Pam, thank you for reading so helpfully for us this morning. That was a long passage to read, wasn’t it? And if you are joining us at this point in our way through romans, you might be thinking, what have I come to? Circumcision and the law and the promises and Abraham, and it’s all a bit overwhelming. Well, don’t worry, if you’ve got a Bible in front of you this morning, that will be a help. Those at home, if you’ve got a Bible on your lap as well, that would be good and useful. I’ll try and steer us through this chapter and point out some highlights on the way. I wonder, as we begin, have you ever travelled on an ancient road? Most of us probably have, you know, without realising it. Imagine you’re on a car journey from London to the south coast. I expect some of us have been on that very road. You start in Kennington, near the oval cricket ground, and you drive south through Brixton. You’re on the a 23. As you look out your window, you think, well, this is a nice road, isn’t it? A bit busy, but there’s no potholes here. And you drive speedily or slowly down through St Ritham, otherwise known as Streatham and Croydon, and into surrey through Caterham and Godston. There you are in Sussex. You go through Turner’s Hill, you pass by Ardingley, Hayward’s Heath, down through the centre of Burgess Hill. Few potholes now, but it’s not a bad road. And you think, maybe it’s a new road. It must be a new road, quite a good one. And so you go on down to the coast, but without realising it, you are travelling on a very ancient road. You’re travelling on the London to Brighton Way, part of a network of roads built by the Romans after they made London their capital around 47 AD. You can travel on an ancient road without realising it. And this morning, we are working our way through our Sunday mornings. We’re working through Paul’s letter to the Romans. The apostle Paul, God’s chosen ambassador and messenger, is writing to the group of christians at the heart of the Roman Empire in the city of Rome itself. And the church in Rome was a very cosmopolitan church, just like the capital city was. It was made up of jewish and gentile Christians. And Paul has already explained in his letter, if you’ve been with us as we’ve looked at it, that whether you’re a jewish background or a gentile background, whether you consider yourself to be a spiritual person or brand new to these things, it makes no difference at all, he says. All have sinned. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace. All of us, Paul has said, have turned away from God. All of us, without exception, are under his judgement and all of us need to be made right with him. One judgement, but one rescue. And that rescue comes through faith in Jesus Christ, as we heard a week or two ago. Well, Paul is going to go on to chapter five to explain what it is to live as those who’ve been reconciled to God. But first of all, in chapter four, he’s going to stop because there are some questions he needs to answer. Maybe there were some christians in Rome from a jewish background and they might have been getting a bit twitchy at this point. And they’re saying, what’s that, Paul? All we need to do to be right with God is put our trust in Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ alone. Is this some new teaching of yours? Is this a new road that you’re taking us on? A new thing for the New Testament? What about our father, Abraham? He’d be spinning in his grave now. Paul says, no, not a bit of it. Not at all. The road of faith alone is the original road. I’ve got a few headings. Here’s our first one. The road of faith alone is the original road. I came across the story of a turkish shipping magnate. His name was Marcian. He arrived in Rome about the year 130 AD and he started to share with this church and with its descendants some strange ideas, ideas that were so strange and shocking that the church there cast marcion out. They gave him all his money back and they sent him packing. What did he teach that was so bad? Well, he taught that the God of the Old Testament was a different God from the God of the New Testament. He taught that in the Old Testament, people were saved by keeping the law, but in the New Testament, they were saved by trusting in Jesus. Such a terrible teaching that the church recognised it for what it was and threw him out. But I wonder how many of us, when we read the Bibles, actually attempted to read it in the same way. Paul says, no, the way of faith alone is the original way, the only way to be saved. There are lots of pioneers, aren’t they, in our world? And I don’t know if you watched the landing on the moon a few days ago of that gadget, I’m not sure what it’s called. It fell over, which was a bit disappointing, really, but it’s still broadcasting information, so that’s a good thing. But maybe you can remember the first man on the moon. I don’t imagine you can remember the first person to circumnavigate the globe. But that was many years ago. But we remember pioneers. The first to do something. And Abraham was a pioneer, a pioneer of them all. Born in modern day Iraq, a nomad. God called him to leave behind his life everything he knew and to become the founder of a new nation. And the Jews honoured him as their pioneer, their ancestor. So what did Abraham discover about being right with God? Well, verse one. What does Abraham discover? The answer is verse three. Paul says, what does the scripture say? That’s always a good place to go for an answer. That’s our authority. What does the scripture say? Paul goes on, Abraham believed God. Abraham believed God. And it was counted to him as righteousness. Paul is going right back to the beginning of the Bible, right back to the first book of the Bible, to Genesis, chapter 15, when the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision and said, abraham, you’re 75 years old, but look at the stars. You are going to have more children than there are stars in the sky. And Abraham believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Faith alone. It’s the original road. Abraham trusted the Lord, and God chalked up righteousness against his name. He said, you are right with me because you trust me. The road became overlaid during the centuries that followed with all sorts of traditions and layers. Rubble and weeds that began to grow up through the paving stone. So in some places, it wasn’t even possible to see the original road. But Paul says, scrape all that away, and underneath the original road is a gospel road, the road of justification, being right with God by faith alone. The road of faith alone is the original road. Here’s the second heading, the road of faith alone. Heather, if one of you just click on the second slide, that’s it. Is the only road. The only road. Famous people sometimes have roads named after them, don’t they? William Allen Lane. You can tell me all about William Allen after the service, if you like, those who live nearby. I’m told that there are nearly a thousand roads in America named after the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. And the jewish people were proud of their father, Abraham. And they probably would have said, we live on Abraham’s road. That’s who we belong to. They thought that simply having Abraham’s blood in their veins was enough to make them right with God. But in John, chapter eight, Jesus corrects them. He says, no no, that’s not enough. It’s faith in me that counts, just as Abraham had it. And in this passage this morning, Paul is doing the same. He’s clearing the rubble away. He’s pulling up the weeds. He’s going back to the beginning and saying, this is the only road. Look down at verse four. If you have your bibles, open verse four. Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Paul’s saying, when you go to work, your boss doesn’t give you your wage as a gift. You’ve earned it. But it’s very different with salvation. Nobody earns their salvation. That is a gift. Abraham didn’t earn it. He wasn’t a good man. He was a wicked man, an ungodly man, a sinner like the rest of us. But he simply trusted the Lord, and God’s righteousness was credited to him. But how does that work? You say that’s not fair. How can God treat somebody who is wicked as if they were right with him? How can God simply say, you are right, you’re justified just because you trust in me? Well, verse six, Paul goes back to another Old Testament giant, King David. David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. And he quotes psalm 32 that we said together, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. I’m sure there are some here. There are some here this morning who were accountants, and we are in the world of accountancy. In this verse, David is doing his accounts, and he’s saying that his sin there in the debit column isn’t counted against him. It’s transferred over to Christ’s. And Christ pays for his sin at the cross. And in return, through the resurrection, Christ’s righteousness is transferred over to David’s column and is credited to him. And the way that that happens, the way that they are united so that that can happen is simply by faith. Faith unites us to Jesus Christ, and that great exchange can happen. Once you’ve understood that you can’t live the same way, that kind of faith doesn’t leave you in the same place. That kind of faith is an active faith. It leads to serving one another. It leads to good works. It leads to love. But those good works aren’t the basis of being right with God. They’re the result of it. The basis of it is faith in Jesus Christ. Faith only. There are signs and markers along this road. The road of faith alone. Here are some road signs. We’re going to have a little quiz. How do. Well, do you know your highway code? Can anyone remember what this sign means? It not no entry. I’m glad I’m not the only one. I looked this up this week, having driven since I was 17. It means no stopping, no waiting. How about this? It doesn’t mean I forgot to paint the road sign. Any ideas? No speed limit? Nice try, associate vicar. No vehicles except bicycles, which must be pushed. Did you know that? How about this one? This is one for the citizens of Plymouth, residents of Plymouth, no vehicles carrying explosives. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that sign by the side of the road. There were lots of signs along the road of faith alone. In the Old Testament, the sign of circumcision was one of them. And over the years, the meaning of the sign had got lost. People couldn’t remember what it was, what it meant. They knew that it was given to Abraham in Genesis, chapter 17. They knew that it marked out the jewish people as different from everybody else. But what did it mean? Verse eleven. Paul describes it. He says it was given to Abraham as a seal of the righteousness he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. Circumcision was a gospel sign. Circumcision showed that it wasn’t in our power or strength to produce our own salvation. Our own flesh could not fix us. We could only be made right with God by faith alone. So Abraham’s acceptance with God, did it happen before he was circumcised or after he was circumcised? Well, Paul says, look at the order. Can you see it there on the screen? Travel along that road from left to right. Genesis 15. He trusted the Lord and was made right with God. It wasn’t until Genesis 17 that he received that sign of circumcision 14 years later. Faith alone makes us right with God. What about that other sign along the road, the law of Moses? Did that make the Jews right with God? No. Verse 13 of our passage, the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. The law didn’t come for another 400 years. No. Faith alone was the original road, the only road, the only way to be right with God. Or what does all this mean for us? Circumcision and the law and righteousness and justification. What’s it got to do with us today in Linfield? Well, I guess it speaks to us today in this way. It says these signs that we have baptism, the Lord’s supper, that we’re about to share in together in a few moments time, confirmation in the Church of England, being on the electoral roll. These kind of things, they’re good things, but on their own they’re empty things, unless they are filled with a content, the content of faith in Christ alone. They’re good things, but as bare acts, they cannot make us right with God. The only thing that can make us right with God is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for our sins. We need that inward reality, and it comes by faith alone. So there we are, the original road, the only road. Here’s the last one, the open road. The open road. Sometimes you see this sign as you drive along. I’m not going to ask you what it means. I think it’s obvious, isn’t it? Only vehicles of a certain size can travel along this road. Imagine if that were true of the road to God, the road of salvation. Only certain people can travel along it. Imagine if, to be right with God, you had to be circumcised. Well, it would be a road that only the Jews could travel on. The rest of us would be excluded. Imagine if, in order to be right with God, you had to have lived a good life. If it were by the law, only the perfect could travel on that road. It would be an empty road. None of us could be on it. But the road to God isn’t like that. It is by faith alone, which means it’s an open road. Anyone can join it. Anybody can get onto this road. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from. Doesn’t matter whether you consider yourself religious or not, whether you’ve got your life together or whether your life has been a mess. If you have faith in Jesus Christ, you are on that road and you are part of Abraham’s family. But I’m not a very good christian. You say that doesn’t matter. Do you trust that Jesus died for you because you’re not a very good Christian? Then you’re on the road, the road of salvation. Faith alone. Does following Jesus shut down our lives and make us very narrow? Sometimes people fear that, don’t they, when they’re beginning to follow Jesus Christ? Does it make us close off and our world shrink? Well, it’s true. When Jesus talked about counting the cost of following him, he said the road was a narrow road. There’s a price to pay. But Christ himself doesn’t make life narrow. Faith in Jesus Christ opens up the world to us. Barriers that are all around us in the world get broken down. When you become a Christian, you join the most international family of faith the world has ever seen. A worldwide family that stretches way back to Abraham 40 centuries ago. Imagine that you’re part of it if you trust in Jesus. Did you know the average Anglican in the world is a black woman in her 30s, evangelical, living in subsaharan Africa? That’s the average evangelical, average anglican today. And I know that many here aren’t anglican. You wouldn’t consider yourself Church of England. We are Baptists and brethren and Methodists and new frontiers and all sorts of other labels. We are men and women, young and old, from all kinds of backgrounds. But we meet Sunday by Sunday and in our small groups, and we’re a family. And where else do you see that in this world? Such diversity, such inclusion, a family. We are the family of the Lord Jesus Christ, the descendant of Abraham. Because it’s an open road. Anyone can join it by putting their trust in Jesus Christ. Abraham trusted. Do you remember as we end, do you remember what happened? The Lord promised him a son. But the years pass and no son arrives. And Abraham is a hundred years old, and his wife Sarah is 90. I mean, it’s impossible. It is impossible for them to have children. But then one day, Abraham wheels Sarah into the hospital, and the person at the desk said, you’re looking for the geriatric ward. No. Maternity. We need maternity. The baby’s coming. The Lord fulfils his promise. But all those years, the scripture tells us Abraham didn’t weaken in faith when he considered his own body as dead since he was a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God. But he grew strong in his faith and gave glory to God, fully convinced that God could do what he had promised. That is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. That’s why he was right with God. It’s an open road. It’s a road for you and me. Verse 23 and 24. It includes anyone with a similar faith. You may have been a churchgoer all your life. You may be here for the first time this morning. It doesn’t matter. You may feel that your life is all together, or your life is in pieces. But simply relying on Jesus Christ and coming to him in faith makes the road. An open road. And you can be on it. These words, it was counted to him as righteousness were not written for Abraham’s sake alone, but for ours also. Paul says, it will be counted to us who believe in him, who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. So the road of faith alone is an open road. On it, there’s neither jew nor Gentile, male nor female, slave nor free. All the differences are there, but they’re not barriers anymore. That’s the point. They’re irrelevant to the question of who can be on the road. It has everything to do with faith alone. How much did Abraham know about all this? Well, in John, chapter eight, verse 56, Jesus said to his opponents, one day, your father, Abraham, rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He saw it and was glad. Abraham’s road had everything to do with faith in Jesus Christ. So as we end, I have to ask, are you on that road? Have you joined the road yet? Many of us have. Maybe many years ago, but perhaps not everybody here. And there’s a way to join that road, a slip road that takes us onto it. And that slip road has a cross beside it. Through the cross, we can join the highway to God. Through the cross, our sins can be laid on the Lord Jesus Christ. And his perfect record can be transferred over to us. And to cover over all our mistakes and all our sins and all our regrets. And you and I today can be declared right with God. We can go home right with God because we’ve joined at the cross by faith. In a few moments, we’re going to have communion together. We’re going to put our hands out and receive bread and wine as symbols, signs and seals of Jesus’ body and blood broken for us. And as we receive these seals, these symbols, you can receive the Lord Jesus Christ. Perhaps for the first time. Maybe you are on the road and you’ve been on it for many years, but are you travelling forwards? Are you moving forwards? Or have you pulled over to the side of the road and you’re watching the traffic whiz past the window? We need to keep going forward, keep moving forward. Along the road of faith alone, we help each other. So the original road, the only road, the open road. Next week, we’ll look at what it is to follow Jesus Christ in our study through Romans. Let’s pray together. Heavenly father, we thank you for this ancient road, this only road, this road that is open to us to put our trust in Jesus Christ and to be right with you. We pray that we might, all of us, be part of this journey, be walking together along this road with Father Abraham. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.