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Well, thank you for your presence this morning. Those that are visiting, we have to thank you for being with us as well. It's our hope that we can do all things decently and in order and according to the scriptures and that we all can leave feeling that we worship God in spirit and in truth. We pray that all of us have been edified and uplifted and made a little stronger in the faith in what we were. We're gonna talk this morning about the subject, the faith of Abraham.

The Bible makes it plain that Abraham was a man of faith. There are numerous statements that are spoken about Abraham that tell us about his faith. There are lessons that are learned from Abraham's faith, and you will I will be called to be people of faith. And may God increase our faith as we study about Abraham this morning. I want to do this morning just to talk about some passages about Abraham's faith.

We'll not be looking at examples particularly of faith at first of Abraham, but just some statements that are made throughout the Bible that tell us how great Abraham's faith was and that he was known as a man of faith. And then secondly, will look at some examples from the scriptures of Abraham's faith and note how he showed his faith and what it meant when we say Abraham was a man of faith. And then the third thing we'll do is to make some applications and even look at what the scripture says about the faith of Abraham and how that should affect our life as we live today. So let's begin by talking about the faith of Abraham. And if you have your Bibles, I would invite you to turn first of all to the book of Nehemiah and the seventh chapter or excuse me, the ninth chapter and looking at verse seven.

Nehemiah chapter nine and verse seven. And if we read this, I'd remind you this is not during the life of Abraham, and the writer is not looking at Abraham as he is acting in life and coming. That this is probably written fifteen hundred years after Abraham lived. And what the writer is doing is looking back at the life Abraham and the reputation Abraham has and commenting on the kind of faith that Abraham had or the that he was a person of faith. And so here's how Abraham's faith was known to us.

First of all, in the book of Nehemiah, the seventh ninth chapter in verse seven, you are the Lord God who chose Abram, brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you and made a covenant with him to give him the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites. To give it to his descendants, you have performed your word, you are righteous. Now, obviously, Nehemiah is commenting on God and he's trying to make us see God is righteous. And he does so by holding Abraham as an example and saying here's what promises God made to Abraham and he was faithful.

But in doing that, he comments on Abraham himself. And I want you to notice particularly, he says that that Abraham found or you found his heart faithful before you. I would just assume that if a person is considered faithful, that he has to have a heart of faith. And that by him saying that Abraham had a faithful heart, that he was saying when he called him, he was a man of faith. And that's interesting because if you remember, we read in Genesis the twelfth chapter earlier, it was read for us, and then we'll look at it a little bit later.

You have a little bit about Abraham in chapter 11, just commenting about Terah, his father, and how that they had moved from Ur and came over to Haran and that his father would die there, but it just makes mention of the fact that Haran had sons and one of them was named Abraham or Abram as he was called then. And then in chapter 12, you suddenly find him giving him saying, if you come out and do as I say do, I'll make of you a great nation and so forth. And if you're just reading the Genesis account, maybe you're wondering, why did God pick Abraham? Did he pick him because he was a person just like all the others, and then he made him a faithful person? Was he chosen and then became a person of faith?

Nehemiah suggests he was a man that was faithful. He had a faithful heart. And that's the reason God chose him to begin with and say, come out and I'll give you a land and build a seed through you, which is interesting because if you know anything about Ur Chaldeans, which Abraham came out of where when God called him, Ur Chaldeans was a very wicked place in him. And so you have all this wicked place and yet you have this man, Abraham, that is already known to have a faithful heart. And to make it even more significant and perhaps even more amazing that God would call Abraham and find him to be faithful, you read in the book of Joshua in the twenty fourth chapter, and this is when the children of Israel have gone into take the promised land.

And there, Joshua is talking to them and telling them, you need to make a choice. You're gonna choose God. You're gonna choose, he says, the God of your fathers. And in chapter 24 verse two, he mentions, will you choose the gods of Terah, Abraham's father? And so here you have Terah as talking about a man that worshiped not God, but God's, but his son, Abraham, had a faithful heart.

He had already established himself even in the Ur of Chaldeans as having faith. And so that's the reason that God calls him, and Nehemiah pays attention to the fact that Abraham was known for his faith and was called for that reason. But turn to the New Testament if you would. And we'll not actually turn over there, but I'll reference the passage with Romans the fourth chapter and verse three. And then also James the second chapter in verse 23, both of them say, Abraham believed God.

The word believed just means he had faith. And so here's New Testament writers and both Abraham or both Paul and James acknowledged that Abraham was a man of faith, saying Abraham believed God. And then if you would, turn over to the book of Hebrews in the eleventh chapter. And most of us know that Hebrews the eleventh chapter is sometimes called the honor roll of faith. And he talks a great deal.

He talks about faith in Hebrews 11, and he gives us some examples of people that were people of faith. And the list includes people like Abel and Enoch and Noah and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Moses and Rahab. But you also find Abraham mentioned. In fact, he's not just mentioned, but the writer of Hebrews will spend about 10 verses talking about the faith of Abraham and telling us how great his faith was. Look, if you would, to the book of Hebrews the eleventh chapter, and we'll begin reading in verse eight.

By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out of the place which he would receive to as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith, he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he waited for the city which has foundation whose builder and maker is God. By faith, Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed and she bore a child when she was past the age because she judged him faithful who had promised.

Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, innumerable as the sands which were by the seashore. They all died in faith, not having received the promise, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth. For those who say such things declared plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better place that is a heavenly country.

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them. And notice, by faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he had received the promise offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said, in Isaac your seed shall be called, concluding that God was able to raise him up even from the dead, which he also received him from in a figure. So 10 verses of in a passage that's talking about faith, holding up Abraham and his family saying, here is a an example of Abraham and giving us some examples of that faith. And so it is sure that Abraham was a person of faith. But let's not just look at the passages that we've talked about.

Let's look also at Abraham's faith on display, and we'll look at some of the examples that we've talked about or mentioned that he gives us in faith. First of all, if you go back to the book of Genesis in the twelfth chapter in verses one through four, you'll notice that God says, you come out of the land of Ur and I'll give your descendants a land. It's perhaps worthy to note that God did not tell Abraham that he would receive the land himself, but he did promise that the descendants of Abraham would have this land that he's talking about at some point in time. Also, you look at the book of Hebrews in the eleventh chapter again, you'll notice that while Genesis talks about come out and I'll give your descendants this land and he talks about this, he also makes clear in the book of Hebrews in the eleventh chapter that there were heavenly promises too. That Abraham understood that a part of the promise was things that were not yet seen.

And it's his faith. He believed in these things and the promises that God made, and that's what made him so special to God. He showed his faith in believing these promises. Now it's interesting to note that when God calls him at this time in Genesis the fifteenth chapter or twelfth chapter, Abraham doesn't have any children. And yet he's telling Abraham, I'm gonna give this land to your seed, and you're gonna hear doesn't promise that Abraham's gonna own that land, but he promises that his descendants will have that land.

But Abraham doesn't have any children. And so here's a good place for us to stop and just say, well, what do we mean when we're talking about faith and the faith of Abraham? Well, probably most of us know that Hebrews 11 talks about that that faith is the substance of things hoped for, but convictions of things not seen. I've been told that's not a definition, and I'm okay with that. But I would answer by saying, if you understand Hebrews 11 and where he says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, if you understand that, then you know what faith is.

That he's saying, if you have a promise or there's something told to you and you have a conviction, even though you don't have proof, you just have that somebody's word, but you have conviction that that's going to come to pass. That's faith. And that's what Abraham's doing. He's calling Abraham saying, Abraham, if you'll come out of the land cur or and come over to where I show you to live, It doesn't specifically say, now you won't have the land. You'll live in it, but you won't have it.

But I will give it to your children as a seed or as as a land, and out of thy seed, I'll make a great nation. And he doesn't have that. But he believed God. He trusts God. And that's what faith is.

It's really just a matter of trust. And Abraham trust God. God says, this is what's going to happen. Well, God, I don't have any children at the moment. Doesn't matter.

I believe you, God. I believe somehow I'm gonna have seed, and they're going to inherit this land at some time. But his faith tested, and it doesn't happen just God doesn't give him that promise one day, and then the next day he has a child. In fact, if you look over next to the book of Genesis in the fifteenth chapter, and I want you to you to notice, first of all, Genesis fifteen eighteen. Just make a point there, and then we'll we'll go on down other places.

Look at Genesis fifteen and first verse 18, and notice he says this. On the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, to your descendants, I have given this land from the river Egypt to the great river Euphrates. And then he talks about who's at that moment inherited it. And I just wanna reemphasize that the promise doesn't say to Abraham, I'm going to give you this land personally. But the promise says, I'm going to give you this land to your descendants.

But again, Abraham is childless at this time. So look if you would down to Genesis the fifteenth chapter in verse six, and you'll notice that the Lord appeared to him and tells him that earlier he says, the word of the Lord, verse four, came to him, to Abraham saying, this one shall not be your heir. I'm talking about Eliezer, so we'll talk more about that in a minute. And then brought you outside, looked at the stars, and just said, your descendants will be like the stars, innumerable. And he tells him on this occasion in verse six that well, he tells him in this context that he's going to have a child, that it would be through his own seed, and that that son would be the inheritance or through him would come an inheritance.

What I want you to notice is verse six says, and he, talking about Abraham, believed him, that is God, and he, that is God, counted it to him for righteousness. We talk about the faith of Abraham and how that he's justified, and we'll talk more later about how he is justified by his faith. And this is where God says that he tells Abraham, I'm going to give you a child. In context, Abraham is is asking. God has made this promise, and God is or Abraham is saying, you know, you promised me that my seed would have this inheritance.

Are you talking about Eliezer, my servant? And God in conversation says, no. I'm not talking about Eliezer. I'm talking about you. You will have a child, and through him, they will receive this land that I'm talking about.

But I wanna impress upon your mind again that Abraham doesn't have a child at this time. In fact, that's why this conversation is taking place. God has told him that through thy seed, all the earth should be blessed or however it is, and he hasn't had a child yet. And so he says, are are we talking about my servant, Eliezer? I gonna receive that promise through my servant, Eliezer?

And this is when God says, no. You, Abraham, your seed will inherit it. It's going to be your seed that you have this. Now, again, it means Abraham believes him. To say Abraham had faith and for God to commend his faith on this occasion means Abraham is saying, well, I don't have a child.

Sarah and I haven't had a child all this time, but God's telling me that I'm gonna have a child so I know that somehow I'm going to have a child. And that through that child, they're going to inherit this land, and he believes that. But God works in his own time. And sometimes men get impatient or perhaps a little concerned whether God can fulfill his promise all and not himself, I guess. And so they sometimes decide, well, we'll help him.

And that's what happened on this occasion. God told Abraham, I'm going to give you a child. And Sarah says, well, maybe he's talking about through my handmaiden. Maybe I should give you my handmaiden, and then you'll have a child through her, and that will be through there. And so you recall that Sarah gave her handmaid to Abram, and Abram had a child with her, and that name was Ishmael.

And if you keep reading in Genesis, you'll find that when Abraham was 99, this is now in chapter 17, God assures Abraham again that he's gonna have a child, and it's going to be through his seed. Not talking about Isaac, he's telling Abraham. It's going to be through your seed. And in Genesis the seventeenth chapter in verse six, he not only tells them that it's gonna be through his seed, he tells them it's gonna be through Sarah also that Sarah's going to have the child with him. Now in chapter 17 in verse one, we find at this time, Abraham is 99 years old, and Sarah would have probably been 90 at this time.

And when God tells Abraham, you're gonna have a child, he doesn't disbelieve, but he laughs. And he asked him, a man have a child when he's a 100? And Sarah laughed also when she hears that she's gonna have a child in chapter 17 verse 21. But they still believe. And so they have that child.

Isaac is born, the promised child. But keep in mind now, this is the faith of Abraham we're talking about. First of all, come out of the land of Ur into a land that I will show you, and I'll I'll give you a great land for your descendants. And Abraham's willing to leave Ur Chaldeans and go to that land just based on the very promise of God. God said it would happen.

And then God appears to Abraham and says, you're gonna have a son. And Abraham believes him, though he's have dinner. He could still have a son at that time, did through Isaac, but older. But then told Isaac's not that son. I mean, Ishmael's not that son.

It'll be a son of your own through Sarah, and it will be called Isaac. And Abraham believes it. Though he hasn't had a son by Sarah before all these years, he's now 90 and hasn't had a child. He's now 100 past the age of normal childbearing, but God says you're gonna do it. And Abraham believes he has faith.

And so Isaac was born. He raised Isaac. He knows he's going to be his descendants. So we come down to Genesis the twenty second chapter now. And you probably remember the story as it's recorded in Genesis that God speaks to Abraham again, and this time he tells him that he is to take a or take Isaac and go up and offer him as a sacrifice.

And Abraham doesn't say, God, you promised that it's through him I'm going to have a child or have a descendants. How can you kill him? I you're just not gonna be right, God. That's not Abraham's thoughts. Instead, he is going to take Isaac and offer him.

You could read it in Isaiah the I mean, not Isaiah, in the book of Genesis in the twenty second chapter. But let me just read again with you from the book of Hebrews the eleventh chapter in verse 17 through 19, and it'll recount for us that part that we read a moment ago about Abraham being willing to offer this up. Verse 17, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he was who had received the promise, offered up the only begotten son of whom it was said, in Isaac, your seed shall be called, concluding that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from which also he received him in a figurative sense. I want you to notice again the faith of Abraham. Just think about it for a moment.

God speaks to Abraham and says, Abraham, I'm going to give you a son and you he's gonna you're gonna be heir of all this land that I've told you, and, of course, the spiritual promises that I told you. And he gives him that son. Abraham waits years for that son, and now he gives him to him, and now he's grown up a little bit. And God says, Abraham, you take that son and go and offer him as a sacrifice. And Abraham doesn't say, God, you can't do that.

You promised to give him keep for me to have a son. You can't take him from me. Abraham believes God so much that in his mind, he's going to offer Isaac up just like God told him to. But he thinks God's gonna keep his promise, and the only way Abraham can think of it is maybe God's gonna raise him from the dead. But he knows that God's going to keep his promise.

He has that much faith. I don't know how God's gonna do it. Maybe he's gonna raise him from the dead. The only way you can think of. He said, but whatever.

God's told me this is gonna be the son through which all the seed's gonna come. Therefore, he's going to do it. That's faith. And that's the kind of faith that Abraham has. And these are are the examples that Hebrews uses to show us here is the faith of Abraham.

God called him. He went. God said you're gonna have a child when he hadn't had a chill a child, and yet Abraham believes it. And God says, now take this child that I gave you that I told you is gonna be heir and go sacrifice him. And Abraham's gonna do it because he believes God's promises so strongly that if God said it's gonna happen.

Even if God has to take Isaac's life or let him take Isaac's life, he'll raise him from the dead. Of course, we know that God stopped the knife before Abraham showed him and said, now I know. He was convinced of how great Abraham's faith was also. Now these are other examples. I think the calling of Abraham, the promise of a child, the offering up of Isaac.

These are are the examples, I think, that most people think of when we talk about the faith of Abraham. But there are other things. If you read the life of Abraham, there are other examples, I think, that show us how great Abraham's faith is. For instance, when Isaac had gotten older and Abraham told his son, go back to Heron. Don't go back to Ur where they're all that sinful, but go back to Heron, to Samaritan folk, and find Isaac a wife.

And the servant Abraham is going to go, but he says, well, if the woman doesn't want to come back here, should I carry Isaac with me there? And Abraham said, no. You're not to carry Isaac back there because God said, our seed would inherit this land. To me, though that's not one of the chase cases that are normally pointed out as look at the faith of Abraham, that's a passage that shows his faith. God has said, this land will be yours.

Your descendants will inherit this land. And he knows that means Isaac is gonna receive this land, and he knows Isaac can't receive it if he's over there in Heron. And that's the reason he's saying, no. You can't carry him back. This is the land that God promised us.

So he's listening carefully to God's promise and knows and thinking about what it means. And I think if you read Abraham's life, you'd probably see some other places that are not oftentimes pointed out as being places of faith, but that you would probably see the faith of Abraham. But at the same time, I wanna suggest to you that while we know Abraham as a man of faith and God commends him as a man of faith, I don't think Abraham's faith was always perfect. I think it was great, but not perfect. Let me give you a couple examples.

Two times, while Abraham is in the land that God has told him, the land of Canaan, Abraham would go over because of famines and so forth into the land of Philistine. On two separate occasions when they went, Abraham would tell Sarah, now when we go over there, don't tell them you're my wife because they'll kill me so they can have you. Just tell them you're my sister, which, of course, she was kin that way and a half sister or so. But why did he do that? Why not say, that's my wife.

They're not gonna kill me because I've been promised a seed, and that I'm gonna receive the land of this land through the seed. It just seems to me, and I'm not trying to be derogatory of Abraham. I just think it's a good example where, yeah, he's a man of great faith, but you see sometimes that that faith wasn't quite as strong as it was in other places. And I pointed out because I'm trying to encourage us using the example of Abraham to be a people of faith. I want us to be a people of great faith.

But if you're like me, you can have some faith sometimes, and sometimes you're amazed at how weak you are and you do something you think, why did I do that? That's not that's not what faith demands. And what I wanna show you is that Abraham was known for his great faith, but there were times that it seems to me, I'm not even sure that I would I could prove this, but it seems to me like that that may be a weakness of faith. Is faith what always just tip top? But even besides that, he is still known by God as a man of faith and held up for us as a man of faith.

And that's what I want you to know. When you walk out, I want you to know that he's holding Abraham up as an example of faith for us, that he wants us to be a people of faith. He wants us to trust his word. And even when it looks hard, whatever it is that he's demanding us to do, the fact that he demands it, the promises that he's gave are sure and steadfast and just stay on the path that he gives us and don't deviate. Walk by faith according to the way God says to walk.

And if sometime you fall a little short, you pray God to forgive you, to restore your faith, and hopefully, you get your faith back and you continue on walking with God. And wouldn't it be grand to think that someday God is showing somebody and says through somebody or something, this is my servant. He's a person of faith. I mean, you never wavered, But when God looks at your life over and over and over again, he sees you as a person of faith. That brings us really to another point, and that is that there are some things that we should gain from Abraham's faith.

We need to be people of faith. The scriptures over and over tell us that we need to be people of faith. We can all quote John three sixteen, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. But whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And we know that when he says, whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life, that that that's faith.

He's saying that we should have faith. And then you can look at passages like the book of Romans in the tenth chapter and looking at verse 10. He says, for the heart for with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture says, he who believes on him will not be put to shame. So here he is telling us on this occasion that that we need to be people of faith.

He says, for there's no distinction between Jew and Greek for the same Lord overall is rich to all who call on him. For whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For how shall they call in him in whom they've not believed? And how shall they believe in him in whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace who bring great tidings of good joy or good things. But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? Then he says, so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

And so he wants us to be people of faith, and he tells us that we have to have faith and that faith comes by hearing. And so he reminds us in Hebrews that we need to be people of faith. And so that's, again, that's the intent of holding up Abraham as an example for us this morning is to see Abraham believed God. Even times that it looked like everything was against what God was saying, God has said it. It's going to take place.

And what God is telling us is we can have a home in heaven if we live according to the way that he says live. And we need to believe that, and we need to understand how beautiful and how great that promise is and not be dissuaded from it. But we've got to believe God. We've got to believe that he is. We've got to believe that Jesus is his son.

We're gonna have to believe that he means what he says, But we can trust what he says. That's faith. The second thing I want us to know is that we know that our faith has to be works or have works. There has to be a showing of our faith. Look over if you would to the book of James in the second chapter, and look particularly if you would down to verse 20.

And you know that James is is talking about faith and works and how that our faith has to have works. And then he illustrates it in verse 20 with Abraham as he says, but do you want to know, oh foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works and that by works, faith was made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which says, Abraham believed God and was counted unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.

I've had people tell me, well, here, faith is not used the same as it is over there. This is a special kind. These are people that that think that works have no part, that that we believe and we're saved by faith only and that there's no works involved. Paul says, you don't have or James says, you don't have faith if you don't have works. And that Abraham showed his faith by his works.

And when God said, Abraham, go offer up Isaac. He went to offer him up and showed that he had that faith. And the point is that God has made commands of us. You know? Some negative, thou shall not forsake the assembling of the saints.

Some positive, but add to your faith, virtue, knowledge, tempers, godliness. And the point is, if we're really truly people of faith, we're gonna do the things God says. We're gonna abstain from things that he says don't do, and we will do the things that he tells us to do. And if we don't do those things, then we really don't have faith. That's James' point.

Faith has works. Faith shows works, that you show your faith by your works. And if you don't have the works, you don't have the faith. And so not only do I want you to be impressed with Abraham's faith, how great this faith was, and say that's the kind of faith that I want. That when God says it, I'm going to obey and I'm going to believe it.

And nothing is going to dissuade me from believing in God and believing the promises of God. But we can't just say, okay. I believe and then sit down and not do. If we truly believe, when God says he that believeth and is baptized should be saved, we're gonna say, okay. I believe that God will save those and save us, but I've gotta do what he said do.

I've got to believe and I've got to be baptized. I have talked with one, and he wants to make baptism a work that earns salvation. And he'd asked me, well, don't you think you're earning your salvation just a little bit if you demand baptism? And I said, no. That's God's word.

And I asked him. I said, do you call people to repent? He said, well, yeah. I said, well, isn't that asking them to do something? He said, well, we have this saying that we're saved by faith alone, but faith alone is never by itself.

Okay. If that works for you stand before the Lord and try and tell him that. That's just jumbo. Faith is accompanied by works. That's how we show our faith, and Abraham showed his faith, and we show our faith by doing the commandments of God.

And let me tell you, if you are sitting there and you say, well, I'm I believe in God, but you can think of commandments that God has given you that you're just not even trying to do. You don't really have the saving faith that you need to have. If you're sitting there thinking, well, God said he that believeth and is baptized should be saved, but I don't I don't really think I have to be baptized. You don't have the faith that you need. You say, well, I don't understand how water and salvation works together.

I don't have to understand it. All I have to do is obey because God said it. There's a fourth thing that I want us or a third thing that I want us to notice. I want us to notice that we are justified by our faith. I want you to turn over if you would to the book of Romans in the fourth chapter.

And we've talked quite a bit about Romans four in times past because I've had to deal with that. But he starts out, what shall we say then? That Abraham our father was found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say?

Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. We need to come to understand what does he mean when he says Abraham believed God and was accounted to for righteousness. There's another passage that we've talked quite a bit about. It seems like to me that I keep turning back and forth to it. But look back over if you would to the book of Romans in the third chapter.

And even prior to that, maybe look to the book of Romans in the first chapter very quickly. And you remember Romans one says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it's the power of God's salvation for everyone who believes. For the Jew first and then also for the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. That's the statement that we picked up out of Genesis that we should live by faith or that Abraham shall live by faith.

And now he tells us the gospel, we're saved through the gospel by faith. And so now now we're wondering, what does he mean by faith? Saved by faith. And we've already said, you can't just say, well, I believe and therefore that's it. When he talks about Abraham being justified by faith, he's trying to show us that we're not saved by our works but through forgiveness.

And if you continue on to read down in chapter four, having said that Abraham was counted righteous because of his faith, you'll get down to verse six and he brings up eight David. He said, just as David. He's saying, Abraham was saved by faith, and they're saying just like David. But it says something else about David. He said, just as David also described the blessings of the man who God imputes righteousness apart from works.

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin. When he says we're saved by faith, not by works, he's telling us we couldn't do enough works in and of ourselves to save ourselves. He's not saying faith doesn't have works. He's just saying, you don't do and earn your salvation by works.

If you look over to the book of Galatians in the third chapter and I think about verse 10, Paul's talking to people that were under the law, and he points out, you can't be saved under the law unless you kept the law perfectly. Now he's talking about the law of Moses, but that'd be true about the law of Christ. We could not be saved in Christ by works unless we did everything without ever sinning. And yet the scripture tells us we have sinned, and so none of us would be saved by that. So God has given us a way whereby we can be saved by faith that because we believe and we show we believe by obeying and so forth the best we can.

He says, I will count your faith as righteousness, and he forgives us of our sins. Look if you would in the book of Romans in the third chapter for a moment. And look at verse 23. For we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There's a we're sinners, we've fallen short of the glory of God.

So it says being justified freely by his grace, we're saved not by our works, but by his grace where? Through redemption that is in Christ. Over in Ephesians one, he says you're saved by redemption, and then it says, comma, forgiveness of sins. That's what redemption is. It amounts to forgiveness of sins.

Whom God set forth as a propitiation by blood through faith. We believe in God's grace. We believe in the sacrifice of Jesus that it was able to erase sin. And so by our faith in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven of our sins, and we're saved by faith. And that's Paul's point in the book of Romans.

Saved by faith. And then he gives Abraham as an example, having said all this in Romans three, justified through grace, not of ourselves and so forth, through the propitiation of Christ, and then by faith. And then he shows us what he means by faith, the faith of Abraham, and that we're justified by faith, not by works. Even Abraham sinned some or fell some, it seems like, but still counted righteous. And what a promise that is, that I'm striving with all my being to make it to heaven.

I'm striving to do all the commandments that God wants me to do. And yet out of weakness of flesh, sometimes I sin. But that doesn't take away my hope because I'm not saved by works. I'm saved by faith. But faith has works, and faith without works is dead.

Abraham had faith that he had works. And I'm asking you to try and be a man of faith like Abraham. Live so that someday God would look at you and say, that's my servant. He's a man of faith. Or would be talking to somebody like, look at this man of faith like he's holding up Abraham.

But know that that faith means we've got to obey just like Abraham. Even the hard commandments like offer your son Isaac. I don't see how that's gonna work, God, but you tell me to do it. I'm gonna do it. That kind of faith.

Faith that says, I don't see any connection between water and baptism. I see some connections and some similarities, but just say somebody says, I don't see how water has anything to do with my spiritual salvation. I'm not doing it because of reason. I'm doing it because of faith, because God tells me to. And I'm doing all the other commandments because God tells me to and because I believe in you.

God's telling you can be saved by faith. But it's gonna require that you repent and be baptized. He's gonna require that you not steal, that you're not killed, that you live a good wholesome life, but salvation is there for those who have the faith to do. So we're asking you, are you a believer? A person of real faith that show their faith by their works?

Are you the kind of person that God maybe writing a letter today would say, this is my servant. He is a man of faith, not because you've been perfect, but because you're diligently trying and you believe with all your heart that Jesus is the Christ. If that's you and you've not yet done it, you ought to come to the Lord, repenting of your sins, to be buried with him in baptism, rising up to walk in the newness of life. We'd be glad to assist you if you've made that commitment but haven't lived faithful to it and wanna come and confess your thoughts, know that God will forgive you. We're here to witness your confession and to pray with you for you.

We'd invite you to come as together we stand the same. When Jesus comes to