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The River ChurchSermons

Righteousness

Righteousness Illustrated, Pt. 1

Gary Wright · Sunday, 8 June 2025 · Romans 4:1-12 · 34:49 · 4,479 words

Romans S7 · 4:1-12 Burton

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

The sermon shows that righteousness comes by faith, not by works, through Abraham and David. Paul says Abraham was counted righteous because he believed God’s promise, before he was circumcised, and that righteousness is a gift, not a wage. The message stresses Scripture as the ultimate authority and says outward signs like circumcision or baptism do not save; only trust in God’s promise through Jesus does. The speaker calls listeners to put their faith in that promise and let God’s Word guide their lives.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

righteous 60 abraham 44 example 28 circumcised 13 count 16 faith 36 imputed 6 david 11 scripture 19 chose 9 land 8 mom 8

Topics

Righteousness 18 Abraham 16 Faith 12 Justification 3 Salvation 3 Sin 2 The Holy Spirit 1 The Flesh 1 Atonement & Sacrifice 1 The Gospel 1 Baptism 1

Scripture referenced 20

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 4 5:44 Romans 4:1-2 5:46 Romans 2 7:20 Matthew 5:48 8:00 Romans 4 9:52 Romans 4:3 9:52 Psalms 119:105 12:36 James 1:22 13:18 Genesis 15 13:58 Genesis 15:1-6 14:02 Genesis 12 14:18 Romans 15 15:19 Romans 1 18:57 Romans 1:16-17 19:04 Romans 1:4 20:29 Romans 1:5 21:37 Romans 1:5 21:38 Romans 4:6-8 25:02 Psalms 32:1-2 25:17 Romans 4:9-12 28:25

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

So today in our passage, Paul is going to use some Old Testament patriarchs as an example

to what he's been talking about, in examples of righteousness.

Now, I thought a lot about examples this week, and we use examples, our teachers in school

use examples, like when you're in math, and I hate to remind you of math, I mean it's

kind of a drag for me to think back to that, but teachers use examples in math to teach

us.

I know I've been a mechanic my whole life, and I see these, like when I'm looking at

service manuals, there's illustrations in there, there's examples to teach us.

Examples are there to teach us things, would you agree?

A lot of times, and I would say most of us, have an example in our lives, a role model,

who would say they had a role model, or have a role model in your life?

Most people do, and I've talked about this person in my life before, but I can't say

enough about her.

My mom was my role model, she was my example.

My mom was a Christian, she became a Christian as a young lady, and she served the Lord her

She was passionate, she served in the church, she raised us, me and my three siblings,

up to know Jesus, and not only to teach us about it, but she exampled what it looks

like to be a follower of Christ.

And listen, when we were growing up, my dad was not involved in church, he was in a place

where he wasn't with the Lord at that time, he wasn't walking with the Lord at that time.

My mom did this on her own, and I've said this before as well, looking back now, it must

have been so difficult.

It was so difficult for her.

I cannot imagine trying to lead my kids in a certain way without my wife, Kim, alongside

doing the same thing.

It was a challenge, but my mom never gave up, because she was that much of an example.

She was an example to her siblings, she had five of them.

She was an example to her mom and dad, and she was an example to my cousins, because

when she passed away...

You should have heard them stand up and talk about her, and how they looked to her, and

she even took care of some of them when they were struggling.

She took them into our home.

That is what an example of Christ looks like, and I don't know, I just, I'm amazed by my

But today, Paul is using a patriarch, he's actually going to talk about two patriarchs,

but the main one he's going to be talking about is a guy named...

Abraham, and we studied Abraham back in family month, back in February, so some of this will

be a little review, possibly, but Abraham was, or is, an extreme Old Testament example

of a godly man.

He was a righteous man, and he was acceptable to the Lord.

He is an example, and he's not only an example to Christians, but he's also...

really a huge example to Jewish people, and also even to Islam, okay?

He chose Abraham, all right?

And the Jews wanted to believe that the reason God chose Abraham...

Let me back up.

God chose Abraham to be the patriarch who started, from his offspring, the nation of

Israel began, okay?

And God called him into that role.

But later on, in Jesus' day...

In Paul's day, and even now, the Jews believe that the reason God chose Abraham is because

he was already righteous.

He was doing the works of God, so God chose him.

But if we read the scripture, we find out that is not the case.

Because Abraham, first of all, he was not a Jew to begin with, right?

He ended up being the first Jew.

He was a pagan who worshiped...

He worshiped the moon, him and his family.

He lived in a pagan land, and God chose him and said, hey, I want you to leave here and

go here.

I'm not going to tell you where you're going.

Just pack up and start heading that way, and Abraham did it.

He had faith enough to do that.

So that's who Abraham is.

So like I said, he wasn't a Jew.

He wasn't righteous.

He was a Gentile, but God chose him anyways, okay?

And in Romans 4...

Or verses 1 and 2, Paul says this.

Remember, he's speaking of Abraham as an example of righteousness and how we obtain righteousness.

So he asks a question.

He says,

What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

So basically what Paul...

The question he's asking here, he's saying...

Since Abraham is the extreme example of righteousness, let's look carefully at him on the basis of righteousness.

Let's look carefully.

And he uses the word, he says, for if Abraham was justified.

He uses the word justified, and I want to be clear that we understand what that is.

Last week we talked about righteousness.

Righteousness is when we are in right standing with God.

We're right before God.

Justified means...

Justified means to be declared righteous.

So I hope that makes sense.

Justified means to be declared righteous.

Okay?

So, was Abraham justified by his works or by something else?

That's the question that we want to answer here.

So, if Abraham...

Paul says this at the end of chapter 2.

If Abraham could be righteous by something he did, he would have a reason to brag about it.

Wouldn't you say?

But he says, not before God.

Because that's not what the Bible says.

The truth is, Abraham had nothing to brag about.

Neither do any of us.

For us to be righteous, and for Abraham to be righteous, God requires perfection.

Jesus even speaks about this in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, verse 48.

He says,

For you, therefore, must be perfect.

As your heavenly Father is perfect.

Now, he said that, not so we should strive for perfection.

But he said that to show us that we can't be perfect on our own.

We need something else.

Abraham was not perfect by any means.

And if you study the book of Genesis, and all about Abraham,

you realize right away that he was far from perfect.

He made a lot of mistakes.

And he...

He liked to take situations or hardships into his own hands, instead of trusting God.

And on two occasions, he lied about his wife.

And he told her to lie too, and said,

Tell people that you're my sister, so we won't be killed.

Right?

Two times he did that.

Also, God had promised a child to Abraham and his wife, Sarah.

And it hadn't happened.

Ten years had went by.

And it happened.

And it happened.

And it happened.

And it happened.

And it hadn't happened.

So Abraham, Ham, and Sarah took matters into their own hands.

And Abraham had a child with Sarah's servant, Hagar.

But that wasn't God's plan.

He was not a righteous man on his own.

He was far from it.

But I love what Paul says in verse 3, the next verse in Romans.

Chapter 4, verse 3.

He says, Paul says, if you want to know the truth about Abraham's righteousness,

we need to look at something.

And I'm going to look at something.

Honestly, I'm going to encourage you to do this too.

You need to look at Scripture.

What does Scripture say?

That's what Paul says.

Let's read the verse.

It says, for what does Scripture say?

And then he answers the question.

Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.

It had nothing to do with anything he did.

It was counted to him as righteous.

What does Scripture say?

To look at Scripture.

We believe things.

And we may even read the Scripture.

And I've had people say, I know what the Scripture says, but I believe this.

But here's the truth.

Our beliefs don't line up with Scripture.

They are untrue.

We don't have a leg to stand on.

We don't have an argument.

Because the Scripture is the ultimate authority.

Look, we may say, how do I know I can trust God?

What does the Scripture say?

Should I be serving in some capacity?

What does the Scripture say?

Can I live in sin as a Christian?

What does Scripture say?

How do we get to heaven?

What does Scripture say?

Do you want to know the truth?

That's the truth.

It's the Scripture.

It's the ultimate authority because it is God's Word.

And because it's God's Word, it's the only source of truth that we can rely on.

We can carry around this book.

We can drag it with us.

We can carry it with us to church.

But if we don't open it up, it is useless to us.

Right?

It is useless to us.

We can listen.

We have the advantage that people in the past haven't had.

My phone will read me the Scripture.

I don't even have to read it.

And I do that sometimes.

Because I can listen to a whole chapter in a few minutes instead of reading it.

But we have multiple ways to do that.

But listen, we can carry this thing, but it means nothing.

The book.

The book of Psalms says in Psalms 119.105.

I don't have this up on the screen.

It says 119.105.

It says,

Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

But it's like a flashlight.

But if we don't open it up, it's a flashlight that's not turned on.

And we can open this up and we can read the truth.

But if we don't apply it, it is useless.

The book of James says this.

This is James 1.22.

It says,

But be doers of the word and not just hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

Look, we're deceiving ourselves if we don't apply the truth to our lives.

Why do I stand up here every week?

First of all, the Lord has changed me and I want you to experience that.

But I'm up here because I lost my train of thought.

I want you to know the truth.

That's why I'm up here, right?

What does Scripture say about Abraham's righteousness?

And I'm not going to turn to Genesis 15.

That's where Paul's quoting from.

But I encourage you to read Genesis chapter 15 verses 1 through 6.

Because this is how we become righteous still today.

God hasn't changed.

But anyways, Genesis, first of all, you have to know this.

In Genesis chapter 12, God called Abraham.

And I told you that his name was Abram back then.

God changed his name later.

But he told him to leave and go to the land where I told you about.

But God promised that when you do this, he made him really three promises.

He says, I'm going to make your family a great nation.

His wife couldn't have babies.

How's that going to happen?

Only God.

He said, and he promised blessings.

And he promised to give them a land of their own.

And the land that he was going to would eventually become the land.

But here's what's going on.

Ten years has went by.

No land.

They're in this land.

But they're camping there.

They're like foreigners there.

No land.

But the main thing was the child.

He was depressed by it.

And if we look at chapter 15 that I encourage you to read, it says,

God comes to Abraham in a vision.

And God says this.

He says this.

Told him, don't fear.

He says, I am your shield.

Your reward will be great.

And Abraham, like all of us, starts to complain.

He starts to question God.

He says,

God, how am I going to be great?

My servant is going to be the heir of my household.

And God says, your servant will not be the heir of your household.

And I love this part.

He tells God, probably because I love the outdoors.

He tells Abraham, he says, go outside and look up at the stars.

And count them if you can.

Obviously, you can't count them.

I don't know if you've ever tried.

Especially if you're up north where you can see.

I don't know how far.

But the Lord told Abraham, your offspring will be more numerous than that.

Abraham probably said, we're going to have to add on to the house, right?

Abraham believed God at that point.

He had faith.

And that's where Paul came up with this.

He had faith.

And it was counted to him as righteous.

The word counted is a very important word in our passage.

It's actually mentioned eight times.

And it means this.

And that's a big word.

And I did give you the definition for this last week.

But I will again.

It's a financial term that means to add to your account.

Like if I owed you 50 bucks, I could Venmo you and add it to your account.

Imputed means God applies righteousness to our account.

And that's what happened here with Abraham.

God made a promise.

Abraham believed God.

And God said,

I'm going to send you a Venmo payment.

No.

He said, you're righteous.

I know you're a sinner.

But to me, because of this faith, you are considered righteous.

Isn't that wonderful?

This is a picture how we are saved.

This is a picture how we become righteous today.

Because Abraham knew that God was going to do something.

That he was looking forward to the Messiah, Jesus.

He didn't know what was going to happen.

But he knew God had a plan.

And he trusted that plan.

He had faith.

And he was considered righteous.

And we are looking back at the Messiah.

We look back at the cross.

And we have faith.

Because we know what God did.

We know that Jesus came and he died for our sins.

And with that faith, we were actually believing a promise from God.

And we are saved.

And we are considered righteous through that faith.

The same thing.

Old Testament patriarchs are saved.

The same way we are.

Through faith.

We are imputed with righteousness.

The same way Abraham was.

Through faith in Jesus.

Actually, the main passage in Romans from chapter 1.

Grant read this the first week we started this.

This is Romans 1, 16 and 17.

Paul says,

I am not ashamed of the gospel.

For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

To the Jew first.

Then and also to the Greek.

For it is the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

We are only righteous because of faith.

Faith in Jesus.

When we have faith in Jesus, we are imputed with God's righteousness.

God applies it to our account.

And when God looks on us, sinners, he sees the righteousness of his son.

Through faith.

God looks at us as perfect.

Because of what Jesus did.

And because of our faith.

Last week we talked about righteousness or grace being a gift from God.

If we have to work for our righteousness, it is no longer a gift.

And that's exactly what Paul says in verse 4.

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift.

But as a gift.

As his due.

How many of you have a job and work?

Or have worked?

How many of you like going to work?

You do?

I actually like my job now too.

But back when I was working in the secular world, I could say I didn't like it.

I didn't go to work to make friends.

Even though I made friends.

I didn't go to work.

I only went to work for one reason.

To provide for my family.

Look.

And I could brag about my job.

And if I was good at it or whatever.

I was working and something was owed to me.

Righteousness is not that way.

It's a gift from God.

It has nothing to do with us.

It is him working.

Paul in verse 5.

Look at verse 5.

It says,

And to the one who does not work but believes in him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteous.

Did you notice who he justifies?

Who are the ungodly?

Raise your hand.

Because you are.

So am I.

Right?

We are all ungodly.

God sent his son to justify the ungodly.

To us.

We're all ungodly.

And we all are justified the same way.

Through faith in Jesus.

Just like Chuck said.

We have a bridge to walk across the Grand Canyon.

The cross.

We have to understand that we're sinners before we can come to that place though.

We do.

531.

Jesus just called his disciple Matthew.

His name was Levi before he knew Jesus.

But he called him.

He said, come follow me.

Matthew said, all right.

He dropped everything and he went.

And Jesus went and had dinner with him and all of his tax collector buddies.

Matthew was a tax collector.

Which was a despised person to the Israelites.

Because they were a traitor.

And they were stealing from their own people by collecting taxes.

For the Romans.

And they skimmed a little bit for themselves.

They were thieves and traitors.

They were hated.

But this is what Jesus says.

The Pharisees and the religious people were complaining.

Why is he having dinner with these sinners?

And Jesus answered and said to them.

Those who are well have no need of a physician.

But those who are sick.

They have not come to call the righteous but the sinner to repentance.

If he didn't come.

He didn't come for us who think we're all shiny and good.

He came for us who know that we need something else.

He came for the lost sinner.

He wants to save us.

We only know that.

Because God sends his Holy Spirit to tell us.

The Holy Spirit might be talking to you right now.

You may be feeling convicted.

And that is the Holy Spirit speaking to you.

Look.

The Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit.

He's going to convict you.

He's the one who sent his son to die on the cross.

And by the way.

His son is God too.

God died on the cross.

God did everything.

All we have to do is believe the promise.

It gives a second example in this passage of righteousness apart from works.

And it's David.

Excuse me for a second.

In Romans 4, 6-8.

Paul writes this.

Just as David.

Paul also speaks of blessings of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.

He says blessed.

And he's quoting this from Psalm 32 verses 1 and 2.

And David wrote this.

Blessed are those lawless deeds.

Let me restart over.

Blessed are those lawless deeds are forgiven and those sins are covered.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.

It says.

Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.

By no means.

But this is what God called David.

A man after his own heart.

A man after his own heart.

That's what he called David.

Yet David was a sinner.

I mean he did some horrible things.

While David's men.

David was the king of Israel.

While his men were fighting in a battle.

David stayed back in his palace.

And he saw one of his officer's wives.

Bathing on a rooftop.

He was above her in the palace.

And he could see her.

David coveted her.

He wanted her.

And he ended up seducing her.

Committing adultery.

And she became pregnant.

Uriah came back.

He called for Uriah to come back.

So they would be together.

And he could blame the pregnancy on that.

But Uriah wouldn't do that.

Because he was guilty.

Because the men were fighting.

And he wasn't there.

So what did David do?

He arranged for Uriah to be murdered.

He committed adultery.

He killed a man.

I've done some bad things.

But I haven't ever killed anybody.

Thank the Lord.

A man after God's own heart.

What?

What made him a man after God's own heart?

There is no sin that cannot be forgiven.

There is no sin that can't be forgiven.

When we come to Jesus.

That chasm from earth to heaven is huge.

That chasm from earth to heaven is huge.

And we can only come to it through faith.

It doesn't matter what we do.

We can be forgiven for that.

Some hypothetical questions.

And I'm going to read this.

And it's going to be really confusing.

But I'm going to ask you to memorize it.

And repeat it to me after.

No, not really.

So I'm going to read this.

And then I'm going to explain it really quickly.

So this is Romans 4, 9-12.

It says,

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised?

Or also for the uncircumcised?

For we say that faith is not for the circumcised.

Faith is counted to Abraham as righteousness.

How then is it counted to him?

Was it before or after he had been circumcised?

It was not after, but before he was circumcised.

This part right here is really, listen to this.

He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith

while he was still uncircumcised.

The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe,

without being circumcised.

So that righteousness would be counted to them as well.

And to make him the father of the circumcised,

who are not merely circumcised,

but are also walking the footsteps of faith

that our father Abraham had for he was circumcised.

Alright, that's a lot of words.

Listen, first thing you have to know,

when he says circumcised, he's talking about the Jews.

When he talks about uncircumcised,

he's talking about everybody else.

Okay?

So, what he's saying is,

the first question is this.

Is this blessing of righteousness only for the Jews?

And Paul answers that question with a question.

He says, when was Abraham circumcised?

He was circumcised after he received the righteousness.

Look, the circumcision was to prove that he had the righteousness.

It was an outward sign of something that happened on the inside.

And we've talked about this already.

But, it was 14 years.

From the time he was counted as righteous.

From the time he was imputed righteous.

Till he was circumcised.

So, the Jews, they thought,

if I'm circumcised, I'm guaranteed to go to heaven

because I'm a child of God.

But really, that was just an outward sign

of what was supposed to have already happened inside.

Paul's point was that righteousness,

he's proven that Abraham was righteous

and was only going to heaven

because of the righteousness.

He was a follower of faith.

Circumcision was this outward sign.

Like that verse I told you to remember.

It was an outward sign of what happened.

We can put faith in outward signs today too.

Actually, baptism is a lot like circumcision.

I don't have to cut you.

But when we are baptized,

we are not being saved from that.

When we're baptized, we're saying,

I'm a follower of Jesus

and I'm telling everybody that I'm a follower of Jesus.

It's an outward sign.

And we can take baptism and think,

that's how we become saved.

But it's not.

Is baptism a good thing?

Is it commanded by God?

But it does not save us.

We're saved from faith.

Baptism just shows that.

Sometimes we think communion or confirmation saves us.

It does not.

It's only faith.

It's only faith.

We can get all dressed up.

Matter of fact, I went to a wedding yesterday, Kim and I.

We got all dressed up.

We were all shiny.

Had nice shoes on.

Not these old things.

But on the inside, I was the same old Gary.

I was shiny on the outside.

But on the inside, I was the same.

We don't have faith in Jesus.

It don't matter what we put on, what we do.

We're still the same old person who needs Jesus.

I want to recap real quick as I close off what we've talked about today.

The most important thing I want you to...

One of the most important things is

Grifter is the ultimate authority.

We can do anything.

We can say what we want or what we believe.

But if it doesn't line up with God's word, it's not the truth.

God's word is the ultimate truth.

Secondly, righteousness.

We cannot be good enough.

We cannot do good things to become righteous.

The Jews believed Abraham was righteous because of his works.

And God chose him.

That's not what happened.

And because Abraham believed the promise, had faith,

God imputed righteousness.

Paul uses examples of Abraham and David from Scripture

to prove where righteousness truly comes from.

We have examples in our life.

I had my mom.

My mom showed me what it looked like to follow Jesus.

But here's the deal.

These earthly examples, we can learn from them.

I mean, that's why they're in Scripture.

We can learn from the good things.

We can learn how they truly became righteous.

We can learn from their mistakes.

Even my mom's.

I can learn from her mistakes.

But the true example we need to be following is Jesus Christ.

He's the ultimate example.

He was perfect.

It all boils down to this.

We're all sinners.

And we need to be justified.

We need to be declared righteous by God.

We can believe God's promise that through faith in his son Jesus

that we will be righteous.

Or we can continue going through this life

trying to be good enough on our own.

Only through that faith are we going to be justified.