Sermon, Dr. Rayburn: "Justification By Faith"

• text: Ro 4.13-25


• The human desire to bring about its own salvation is so deeply ingrained in the human heart and the blow that the doctrine of human depravity makes against our pride is so great, that its belief can only be brought about by a work of God's Holy Spirit.


• The doctrine of God's saving man and not man's saving himself is the one radical religious idea in the world. All other religions are a variation of salvation by man.


• Presume on the veracity of God.

I thought of this analogy during the sermon and shared it with the kids during lunch: We have to pass an exam to get to heaven. The only passing grade is 100%. We find out to our despair that, so far from being able to score 100%, we don't know the right answer to a single question. Jesus came into the world to fill out a perfect exam for us. His resurrection was the Father's putting "100%" on the top of the exam. Christ's perfect exam lies on the desk before us; faith is accepting it and writing down our name on His perfect test.