Are you feeling defeated, or worse yet – is there no real reason why you’re feeling the way you do right now? Is life too hard? – None of us are exempt from discouragement and despair. But for us as believers, we can do what King David taught us to do –

SO LET’S DO THIS – LET’S READ DAVID AS HE SHARES HIS HEART’S DARK HOUR.

And so David sang this song to the LORD on the day the LORD rescued him from all his enemies and from Saul. He sang:

“The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my savior; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety. He is my refuge, my savior, the one who saves me from violence. I called on the LORD, who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies.

“The waves of death overwhelmed me; floods of destruction swept over me. The grave wrapped its ropes around me; death laid a trap in my path. But in my distress I cried out to the LORD; yes, I cried to my God for help. He heard me from his sanctuary; my cry reached his ears. – 2 Samuel 22:1-7

SING IT. SING IT LOUD!

According to the Bible, which is all truth, god has declared you righteous if you are trusting in Christ and what he has done for you on the cross.
Think about it, my friend. Rightsness, the word means to do the right thing.
God who is righteous, and he declares himself to be righteous, is the same god who normally says that he loves us, He also says that we are sinners.
We have failed at being righteous. We can’t be righteous.
The Bible makes it very clear that our righteous acts, the very things that we do are tainted from the beginning.
Why? Because we start as it were underground. We art as it were below the line of approval.
Because what comes out of us is polluted with self interest or maybe pride or whatever it might be.
Even our best deeds are polluted with our self effort. However, god declares us right through Jesus Christ.
This is the glorious news, my friends.
That according to the Bible, when we declare ourselves righteous by Christ merit, well, that makes us unique from all people on earth.
The Christian is the most unique person in the entire world if you think about it.
And some say, well, I
don’t really like Christians or
I don’t really like church. I understand.
But the truth of the matter is to those who trust Christ, God has declared them right It’s through our lives that god reveals himself to the world.
In fact, listen. Saint Francis of assisi said, preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.
Wow. So listen, friends, let’s grab our bibles, let’s dive into the word of god together and keep this in mind.
righteousness is available through Jesus Christ, not by any works of your own.
Christ alone gives us his righteousness.
I wrote this down.
It will put up on the screen. If it blesses you, then god gave it to me.
If it doesn’t make any sense, I made it up. And it’s this.
It’s this if the observable universe displays the glory of god, well, we know that’s through from the book of Psalms, and it does, then shouldn’t a glorified life place the observable god on display for all to see?
Can I read that again? Yes.
If the observable universe displays the glory of god and it does, then shouldn’t a glorified life place the observable god on display for all to see.
You see, well, Jack, wait a minute. God’s invisible. You can’t see him.
My point, if you and I have been transformed and we’re living for Jesus, doesn’t the world just like they observe the stars?
Can’t the world observe your life and conclude there must be a god?
That’s the life of the believer.
That’s how you get into lion’s den’s and you have no fear.
That’s how you get onto ships that are tossed in a raging storm, and you don’t panic.
because our lives are secured in him and settled.
And as long as the universe is observable, I know this that the god who made those things desires something greater, and that is for him to be observable in our lives.
And I believe according to the scripture, he’s so committed to that.
The witness of god is on display in our lives. It’s true of all of his followers.
It’s true of his children. In acts chapter 4 verse 12.
Acts 4 verse 12 says there is no salvation in any other.
for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, they just got done saying that And, obviously, those who heard that watched, then they saw Peter and John.
They perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men. I love that verse, everybody.
You wanna know why? I don’t mean to offend anyone.
But if you have a PhD or if you’ve got an MD or if you’ve got a a a a doctorate in theology, I don’t it doesn’t matter.
Doesn’t and it doesn’t matter what your world experiences. That’s awesome.
That verse to me is this verse is so encouraging because it announces to me that no matter what you have in this world, by degree or by experience, it doesn’t translate over into your spiritual world of being used by god.
In other words, if you are a brilliant MD, that’s great and keep doing that, but, listen, god in his kingdom might have you do something completely different, whereby he does he didn’t need your education to pull it off.
Are you with me? he does the supernatural.
Now look, I want your education when you apply your medicine to me.
But god doesn’t need that for you to be used in his kingdom.
So when the Bible says that there are those observing and they saw Peter and John, tremendously powerful by the hand of god.
They concluded immediately. How can this be? These guys are uneducated, unlearned people. Why?
Because they were approaching a supernatural from phenomenon through human physical eyes.
And the greatest thing greatest thing about being a Christian is that our lives are supernatural.
That’s why so much that goes on in our world, we can’t explain it. Good, bad, and ugly.
We can’t explain it.
God’s at work, but look, they perceive that
they were uneducated and untrained men. They marveled and they realized, oh, we get it.
Now we know, of course, that they had been with Jesus.
That’s a that’s a good tattoo right there.
I have been with Jesus. If you want the whole verse, it would be right about here.
Right? Isn’t that a great thing? Think of the statement. Think of the title.
Think of our argument. The world looks at us.
And they see your boldness because it’s hidden in Christ. It’s anchored to him. It’s not your boldness.
It’s your boldness because god gave it to you.
Your argumentation, because it’s biblical, you’ve been at this church for a while, you’ve got Bible now flowing through your veins, so that when you talk to people or when you look at something, your decision is come coming up out of you because the Bible says, I have hidden your word in my heart.
when you ingest the Bible, it comes out.
And it becomes I don’t even like to use the word second nature.
I think for the believer, god allows it to be our first nature. Yeah. Why?
Because we’ve been born again. And so you think Bible. You speak Bible. and you do Bible.
And when god sees this, he’s blessed, and the world sees it, and they realize, how is this even possible?
This person’s got no education. Oh, I know.
They’ve been with Jesus. Yeah. I’ll
submit to you that the more time we spend with Jesus privately, the greater the manifestation will be publicly.
and the life that you live.
4
things I wanna run through this little checklist I have in my notes on page 3, if you’re looking at the notes up until this point, everything has been necessary to sweep things out to make things clear so that whatever foundation might be exposed only then can you begin to build?
That’s what Paul’s doing. 2nd thing is chapter 4 is where Paul brings us into the world of the Jewish mind and the origins of the both Hebrew people as well as what it means to be a real Jew.
We’re gonna learn about that. Third thing we’ll see in this chapter is that he will do this by calling them to the 2 greatest examples, calling them, calling us, of a true, listen, living an acceptable relationship with god that are founded upon in the lives of Israel’s great patriarchs, and it’s very shocking church.
Listen. For you to best understand your own walk with god today in the 21st century, you’ve gotta go back and look at the lives of Abraham and David.
And in Romans 4, you’re being introduced to Abraham and David.
why in the world would a new testament book drive you back to the old testament patriarchs of Abraham and David.
And if you read about their lives in the Bible, you find out that they have the same exact walk that you and I have today.
They say the thing. That’s why you love reading.
those songs resonates with your heart.
And when you look at Abraham and this situation’s going on, in taking place and you connect with that.
These two men had most unique relationship with god that is mirrored today in our 21st century.
I I I said it this way. It sounds clumsy. It’s theologically.
You can’t defend it theologically, really, but it’s this.
it’s as though Abraham and David had born again relationships with god. Now they were not born again.
Nobody could be born again until John in the bible.
Fourthly, that this chapter holds for us is that these two men whose lives were old testament examples of what it looks like to be true, a true believer today is in the 21st century believer now.
It’s remarkable. ephesians 1 threes is blessed.
Be the god and father of our lord, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.
in the heavenly places verse 4, just as he chose us in him.
Now listen, Jew and Gentile, Listen, just as he chose us in him before the world or the foundations of the world were ever laid.
were ever created before time was ever established.
That we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself.
According to the good pleasure of his will, verse 6, to the praise of the glory of his grace by which he made us accepted in the beloved.
In him, we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, verse 8, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of his will.
The mystery of his will is the new testament the old had the message, the new recorded it, that Nisterion, that which has always been before time ever began, was made known.
According to his good pleasure, which he purposed in himself verse 10, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in 1, all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him, verse
11.
In him, also, we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the council of his will.
That means god’s got a plan for your life, and he’s going to do it. Yeah.
And I love that kind of talk.
I love when god comes up and takes me by the hand and says, let’s walk.
He doesn’t say, would you like to take a walk, Jack? No. Listen.
I put my faith in him, and so he comes up to me and he just grabs him and says, walk.
Let’s walk and talk. Come on. Let’s look, Donna, talking about something.
Genesis chapter 15 verse 6 and 7 says, and Abraham believed in the lord and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
Abraham believed in god, and god says for that, I’m gonna declare you righteous.
Then god said to him, I am the lord.
who brought you out of her of the chaldees to give you this land to inherit.
God gave Abraham promises. That was the banner over Abraham’s life.
And then David, we’ve read a moment ago about David in this chapter.
David’s example is this in Psalm
27 4.
And, uh, I I’m gonna ask you, do you recognize this verse and Psalm 27 4, does this not describe you and dear church family listen?
You should know me by now.
I’m gonna lay this out in a second in such a way that it will either cause you to get excited or cause you to probably never come back here again.
And I want you to know something. That’s not that’s not That has nothing to do with me.
And and and I love you, but I don’t care. No. Seriously, we’re not building a club.
Here’s the thing. How do you know if you are a true believer? David’s gonna tell you.
David’s gonna show you You judge yourself right now. Nobody else needs to judge you.
Nobody’s got the authority to judge you, but we’re commanded to judge ourselves, aren’t we? So here we go.
Let’s judge ourselves. Can we agree with David? 3000 years ago, does he sound like us today?
One thing have I desired of the lord, that I will seek that I may dwell in the house of the lord that’s not here.
That’s not this building. Okay. That’s not some temple. That’s heaven.
that I may dwell in the house of the lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the lord and to inquire in his temple.
Does that describe you? What’s what do you Pastor, what do you mean?
Are are are are you longing for heaven? Do you want to go there?
Now look, I know some of you are young, and some of you are single, and you’re thinking, yes, but
I just met a young woman or I just met a young man, and we’re getting pretty serious.
And I wanted to own in the house of
the lord over the days of my life, but can we do that later?
I understand that struggle.
But the reality is true, nonetheless.
How beautiful is that struggle? Because you are a young individual who’s got
the lord in your heart, you have that struggle. And that’s a beautiful thing.
Now those of us who are older, I mean, I I don’t know.
on some of us, we hang out together.
And have you noticed our conversation, especially the last couple of years, has been more on heaven than any other topic.
Why? Cause we’re getting excited.
What did Abraham do church to be declared righteous by god? He believed.
Does that bother you? I love it. You know who it bothers?
It bothers those of you who’ve come from denominations who all your life, you were told by the ministry leaders.
You better do this. You better do this, and you better do this.
We better never find you doing this, this, or this. And if you
fill in the blanks and if you dot that I and if you cross those ts, will, uh, will advance you to the next position, and you’ll be this thing, and then you’re gonna get this award, and you’re gonna be this super saint, and you’re gonna be this thing.
And then maybe then maybe, you know, and you grow up thinking like that. This is American Christianity.
It’s horrible. that if you’re just good enough, you’re acceptable.
Look.
There’s some be called Yankee Knowhow, and we’re famous for it, at least we used to be.
And I get that.
Yankee know how was, uh, the the europeans said, you know, we can’t fix this.
We’d want you know what to do about this. Getting American over here. They’ll figure it out.
crazy soldiers came from farmlands and buy they would take binding wire and make the airplane work again.
And we were famous for it.
This week’s side story. This week, my lawnmower wouldn’t start. Actually, the backstory was this.
It started perfectly fine just like it does every time I
need it, they pulled that thing up. And I made
1, 2, 3,
4a half pat passes on my grass, right, straight lines.
And the lawnmower went
I just filled it up. It can’t be out of gas. Wouldn’t start.
Got a new spark plug put it in.
Wouldn’t start. I pull it and go, it’s all I did.
And it sat there for 2 days, and I would pull and I would say lord please. No.
I’m not joking. God I’m not kidding you guys. I’m dead seer gas, Lisa.
Lord, I just want him I I don’t know about you, but I
get a lot of therapy out of mowing the lawn.
It’s like, lord, please, it’s all I wanna do.
Now, lord, I wanna remind you.
The tides are moving fine. The moon is working.
Saturn still has its rings. You can start this mower. I know you can.
It’s all I wanna do. Just wanna mow the lawn.
So do you know what you do when you’re in that situation?
No. She said buy a new mower.
That’s the American way. No. You do the Christian thing to do.
What’s the Christian thing to do? I went and got my granddaughter. And I said, now watch this.
She had she had just put put a big scoop of food in her mouth.
I don’t know what it was. And I said, I need you to come over here. Come here.
I need you to
pray for my lawnmower to start.
And she goes, I go, just pray for my lawn mower.
Listen. For all of you, Listen. All of you who struggle with the gift of tongues, check this out.
She goes, And I went, and the thing just started right up.
If it doesn’t work, get a kid.
She prayed with food in her mouth. God brought down the answer.
How that applies to our message? I have no idea. Abraham Abraham’s faith.
Abraham’s faith. He didn’t do anything. He didn’t do a thing. He believed what god had said.
And that’s where the walk of the believer begins.
The cultist and the legalist says, do these things and you enter in.
God says, nope, enter in, and you get to do these things. There’s an eternal
difference.
So, friend, are you understanding what the word of god is declaring?
that first of all, by the works of righteousness, no flesh will be justified in the sight of god.
Isn’t that offensive to you and I?
that just smacks us upside the head as it were regarding our good deeds and our morality.
But god says, no. No. No. It’s way more than that.
The joy about what god has invited you and I to partake of is this that he has done all the heavy lifting.
He went to the cross, not you. He died, not you.
He rose again from the dead, not you, not me. He did that.
but by you and I trusting him and putting our faith in what he’s done.
Then what god does is impart to us all of his righteousness. It’s by faith.
The Bible tells us that the just shall live by faith.
So listen, for these things to enter into our hearts and into our mind, We’ve we must focus on god’s truth, not what we feel or what we think.
It’s not about works. I know that’s hard to hear.
We need to take god at his word and believe him when he says to us what he does.
He announces to us, come to me. Don’t run from me. Look, Adam and Eve ran.
That didn’t go well for us. God says come to me. Jesus has come to me.
And when you do this, what god does is that he alleviates the guilt, the shame, the pain.
Look, you’ve tried everything else in life. Why don’t you try Jesus Christ? For real, not religion.
So, listen, this is why we’re here.
at real life, to keep you or to introduce you into a walk with god.
That’s the only reason why we’re on the air.
We’ve got other things to do as I’m sure you do as well. Why would we be doing this?
Because friends, listen, it’s a personal relationship in Jesus Christ that matters. Listen, you can go to jackkibs.com.
You can find out much more there and how you can follow us and what’s coming up next.
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