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The River ChurchSermons

Righteousness

Faith

Ryan Story · Sunday, 15 June 2025 · Romans 4:13-25 · 31:08 · 5,659 words

Romans S8 · 4:13-25

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Using a personal story of ignoring illness, the sermon shows how everyday passivity mirrors spiritual passivity. It then turns to Romans 4, emphasizing that Abraham’s righteousness came through faith, not rule‑following, and that obedience flows from faith, not the reverse. The speaker challenges listeners to move beyond a passive knowledge of God to an active, trusting relationship with Jesus. He asks each person to examine whether their faith is truly transformative and to stop being passive in their walk with God, family, and work.

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.

faith 104 passive 32 real 25 passivity 7 abraham 24 logical 9 change 29 waver 9 rule 12 conclusion 8 depend 8 denial 4

Topics

Faith 21 Abraham 8 Obedience 4 Righteousness 3 Sin 2 Salvation 2 The Gospel 1 The Wrath of God 1 Grace 1 The Law 1

Scripture referenced 17

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

Romans 4 5:51 Romans 4 6:18 Romans 4 6:49 Romans 4 7:08 Romans 4:3 7:08 Romans 4 7:54 Romans 4:3 7:54 John 3 8:11 Romans 4:3 9:54 Romans 4 13:23 Romans 4 16:25 Romans 4 16:43 Romans 4:16 16:47 Romans 4:18 23:21 Romans 4:18 23:35 Romans 4:16 26:24 Romans 4:23 27:35

Transcript

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

A couple weeks ago, it was about Memorial Day weekend, I had the opportunity to preach

a holly, and man, like, a young man, strong body, like, I felt really, really good about

myself.

I got done preaching, felt good, hung out on that Sunday, and then for whatever reason,

like, got to, like, four o'clock, like, that Sunday before Memorial Day, and I was like,

man, like, starting to feel a little sick.

And again, like, dudes know this, I mean, if we get a little sick, I mean, that's enough

to take down a grown whale.

Like, again, like, a little cough for a guy can just, like, end an entire populace, but

I'm like, man, I'm not, I'm not feeling good.

And then as the day kind of started going, I got to night, and I was like, oh, man, I

was like, my wife got sick this week, kids have been sick the last couple weeks, I was

like, oh, man, like, I thought I was, like, Matrix Neo, like, dodging, like, the sickness

of my house, like, I thought I got out of it, but no, I was like, man, I'm coming down

with something, and I was like, man, this, this, this, this isn't good.

So then all Memorial Day, I just laid in bed, and I'd love to say I wasn't a complete baby

about it, but again, like, if you ever had the man flu.

Man flu's legit.

I was down.

And again, so I'm sitting there, and again, like, in me, I'm just like, all right, I'll

just sleep it off, and for me, like, I always do something, like, I'll sweat it out, and

I always go with the mentality, like, either the germ is going to die, or I'm going to

die, so hoodie, sweatpants, socks, hoodie over, nine blankets, and I'm just like, let's

go.

And I was like, I'm going to kick this thing.

But for me, the hard thing that I kind of kept going through my head is my denial about,

like, I actually need help, made me extremely passive.

I was like, I'm going to kick this thing.

Like, I didn't actually want to, like, ask for help.

I didn't actually want to get medicine, so I just, like, again, like, I'm just going

to suffocate this thing, but my denial made me passive, and again, like, I just wrote

it out, and finally, again, my wife gave me some advice, or ultimatums, one or the other,

to actually go to an urgent care, and actually, like, you need to actually see what's going

on.

The urgent care, and again, I ended up, yes, I actually was sick, and I actually needed,

like, an antibiotic, so I was like, okay.

Went there, they gave me a little pill, and I'm like, sweet, and I went home, and, you

know, the next day, I woke up, and again, like, prescription got filled at the Kroger,

but it was too late for me to pick it up that night, but the next day, I actually had, like,

a work event, so I was like, yeah, nothing I can do about it.

I got to go to this work event.

Kathy looks at me, she's like, you're still sick?

You haven't quite kicked this thing?

Like, why are you not trying to get your prescription?

It's like, I'll be fine, and I went right back to that thing, so my denial about, again,

I actually need to rest, and take care of my body, and I actually should take some medicine,

like, again, that flew out the window after day one, even though I took the advice to go

the doctor but again once again my passivity my denial made me passive so again i i'll just get

it friday so once again my my passiveness just kind of like didn't want to actually deal with

the real issue and then once again i was informed that i was not making the right answer by my wife

it's like oh okay apparently you need medicine so despite me saying i'm fine didn't actually make me

fine and i think for dudes like again we've all probably been there when we get hurt we get cut

we we live there like no no i'm good no no i'm fine no you're not and while i started thinking

on this more and more and more i i realized like again like i was overwhelmed i was a man i was

tired like again it was just stressful season of life like that passivity of not wanting to deal

with the real issue just kept showing up and i actually kind of like started like pondering on

this because again like god god kind of showed me some truth moreover like kicked my head in by

showing me this but i i i think that this happens so often in our walks with god we we

we we deny that there's actually a problem we turn around and sometimes we'll like sticker but

but i have faith in it and we deny that again we're actually going to like not look at the

problem so for me again being passive in anything walks with god most important relationship that

we have on this side of eternity and the next side of eternity because that flows into everything

else but our walks with jesus are our marriages if we're passive in our marriages not actually

dealing with stuff we're not actually addressing things if we're not having hard conversations like

that stuff can mount up and it can it can become detrimental if you're passive in parenting again

you can say all you want about gentle parenting and i'm all for loving my kid but in the same

right like again like we we have to look at kids sometimes and we got to correct them we have to

address things that that aren't going because again the kid kid asked two questions in life

am i loved and can i get away with this we constantly have to be answering those two

questions as a parent and sometimes you got to look at a kid and be like no you can't get away

with this can't be passive on to look at again things that we can be passive on is developing

in your walk with god

when was the last time we opened up our bible i'll get to it tomorrow no you won't because

tomorrow's tomorrow becomes tomorrow's tomorrow tomorrow becomes tomorrow's tomorrow but we

cannot be passive in our walks with god but also we can't be passive and work that'll go in and we

got to work hard but my boss is this yeah he might be but he's the boss and again we don't get mad

when bosses give us the paycheck at the end of the week we can't be passive in any of those things

but i looked at myself because i was overwhelmed because i was in a mess day because i was tired

because i was a stress like i i looked at myself and i was allowing myself to be passive passivity

ought not be tolerated

because the thing that i realized is change only comes from action you can't just lay down and

expect change you can't just sit around and wait for it to show up there there has to be a movement

there has to be something that we add to the equation so for me like i i feel this got cemented

in my heart uh as i was reading romans chapter four so if you got your bibles feel free to

join me in romans four i know gary's been kind of walking through romans and in romans is a hefty

study so i'm going to challenge you if you haven't been following along with us to be reading romans

you're not too far gone i think a lot of times people miss goals and they're like oh i i missed

four so i can't get to 16 like no no you missed four you're you're one fourth of the way out you

can catch up and you can keep going but in romans chapter four paul has been building this case of

just this this logical and this scriptural case about our need for jesus like he's combating

theology and he's combating like roman logic and he he gets to this place where again both gentiles

and jews are in one box and that that's kind of like where he starts the first

three chapters in this just this phrase all have sinned all have fallen short all need jesus and he

he lands there but then he starts picking up in chapter four five and six he's going to pick up

with kind of like a another conversation about yes we've all fallen but we need this thing called

faith to have justification we need this thing called faith to have righteousness we need this

thing to have faith in order to have peace with god and that's really where he starts going in

the next couple chapters and i love romans chapter four verse three because he uses abraham

as an example and i love when the bible uses real humans as examples because it's really hard when

we read the gospel and you see like jesus being jesus and you know it's jesus like none of us can

meet that standard no one's even close so when you see jesus flipping over tables you're like

can i flip over a table at dinner time like no you can't because you can't do that righteously

you see jesus lovingly rebuking people like it's so hard to look at jesus even when he's being like

a little bit firm with guys because he can do it without sin

but when the bible uses people they're just like us they're sinful they're carnal they're selfish

and in romans chapter four verse three uh again paul says this is and what does the scripture say

and i absolutely love that to go back what does the bible say i absolutely love that again free

commercial read your bible but again what does scripture say abraham believed god was counting

to him righteousness abraham had faith in god he believed this is the john 3 16 also loved

god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes believes

faith same word but because abraham believed in god counted him as righteousness what is righteousness

being in the right standing with god being in the right relationship being saved being able to stand

before god almighty and god looks at you and be like you're good not because of what you did i did

abraham was counted as righteous faith but then paul turns around and he blasts something that i

think we go to so often rules i got the opportunity to do an outreach in downtown holly with a couple

of our staff and i was walking around and uh two of my friends were there and they were like

i don't like the rules and i'm sitting there i was like yeah neither do i person looked at me and

they're like what and she's like he's one of our elders kid's mind was blown tattooed up anime

comic books bird all that stuff again sitting with a tank top yeah the rules the rules we run

into a situation where again god's word more paul turns around and he brings readers attention

back to abraham's story and it wasn't abraham's rule following that made him righteous abraham's

romans chapter 4 verse 3 and it says for the promise to abraham and his offspring that he

would be heirs to the word did not come through the law did not come from rules did not come from

rule following did not come from that but through the righteousness of faith so often we think if

we're obedient enough that brings us in a better standard with god it's not a multi-marketing pyramid

scheme here it's not chucky cheese where if i do enough good deeds i'm in a better spot with god

no we're righteous because of faith same way we don't lose stock in god if we turn around and

we're not being this thing called the imputed righteousness of christ now is your relationship

as good with god if you're living in sin no in the same right we have to understand that our

righteousness comes from what we believe right standing with god comes from what we confess

believe in our heart not the rule following and the rest of the verse says for it is

uh it is the inheritance of the law who are to be heirs faith is null and the promise is void if

we're going based off rule following for the law brings wrath but where there is no law there is

no transgression he's not throwing the law out he's saying hey the law shows that we're all sinful

the law shows that we're unable to keep the rules nobody can keep all the rules and the point

in israel there's like steps there there's markers on the ground to count how many steps you could

take on the sabbath you're 75 steps on the sabbath and before you do

before you break the law and you're no longer arrested but if you take 76 steps oh the wrath

of god is coming for you like what are we doing our relationship with god is not ever meant to be

built on abraham shows that with abraham we see god's promise to god's promise become real not

because of abraham's ability to follow rules but god's promise becomes real in abraham's life

because again god's promise brought abraham to a place where he got to be in the right standing

with god why because abraham believed him when he said come out of er when he said follow me when he

said i'm going to make you uh again the father of a great nation when he said everything it wasn't

because abraham did the the actions it was because faith obedience is faith debated so often we get

this mixed up we turn around and we we almost put the cart before the horse sometimes and again

obedience doesn't activate faith faith activates obedience so if you want to activate faith you

want to know why you struggle to follow the lord if you struggle in your relationship with jesus

it starts with faith your relationship with him because if you're just being obedient for the

sake of obedience that's moralism that's just good deeds and so often we look at christianity

and we're like oh active christian just just do the good thing smile and open doors no no faith

faith in jesus motivates every single action we have and that's what the bible is trying to say

it's faith this is why i absolutely love the first seven words in romans 4 16 that's is why it depends

on faith so often we forget that again from the beginning in order to have a right standing with

god righteous living depends on faith with god believing in god knowing god so often again we we

forget god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever

believes not whoever does the good things whoever acts it out well whoever's earning the chucky

cheese tokens it's whoever believes but while sitting on this first though like my heart got

really heavily convicted do i have real faith do i just have a passive knowledge do i have a passive

understanding do i have a passive logical conclusion about who god is because similar with

what i said about me being sick like i i i i had this passive knowledge a passive understand this

this passive logical conclusion that i have a passive logical conclusion that i have a passive

logical conclusion that this too shall pass i'll be fine i don't actually have to address the problem

like i kind of said earlier passivity ought not be tolerated it doesn't move you forward it doesn't

help you get through that sickness it doesn't help you through that difficulty and sadly i feel many

christians live in this passivity they live in this passivity with knowledge because they're

just like i have i have a general idea about who got it this passivity about an understanding no

no i'll tell you what the bible says and it's just like a bunch of like tiktok quotes it's actually

not biblical or they just have a logical conclusion and we call that faith

it's not faith because if you really want to look at faith as faith will drive your obedience

and because you're obedient you'll draw closer to god for so many of us we ask these questions

and we wonder why god is so far you have to look at faith we wonder why god is so quiet

and again there are seasons of god being quiet beautiful thing when you look at the bible anytime

somebody is quiet the person is constantly seeking the lord we also can under underwire

spiritual life has just become overwhelmed or mad or tired instead of just riding it out instead of

actually looking at what's going on we we have to go back and we have to look at our faith you have

to look at what we're doing and we have to look at what we're doing and we have to look at what we're

putting our faith in who we're putting our faith in how are we actually doing that because faith

is not an inactive thing i think so often we make faith inactive no no faith is never meant to be

inactive because faith will always be active in your obedience to the lord but if you look at your

obedience is it active but while i was reading through the rest of romans chapter 4 god's word

just kind of used abraham to just kind of show the realness of what faith is and i'd like to kind of

throw that as like some benchmarks for you like is my faith real how can i tell it doesn't do me any

good like hey is your faith active is your faith living hey have a good sunday have a good father's

what are some check marks here so number one the first thing that we see is in romans chapter 4

verse 16 this is this is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on race and be

guaranteed to all of his offspring not only uh to the heir to the law but also for those who share

in the faith of abraham who is the father of us this is a little bit of that like how how is it

that god's blessing to abraham blessed every nation because eventually jesus came out of that

so that's that's where he's kind of going on that that verse but what's one of the first things we

when we never forget that right standing with god is because of faith and nothing else we can't

receive salvation by any other thing than grace you cannot earn our salvation you cannot get our

salvation one of the first things we've got to understand is faith is related to grace in the

same way that works is related to law during that in the commentary this week grace and law are

principles and faith and works are the means in which those we we pursue those things in our

relationship with god but one of the things that can happen so often is when we forget the fact

that again it's it's

by grace we've been saved so often we think i earned this i earned this by tithing or this by

serving i did the nursery a couple times i served at vbs i did camp once ryan i earned my salvation

i'm sitting three seats away from christ oh we did not earn and we did nothing to boast about it

he did everything on the cross he died he was pierced he was bruised he was mocked he bled he

died he rose again we did nothing in this equation to bring

salvation to ourselves other than and even in that i could argue whether or not we did anything

because again god moved in our heart before we even could i'm not going to go too calvinistic

but in the same right again track the line here this is what i think so happens do we have real

faith when you have real faith you constantly come back to the fact that you have from jesus

you did not earn it earn it don't deserve it that's how good he is sometimes forget that

sometimes lose that passive faith tries to earn because it realizes that you're having a short

coming in that actual real faith part but

real faith real confess and believe that jesus christ is lord realizes how much you constantly

need him and you did nothing to add to that equation the second thing that we see is real

faith changes this is the message that the real church doesn't like here there are people who show

up to church and it's gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna come as i am and i'm gonna stay as i am that is

not the gospel and you don't see that anywhere in scripture it is show up as a broken and busted

and rebellious as you possibly can but there's this internal work of the holy spirit called

communication where you start changing your motives start changing your attitude start

changing your value starts changing but we don't want to talk about this in church because

might offend love me for who i am and i refuse to change is more of the modern gospel of what

people want to hear that's not the gospel of jesus christ real faith will change you from

the inside out and it says it right here as it was written once again i love this don't take

it up with me take it up with the author but it says as it was written i have made you a father

of many nations in the presence of god in whom he believed going back to faith who gives life

to the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist what is god capable of doing making

the impossible happen he turned around and he gave life to things that were dead he created

something out of nothing because of faith real faith means that we rest on the fact that we have

a real god and what is our real

god capable of changing he can change you but i'm the worst of the worst no you ain't paul said that

he wins because it got written in the bible he can't fix my marriage yes he can he can't fix my

attitude yes he can can't fix my marriage can't fix my kids can't fix yes he can because if god

is able to take something that was dead and bring it to life if god is able to take nothing and

bring it into something god is capable of doing everything god everything when we have faith and

real faith not modified versions of faith not putting your morals your politics your preferences

under the word of god

not trying to transform the word of god into what it should be and what is pc religious idioms or

bumper stickers or facebook posts no no the real word of god real faith in the word of god

can change you can you look at a point where you've accepted jesus and you've seen change

but i think we always stop there can you see that initial change do you continually see it

transforming you and you continually see it changing we stop at that just salvation moment

well if you got saved you're good you've been changed by the gospel no are you constantly

being transformed are you constantly renewing your mind are you constantly changing the way

you look at it are you constantly growing and looking more like christ because real faith

changes you a real god who created the real universe holds power over death and life jesus

who lives inside of you the god in the bible will change you to look more like him does your faith

change you because if it's a real it will if it's a passive logical conclusion it won't it's a

change word of god pure word of god changing word of god accepting the word of god for what the word

of god says and not trying to alter change or insert any preference that you might have will

change you because that is what faith does life nothing to something faith in jesus changes and

sanctifies you the last one i kind of landed on i know i'm running out of time here four verses that

really got me kind of going verse 18 see the realness of abraham because we hear all that and

we're like yeah faith doesn't change faith doesn't leave me alone but we get into a situation where

again like we got to

see how it gets lived out and in romans chapter 4 verse 18 it says in hope he believed again so

that we should he should become the father of all nations and he was told so you show your offering

be he says and he did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body which was good as dead

since he was about to be 100 years old when he considered the barrenness of sarah's womb so i

want to kind of say this was intact but if you want to go back and actually read the story of

abraham and sarah and realize that they were 90 and 100 and god said have a baby i'll be very

tactful i want to be very polite

here but again we see something of the disappointment heartbreak the turmoil the pain

that can be involved in trying to make a child at that age but the thing that did not happen is

abraham never lost faith well what about hagar he wavered there like yeah he wavered but he never

lost faith he listened incorrectly he prioritized incorrectly but like he never lost faith so we

can't turn around and say and this is why i love what roman says here it's not about your ability

to always do what's right it's about holding on to the precious aspect of your life and it's about

you still have faith because guess what you are gonna screw up you are gonna mess up you are gonna

sin but what does roman say like hey no unbelief made him waver it's difficult it's hard i don't

understand this to say that again abraham never sinned no they didn't screw up no but the one

thing with faith that again that to hit what it what it really really matters do you waver in

your faith and i'll say this if you want to track it you want to know the best way to know whether

you're wavering in your faith is do you waver in your obedience do you start seeing a roller coaster

and again we all have that roller coaster but if you're like man i was reading the bible really

really well man i was staying locked in man i was doing all my things and then something changed

something happened that changed you to be passive something changed you to stop being active with

abraham he messed up never wavered in belief in god he screwed up a lot he screwed up big time

you go look at the history of what comes out of his screw up with ishmael that's a big one but

with it never wavered faith is like baseball many watch but few understand what's actually going on

so many times we're we come into church and we're like what what's actually going on and we're like

this is even like starting with new christians and trying to explain them hey here's kind of

what's going on like oh just have faith in it or we turn around and we don't actually explain what

faith is or we just like do the good things and then you got somebody who's trying to like figure

out life and they're like what what's actually happening home back to romans chapter 4 verse 16

again this is why it's so crucial this is why it depends on faith abraham did not have a passive

knowledge he did not have a passive understanding he did not have a passive logical conclusion

what did abraham have abraham had an act

he had an active transformative powerful again wavering proof uh strength building humbling

exciting powerful painful faith no matter what happened in his life he he looked at what god was

doing and he never lost faith in him and i look at how absolutely dumb i was being when i was

because there was an issue the warning lights were there what did i do passive i'm not going

to deal with that and it hit me a few days after not only how dumb i was being self how selfish

i was being to my family we as the church of jesus christ have to understand that while yes our faith

is so precious to us in romans chapter 4 verse 23 it says but the words it counted to him were

not written for his sake alone but for ours also you know your faith can actually be seen by other

people you know one of the number one things that can be one of the greatest evangelical things one

of the biggest lights of christ we possibly can have is when we realize that our faith can be

seen by others because again that faith in jesus wasn't just coveted and held by by abraham he was

he didn't just like lock it up and like store it he openly lived out his struggles he openly lived

out his mess ups he openly lived out his walk with god and so often for us we hide our faith

because we're afraid of what other people might say for me when i look at this faith doesn't just

benefit you again if you want to know whether you have a clear faith again a clear marker of faith

is when you genuinely when you genuinely know that again because of another person can watch this

you can see the realness of what god is doing in your life faith isn't a

solo game that's why it depends on faith if i ask you i already can see the silliness and

the stupidity of me trying to be passive i can already see the selfishness of me trying to do

it on my own but i ask you today do you have transformative faith do you have a faith that

is powerful not because it rests in your ability to be obedient but it has the ability to rest in

the power god that's why it depends on faith do you have a faith that strengthens and builds you

up do you have a faith that humbles you do you got a faith that excites you do you have a faith that

well guess what

sometimes it can be painful but again it brings you to a place closer to god do you have a faith

that is able to be patient and i ask you this very very simple point of question do you have faith

in jesus christ because if it depends on faith it's so necessary for us to understand that the

right standing with god the one who takes care of our souls the one who's going to either bring us

into eternity with us or separate us from him forever it depends on that simple question do

you have faith in jesus christ

not a passive understanding not a passive logical conclusion not a not a passive thought do you

genuinely have faith in jesus christ because being passive about deciding whether you have faith in

christ ought not ever have because i believe you're here for a reason i do not believe you

walked into this door walked into this building sat down you're not here for an accident whether

somebody picks this recording up in a couple weeks and they listen to it i don't believe that

they're listening to this as an accident but i ask you today have you put your faith in jesus

christ the book of romans says again like all who call out that that they need to be saved will be

book of romans talks about again if we confess with our mouth that we believe in our heart that

jesus christ uh was lord and he rose from the grave we will be saved but i ask you here today

are you here because christianity is knowing jesus is just a part of what you do or is it

the most precious faith-filled thing that you hold on to is your faith is your faith just a passively

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