a religious achiever: “If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.” Paul was as humanly righteous as they get! He won all the awards his religious-achiever teachers and mentors gave out!
The godless say, “No Deal.” The Moralists say, “I need a different deal. I’m not that bad.” The Achiever’s say… “Pay me my wages!” Give me what I deserve! You asked me to be circumcised. You asked me to obey the ten commandments and keep your laws. You asked me to be obedient and faithful. You asked me to try harder, to work harder, to clean up my life, to be a good moral person, to attend church, to read my Bible, to be baptized, to tithe, to care for the poor...”
The achiever believes that because of all their work, now God is obligated to reward and bless them! “Because I’ve been faithful to God, now he will be faithful to me. Now that I’ve given to God, he will give back to me. Now that I love God, I can be assured God loves me. Because I’ve taken certain steps of obedience, and subjected myself to certain religious rites, I have the assurance of salvation.”
For the achiever, the word “faith” is synonymous with “faithfulness.” God saves me because of “my faithfulness.” Faith is synonymous with obedience. My obedience saves me, my works save me. My achievements save me. To the achiever God says, in Romans 4:2, “you may think you have something to boast about, but not before God.”
Friends, the ungodly are not justified before God. The moralist is not justified before God. Nor is the achiever justified before God. All are under sin. All our subject to a million small deaths because of that sin. All our subject to the grave and power of death. All are subject to eternal judgement and eternal damnation. You are a fool if you believe God is in any way obligated to you.
"The Believer"
(4) A fourth category of person is what the Bible calls a “Believer.” In the Old Testament, Abraham was a believer. In Romans 4:1-3, Paul asks, “What did Abraham our forefather, according to his own flesh, discover about this matter of justification? If in face, Abraham was justified by [achiever] works, he had something to boast about—but not before God! But what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Credited! Whatever does Paul mean? He explains it so clearly! Romans 4:4-5, “Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.”
Holy Smokes! Are you reading the same Bible as me? You can come before God and collect your wages, or you can come before God and collect His gift! Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord!” Let me ask you, what kind of deal do you want to make with God? Do you want to collect earned wages or do you want to receive his free gift? Do you want to take the gamble that God is somehow obligated to you, or would you just receive the gift the God, who justifies the ungodly, has prepared for you?
Abraham didn’t come before God seeking wages. He believed. He trusted God, and God credited to his account, God gifted to Him righteousness, God granted to him mercy, grace, salvation, and eternal hope. By the way, King David when he had sinned came before the Lord, confessing his sins as well. But David wasn’t seeking wages, he was seeking the gift of God.
In Romans 4:6-8 Paul explains, “David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from [achiever] works: ‘Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them!’” David didn’t say, “No big deal.” David didn’t say, “blessed are those who are not as bad as their neighbor.” He didn’t say, “Blessed are those who achieve more.” He certainly didn’t saw, “pay me my wages… let me reap what I’ve sown.” In faith Abraham, in faith David said, “forgive me… cover me… justify me, don’t count my sin against me, don’t punish me as I deserve, give me something I don’t deserve, give me credit, give me the gift of righteousness!”
Listen, the whole middle part of Romans 4 is important. In verses 9-12, Paul talks about how we put a false sense of security in religious rites. If you were a Jew, that was circumcision. Circumcision wasn’t a sign pointing not to your self-righteousness and self-sufficiency. Circumcision was a sign point to your need to be justified externally, apart from your works, apart from your achievement, by grace! Circumcision was a sign you were seeing God’s righteousness and justification. Circumcision was also a seal not of you guaranteeing yourself to be faithful… but a seal guaranteeing God’s faithfulness… that God would be faithful to all he promised!
In verses 13-15, Paul talks about how we derive a false security in being an achiever, a law-keeper. But the basis of our security isn’t rooted in something in us… it’s rooted in the promise of God! As a believer, my standing before God, my trust isn’t in something I did, something I earned, something I’m owed by God… my trust is based in something God said, that God promised, that Christ finished on that cross, something I haven’t earned, that God isn’t obligated to give, but that because of God’s mercy and grace, he has freely gift… not a wage but a gift!
Look what Paul says, Romans 4:16-17: “16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. 17 As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.”
By the way, you might take a pen and highlight all the amazing things Romans 4 tells us about God.
- Rom 4:3, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
- Rom 4:5, “to the one who doesn’t work, but trusts God…”
- Rom 4:5, to the one who trusts God, “who justifies the ungodly.”
- Rom 4:7, God “credits righteousness apart from works”
- Rom 4:10, under what circumstances does God credit righteousness? It wasn’t after circumcision but before!
- Rom 4:16, “the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed.”
When did Christianity become all about us, and stop being about Christ? Romans 4:17, it is “God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.” Not just Christianity, but all of Judaism as well… Abraham is the patriarch of Judaism right? Not just Christianity, but all of Judaism… there has only been one deal. And the deal is that we trust God for justification, preciously out of concern that we godless, moralistic, achievers might otherwise get exactly what we deserve… the wages of our sin, death, eternal judgment and damnation.
Only God can give life to the dying and dead. Only God can call into being, and declare righteous, those who are not nor can ever be in themselves. When did Christianity become all about us? I do, I declare, I work, I sing, I say, I worship, I tithe, I serve, I achieve, I give, I deserve, I die, God owes, God’s obligated…
That doesn’t sound like very good news. That certainly doesn’t sound refreshing. Should we rather put our faith, our trust, and hope in God? God save me from my wages. Spare me from what I deserve. Deliver me from your perfect just wrath. Forgive me… cover me… justify me, don’t count my sin against me, don’t punish me as I deserve, give me something I don’t deserve, give me credit, gift me righteousness!
Romans 4:18-25, “18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” 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.”
I want Abraham’s deal!