Overview

1. Justified by faith, not works
2. The cross: our justification’s righteous foundation
3. Abraham’s covenant and what it points to
4. The sacrifice that outweighed the judgment
5. Faith that works
6. Walking in true transformation

Justified by faith, not works

This sermon continues from last week’s message, Walk in God’s Gifts for You. Today, the Lord wants us to see afresh what it means to be justified by faith, and not by our works.

The apostle Peter spoke of the “present truth” (2 Pet. 1:12). For the children of Israel under the old covenant, their present truth was the law. But for us today, Romans 6:14 tells us that we are no longer under law but under grace, so our present truth is grace.

The law demands. It says, “You shall not…,” “You shall not…”—placing heavy requirements on spiritually bankrupt men.

Grace, on the other hand, supplies. Under the new covenant, God says, “I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts” (Heb. 8:10). Grace doesn’t just tell you what to do—it gives you both the desire and the power to walk in God’s ways.

Now, this doesn’t mean grace gives us a license to sin. That’s far from the truth! In fact, when we live under grace and walk in the Spirit, He produces in us love, joy, peace, self-control, and every moral excellence (Gal. 5:22–23).

This is why Scripture calls us to turn away from “dead works” (Heb. 6:1)—efforts done to try to earn God’s acceptance. These may look good outwardly, but they are like wood, hay, and straw that cannot last (1 Cor. 3:11–13). By contrast, when the Spirit leads us, our works become “life works”—works that flow from Christ’s resurrection life operating in us.

But these works are not what make us righteous; they are the fruit of having already been made righteous by faith. Paul puts it plainly in Romans 4:1–3:

If righteousness really came by works, then Abraham could have taken credit for it. People might look at his life and say he had earned his right standing with God. But not before God. In His sight, even our best efforts fall short. Scripture says that “all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6). That’s why our justification can never come by works. It can only come by faith.

And that’s the purpose of the law—not to make us righteous, but to show us our need for a Savior. It brings us to the end of ourselves so that we will look away from our works and put our trust in Christ and His finished work.

Paul goes on to say:

Think of it this way. When you work, your paycheck is something you are owed. But if your boss surprises you one day with a gift you didn’t earn—say, a brand-new car—that’s not wages, that’s grace.

This is the beauty of the gospel—God justifies the ungodly, not the godly. Anyone can understand the logic of the law: Do good, get good; do bad, get bad. But only the Holy Spirit can open our eyes to grace, where we can receive the good we don’t deserve because our Lord Jesus took the bad we did deserve.

Beloved, this is the way of grace. Your standing before God has already been established, not because of what you’ve done, but because of what Christ has already done for you at the cross. Today, you can trust and rest in it!

The cross: our justification’s righteous foundation

But how can a thrice-holy God justify the ungodly? There must be a firm foundation on which He declares us righteous.

That foundation can be found at the cross.

At Calvary, God’s love and righteousness came together. His righteousness demanded that sin be judged, yet His love moved Him to give up His only begotten Son in our place. When Jesus bore our sins in His own body, the full weight of God’s judgment fell on Him. In that moment, God’s justice was fully satisfied, and His love was fully demonstrated. That’s why today, He is not just merciful in declaring you righteous; He is righteous in doing so. The cross where your sins were punished, once and for all (Heb. 10:12), provided Him that firm, unshakable basis.

Beloved, this is how much your heavenly Father loves you. You will never truly know the depth of His love for you until you see how much He loves His Son. The Father loved His Son like no other, yet He gave Him up to die for us.

The story of Abraham and Isaac is a beautiful picture of this truth. God told Abraham, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love… and offer him there as a burnt offering” (Gen. 22:2). God never wanted a human sacrifice, but He wanted Abraham to step into what it would mean for a father to give up his beloved son. As they climbed Mount Moriah, Isaac carried the wood—just as our Lord Jesus would later carry His cross, going willingly to the place of sacrifice for the joy set before Him.

At the last moment, God stopped Abraham’s hand and provided a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. Unlike a lamb caught by its wool, which would result in lacerations, a ram caught by its horns would leave its body unblemished, thus making it fit for sacrifice. After pulling it from the thicket, the ram would still have had thorns entangled in its horns, giving us this picture: a ram with a crown of thorns. No wonder our Lord Jesus later said, “Abraham rejoiced to see My day” (John 8:56). Where did Abraham see Him? In the ram that took Isaac’s place—a foreshadowing of Christ, our perfect offering.

Beloved, this is why the cross is the righteous foundation of your justification. When Jesus hung on that cross, He bore all your sins. The love of God paid in full the demands of His justice. God can now righteously declare you forgiven and made righteous—not because He overlooks sin, but because every sin has already been judged in Jesus.

Abraham’s covenant and what it points to

At the cross, a divine exchange took place. Our Lord Jesus took our place, and we received His. This is the heart of the new covenant. And long before Calvary, God gave us a picture of it in Genesis 15, when He cut a covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15:9–10, 17).

In those days, covenants were sealed by sacrifice. Animals would be cut in two, and each piece laid opposite the other. The two parties cutting the covenant would then walk past each other in the midst of the pieces and through all the blood. By doing this, it was as if they were saying, “From now on, your life is bound to mine, and mine to yours. If you are attacked, I will defend you. If you are in need, my resources are your resources. And if I break this covenant, may I become like these animals.” It was a binding agreement of life and death (Jer. 34:18–20).

But after Abraham had prepared the pieces, Scripture tells us that “a deep sleep fell upon him” (Gen. 15:12). God did not allow him to pass between the parts of the animals because Abraham could never keep the covenant perfectly. If he failed—and he surely would—he would be liable for its penalty. Instead, Abraham saw “a smoking oven and a burning torch” pass between the pieces (Gen. 15:17). These were God the Father and God the Son cutting the covenant, with our Lord as man’s representative. And if Abraham or his descendants broke the covenant, the penalty would not fall on them, but on the One who had promised in their place.

This points to the cross! At Calvary, our Lord Jesus took our sins, judgment, and curse, and in exchange, we received His righteousness, acceptance, and blessing. Today, your covenant with God does not rest on your faithfulness but on Christ’s.

God has bound Himself to you through His Son. And beloved, because you are in Christ, you can face every situation with confidence, saying: “Lord, You are my provision. You are my strength. You are my health. And today, I thank You that I get to be a co-heir of every inheritance You’ve purchased for me to enjoy.”

The sacrifice that outweighed the judgment

This is the unshakable security of the new covenant—our confidence is in Christ alone. And it’s all possible because of the cross, where every claim of judgment against us was fully met.

The story of Elijah on Mount Carmel vividly illustrates this truth. Israel had turned to idols, and Elijah confronted the false prophets by rebuilding an altar to the Lord. He laid the bull, wood, and twelve stones representing the tribes of Israel upon it, and called on the Lord at the time of the evening sacrifice (1 Kings 18:36–38). Then fire fell from heaven and consumed not only the bull and the wood, but even the stones themselves. This showed that in the Old Testament, the judgment was greater than the sacrifice.

But at the cross, the opposite happened. Jesus, our perfect sacrifice, absorbed the full fire of God’s judgment in His own body until He cried, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). Every curse, every punishment, every consequence of sin was exhausted in Him. This time, the sacrifice was greater than the judgment. And because the cross stands outside of time, Jesus bore not just the sins of those before Him, but every sin—past, present, and future—until the very last man.

That is why Scripture declares, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). For God to punish you again for sins already judged in Christ would be a miscarriage of justice.

Beloved, your heavenly Father is not waiting to punish you for your sins. He has already judged them fully at the cross. What remains for you today is not His wrath, but His overflowing grace upon grace.

Faith that works

But what about James’ statement that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26)?

It’s important to know that James was not referring to our justification before God but our justification before men. God sees our faith, but people around us can only see its outworkings. That is why James wrote, “Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works” (James 2:18).

Take Abraham, for example. Paul tells us he was declared righteous when he believed God under the starry night sky long before Isaac was even born (Gen. 15:6, Rom. 4:3). That was justification before God. Years later, when Abraham laid Isaac on the altar (Gen. 22:9–12), James explained that act as evidence of his faith. So Abraham’s offering did not make him righteous, but instead showed the faith he already had.

The same is true of Rahab. She had already believed in the God of Israel after hearing about the Red Sea miracle decades earlier (Josh. 2:9–11). When she hid the spies in her home in Jericho, it was an outworking of that faith. Her actions didn’t earn her righteousness; they revealed the reality of the faith already alive in her heart. And just for the sake of discussion, if James were talking about law-keeping, Rahab’s actions would be a poor example, because they involved lying to the commanders of Jericho.

Friend, before God, you are justified by faith alone. Before men, that faith is displayed through your works. Our good works can never be the root of righteousness; they can only be its fruit!

Walking in true transformation

The law may expose sin, but only grace can bring about true transformation in our lives. Nowhere is this contrast clearer than in the two stories recorded back-to-back in Luke 18 and 19.

In Luke 18, a rich young ruler came to Jesus asking, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18). Because he was confident in his own works, Jesus pointed him to the commandments. The man insisted he had kept them all, yet when the Lord told him to sell his possessions and follow Him, he walked away sorrowful. The law had exposed his bondage to wealth, but it had no power to free him from it.

In the very next chapter, Luke 19, we meet Zacchaeus, a despised tax collector. Unlike the rich young ruler, he came with nothing to offer, just a hungry heart eager to see Jesus. And right there, grace reached him. The Lord called him by name and invited Himself to Zacchaeus’ home. In that one encounter with grace—without a single commandment given—Zacchaeus was transformed. Filled with joy at receiving Jesus’ love, he declared: “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold” (Luke 19:8).

What a difference! The law can demand righteousness, but it cannot change the heart. Grace, however, transforms us from the inside out and produces generosity, moral excellence, and lasting change.

Beloved, this is the beautiful way of grace. It is His grace that justifies, establishes, and transforms you. And when you receive His grace and love, the Spirit will work in you, and the fruits of righteousness will follow.

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These sermon notes were taken by volunteers during the service. They are not a verbatim representation of the sermon.