Sermon Text: Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
Date: March 1, 2026
Event: The Second Sunday in Lent, Year A

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 (EHV)

What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered according to the flesh? 2If indeed Abraham had been justified by works, he would have had a reason to boast—but not before God. 3For what does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

4Now to a person who works, his pay is not counted as a gift but as something owed. 5But to the person who does not work but believes in the God who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness. …

13Indeed, the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not given to Abraham or his descendants through the law, but through the righteousness that is by faith. 14To be sure, if people are heirs by the law, faith is empty and the promise is nullified. 15For law brings wrath. (Where there is no law, there is no transgression.) 16For this reason, the promise is by faith, so that it may be according to grace and may be guaranteed to all of Abraham’s descendants—not only to the one who is a descendant by law, but also to the one who has the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. 17As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” In the presence of God, Abraham believed him who makes the dead alive and calls non-existing things so that they exist.

Jesus Is for All; Jesus Is for You

You walk into the break room at work. It’s your birthday, but you’re not sure that anyone at work knows that. But as you walk in, there’s a giant sheet cake on the table, and all of your coworkers are gathered around. Your name is emblazoned in icing on the top of the cake, and everyone yells, “Happy Birthday!” You sit down, enjoy a cup of coffee and a piece of cake, and gather with everyone.

That cake is for everyone. You certainly weren’t going to eat an entire sheet cake by yourself. But also, it’s personal to you. It’s only there because it was your birthday. So, in many ways, that is your cake, but also it’s everyone’s cake at the same time.

This is a wildly imperfect picture of God’s forgiveness, but perhaps it helps to get at the idea of what God has done. God’s forgiveness is for all people. Jesus paid for the sins of the entire world—every single person—when he died on the cross. We can rightly say with the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 3 that all are sinners and, in Jesus, all people are declared not guilty of that sin: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:23-24).

And yet, this forgiveness is not just a communal thing that you happen to be able to take part in. It’s also very specifically for you. Jesus didn’t “just” live and die for the world; he lived and died for you as an individual because he loves you. This is our focus here this morning, as we continue our Lenten theme of God providing exactly what we need, we see Jesus as exactly what the world needed and at the same time exactly what we needed.

That verse I quoted earlier, from the latter part of Romans chapter 3, is kind of a summary of most of chapters 1-3 up to that point. Paul has spent the beginning of this letter knocking down every possible argument anyone could have for why God should love them or why they should be able to earn heaven. He says that Gentiles, those who have lived without God’s Word, can’t plead ignorance of it and get by that way; that will not fly in God’s court. Likewise, Paul says that those who have lived as Jewish believers can’t claim some special privileges because of their lineage. In fact, God makes clear that their knowledge of God’s Word and their subsequent sin make them even more accountable to him.

So both Jewish people and Gentiles stand condemned before God on their own. Sin is sin, and sin leads to death—eternal death in hell. It’s not something that anyone could change or make up for. It’s not something that we could fix ourselves.

But from the beginning, God had promised to fix this himself. We heard that first promise of a Savior last week in Genesis chapter 3, where God assured Satan that a champion was coming to crush his head. As time went on, God narrowed down how that promise would come—notably for our purposes today, through Abraham’s family, through the Jewish people—but it always remained a promise and benefit for all of Adam and Eve’s descendants, that is, for all people. And God underscored that promise when he called Abraham, as we heard in our First Reading, “All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you” (Genesis 12:3). The Messiah would physically come through Abraham, but his work would be for every single human being.

Our world has a lot of “us vs. them” rhetoric. It always has, but it seems especially egregious right now. National political leaders try to lead people to see those from different nations or backgrounds as enemies. Political parties in general tend to paint the “other side” as responsible for the problems in our nation. Christian nationalist ideas have simmered from the earliest days of this nation, asserting that our political boundaries should also be religious boundaries so that this place is just for Christians. And that’s just what bubbles up from the political realm. So many other divisions exist, be they economic, racial, linguistic, or even more meaningless things like preferences for sports teams or entertainers.

What is the proper, biblical, Christian take on these “us vs. them” ideas? It should be an out-and-out rejection. All people, everywhere, you and me included, are in the same boat. There is no meaningful division between people; the division is between humanity at large and God. Sin brings that division, and no matter how hard we work or what we do, we cannot repair it. Rather than seeing things as “us vs. them,” we should see our sin as throwing us into one giant group, which results in “us vs. God.”

And this, my dear friends, this is what Jesus came to solve. As true God and true man, Jesus came to live the life that we could not and die the death that we deserved. His forgiveness is for all people, no matter what buckets or categories we may fit into. Every single human being, from the person sitting in this church with you this morning to the person on the other side of the world who looks, thinks, and speaks nothing like you do, is a soul for whom Jesus died. All people are precious to our Savior—enough to make him willing to die for them; they ought to be precious to us as well.

But God’s love and forgiveness do not just make us part of an amorphous blob that gels us all together into one massive, indiscernible group. No, God’s love for you is not just part of a whole, but it is for you as a singular person, as an individual. Jesus said in our Gospel this morning that God so loved the world, but he also made that comfort very personal and individual: Whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16).

Yes, Jesus has saved the world. Yes, Jesus’ forgiveness is for all. But faith is the conduit by which we receive it, and faith is the very personal gift of God. Faith is the trust in what God has done for you. Faith is the dwelling of the Holy Spirit within you. Faith is the way that “God so loved the world” becomes “God so loved me.”

This is how God has always worked. Paul reminded his readers that it was true for Abraham. God made it clear back in Genesis that as Abraham trusted God’s promises of forgiveness, that trust was credited to him as righteousness. Faith is what takes the universal reality that Jesus died for the sins of all people and allows you to see the personal truth that your sins were among them. It changes Jesus’ life and death from the all-encompassing work that it still is into a very personal, very loving, very intimate exchange of his life for yours.

The promise is by faith, so that it may be according to grace and may be guaranteed to all of Abraham’s descendants—not only to the one who is a descendant by law, but also to the one who has the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. Sharing Abraham’s faith makes us Abraham’s children. In New Testament usage, “Israel” has nothing to do with bloodline and is certainly not connected to the present-day nation of Israel. In the New Testament, “Israel” is often best understood as everyone who trusts God’s promises and work, just as Abraham did.

We do well to remember our unworthiness for all of this. Nothing about us would make God love us—we’re rebellious sinners just like everyone else! Notably, there was nothing about Abraham that singled him out as God’s choice for this family nation. We don’t hear about how amazing he was before God called him in Genesis chapter 12; there’s no reason for his call except that God selected him. Abraham contributed nothing; God contributed everything. To be sure, if people are heirs by the law, faith is empty and the promise is nullified. For law brings wrath. … For this reason, the promise is by faith, so that it may be according to grace and may be guaranteed to all of Abraham’s descendants—not only to the one who is a descendant by law, but also to the one who has the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.

So it is for us. Paul noted that Abraham believed him who makes the dead alive and calls non-existing things so that they exist. This is what God has done for you. You were dead in your sins, and God has called you to life in Jesus. God has declared you to be his dearly loved child, even though that was not a status you had on your own nor one that you could have manufactured. By his grace, he has called you into existence as his child and put an end to your existence as a rebellious sinner. By his grace, he has given you the faith to trust and believe everything that Jesus has done for the world, he did for you.

God’s will is for all people to be saved. God’s will is for you to be saved. In Jesus, you have the absolute confidence of forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus is for all; Jesus is for you. Let us cherish him and share him with the world! Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria