notes by Rhyne Putman

When God Makes Heroes
Romans 4

We all have heroes.  People that inspire us to do great things, to accomplish things once thought impossible.  I have mine.  Most important to me are my “heroes of the faith”, the people that have challenged me to be like Jesus in a new and different way.  They weren’t people who just said the words “Make me godly.”  No, they lived it.  They reflected the walk of the Master Himself.

Among my “heroes of the faith” are people like C.S. Lewis, who challenged Christians to step out of the box of orthodoxy and think about Jesus for themselves.  Lewis lived a life where he sought to use the creative nature that God has given us to glorify Him.  Lewis wrote about his pain, and he was honest.  He was real.

Then there is Rich Mullins.  Rich Mullins, who I have discussed in here previously, has become very dear to my heart over the last year.  Rich, who grew up on a farm in Kansas, was a horrible farmer and an even worse athlete.  Rich suffered with feelings of insufficiency and grief, living out a life before the throne of God that was often bathed in pain.  Yet God blessed Rich in very special way, giving him an out of this world anointing.  Rich, a very talented songwriter and musician, had a very special gift: he loved people where they were, no matter where they had been or where they were going.  He gave his life to the poor, in reflection of who Jesus was. 

Then there are the heroes of the faith of my own life.  My youth minister, Kevin Carroll, who was a retired drug dealer when he met Jesus, became an influence in my life like no one had before.  He never bough the church act, and continued to live a life that is real.  He was just about loving people.  He didn’t put on his Sunday school smile every time he walked in the door, and sometimes he was terribly, gut-wrenchingly honest. He would call me when I got arrogant, often commenting that his sole purpose on earth was to be my thorn in the flesh. 

Then there’s my mom and dad.  The Daddy I have used to give me a Bible story every night before I went to sleep.  I’ve watched my Dad through a bunch a fits, I’ve seen him blow it several times.  But one thing I know is that no matter what I’ve done, or what I will do, my Dad will always love me.  He will always appreciate me not for what I could become, I never was the athlete or the avid Mississippi State fan, and he loved me for who I am.  He walked a walk of integrity when so many preachers I know blow it with affairs.   He always has said, “The greatest gift I have ever given you son is a husband who loves his wife.”  Because of the earthly Dad I’ve been blessed with, I have a picture of who my Heavenly Daddy is.

And then there’s my mom.  She’s an object lesson in grace.  Though she may have come from one of the roughest family backgrounds, she abounds in love and grace towards me.  I’m one of the biggest screw-ups, leaving my mess wherever I go.  Yet she loves me, she picks up after me, and she cooks my food and washes my dishes.  Moms don’t come any cooler.  (I went on a date with her yesterday.)  But the thing about my mom that is coolest to me is her faithfulness to her Jesus.  She leaves for work at 7:15 every morning, but it’s a sure bet that she spent at least 30 minutes to an hour in quiet time with God.  Wow.  She’s a unsung hero that’s a melody in my ears. 

            The reason I say all this is that—God has called us to be his heroes.  We can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound; we aren’t faster than a speeding bullet… We have something greater than superpower.  We have righteousness.  Not a righteousness that comes from our own doing, we know that it’s non-existent.  No, we have become righteous by what Jesus has done on the cross, and what Jesus is doing in our everyday lives—making us more like him.

            Here the Apostle Paul gives examples of two heroes of the faith: Abraham, who all the Jews descended from, and King David, who God called “a man after His own heart.”  Paul tells us the story of how God took two ordinary dudes and made them heroes. 

Heroes Made In The Image of Jesus

·        God makes heroes by 1) Justification & 2) Sanctification

·        Sanctification is the process where God makes us righteous in character and in practice.[1]  It’s the process where God “takes filthy sinners and somehow makes them walk like Jesus.[2]” 

·        With Abraham & David, God gives us an example of His righteousness. 

This is a story about sanctification. 

Father Abraham

“What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? 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 CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.’”

Romans 4:1-3 (NASB Update)

·        By using Abraham, Paul is making an appeal to the Jews who claim him as their father. 

·        Abraham was revered by Jews to be the example of law keeping, although he could not do it.  (Genesis 12, 20)

·        Abraham did nothing to deserve righteousness.  It was credited to him because he had faith.  This is an example of the doctrine of justification through faith.  (Ephesians 2:8-9)

  “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due.”

Romans 4:4 (NASB Update)

·        An employer is obligated to hand out pay to an employee for the completion of a job or duty.  God is not obligated to give us eternal life because we are not able to complete the work.

·        In sin we have earned damnation (6:23), but God has given us His righteousness as a favor. 

A Man After God’s Own Heart[3]

“But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: ‘BLESSED ARE THOSE WHOSE LAWLESS DEEDS HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN, AND WHOSE SINS HAVE BEEN COVERED.  BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO’S SIN THE LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT.’”

Romans 4:5-8 (NASB Update)

·        God justifies the ungodly, crediting His righteousness to their account.

·        The Greek word for crediting implies, “to account him with a righteousness that does not inherently belong to him.”[4]

·        Because David acknowledged his sin, he knew how great God’s forgiveness really is. 

·        Even heroes fall short of God’s standard.  (2 Samuel 11, Psalm 51)

·        Justification gives us assurance of being forgiven;[5] we are blessed because God doesn’t hold our sin against us. 

“To ‘justify’ is to declare righteous as a judicial act.  But God does more than this for us.  He acts in our lives to actually make us righteous.”[6]

Lawrence O. Richards, Complete Bible Handbook

Everyone Has The Opportunity

“Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.”

Romans 4:9-11a (NIV)

·        Circumcision did not save Abraham, his faith in Jesus did.

·        Circumcision, like Baptism, was only an outward sign of his faith.

“So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.”

Romans 4:11b-12 (NIV)

·        Abraham is not only the hereditary father of the Jews, but also the spiritual father of all who believe in the Lord Jesus. 

·        Anyone can come to Jesus, Paul argues, even the uncircumcised Gentile.  Because Abraham himself was uncircumcised when he began a relationship with God.

“For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified; for the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation.”

Romans 4:13-15 (NASB Update)

·        Abraham would be heir of the world.  Genesis 15:5 says, “He took him outside and said, ‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’”

·        This didn’t happen because Abraham obeyed the Law.[7]  Genesis 12

·        It happened because of Abraham’s faith.

·        If we didn’t have the Law, we wouldn’t know our sin.    

Our Promise-Keeping God

“For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, (as it is written, ‘A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS HAVE I MADE YOU’) in the presence of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.”

Romans 4:16-17 (NASB Update)

·        Faith and grace go hand-in-hand.

·        God is omnipotent, all-powerful. 

Can you name some example of promises in Scripture?

“In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, ‘SO SHALL YOUR DESCENDANTS BE.’ Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.  Therefore IT WAS ALSO CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

Romans 4:18-22 (NASB Update)

·        God keeps His promises.

·        God is able to keep His promises.

·        Because God kept this promise to Abraham according to his faith, we can rest assured that He will keep His promise of eternal life for those who place their trust in the Lord Jesus.

When we seek to be like Jesus, we know that we must keep our promises.  Do not make a promise before man that you can’t keep—if you do, you are contradicting the very nature of who Jesus is.  With our time, lets not promise it all away.  Don’t promise more than you have.  That’s why scripture says repeatedly, its better not to make a vow than to make one and not keep it.  God however, keeps His promises.

“Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.”

Romans 4:23-25 (NASB Update)

·        Jesus took on our transgressions.  (Isaiah 53:6)

·        Because Jesus rose from the dead, we can be like in life and in eternity. 

JUSTIFICATION—the process where sinful human beings are made acceptable to Holy God.[8]