Romans 04 Round Two: It's All About Believing Loyalty

What if faith isn’t a leap into the dark but a steady allegiance to a trustworthy God? We open Romans 4 and discover faith as believing loyalty—a belief that leads to a lived commitment—through the lens of Abraham and David. Instead of chasing perfection or piling up spiritual achievements, Paul points to a righteousness credited by grace, received apart from the law, and confirmed by a life that grows in obedience over time.

We trace Paul’s argument step by step: Abraham was counted righteous before circumcision, proving the promise isn’t locked behind rituals or rule-keeping. David celebrates the joy of forgiveness that can’t be earned. The law shines a light on our need, but the promise stands on God’s reliability, not our performance. Abraham’s hope against hope becomes our model—facing facts honestly while trusting the God who brings life from the dead and calls things into being from nothing.

This conversation offers freedom to those exhausted by legalism and welcome to those who feel unqualified. Justification is by grace through faith, and that faith naturally grows into daily loyalty—turning from sin, choosing trust, and walking with God not out of fear but honor. We end with comfort for strugglers: God’s love is not fragile, and your setbacks don’t erase his promise. If you’re ready to trade perfectionism for allegiance, and anxiety for assurance, this deep dive into Romans 4 will help you reframe faith at its core.

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can dig into Scripture with us. What part of Abraham’s story challenges your view of faith today?

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Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Community Invite
• 0:44 Call To Like, Share, Subscribe
• 1:16 Fall Chat And Coffee Icebreaker
• 1:45 Setting The Stage For Romans
• 3:20 Rethinking Faith As Believing Loyalty
• 5:15 Reading Romans 4: Abraham And David
• 8:10 Circumcision, Law, And True Righteousness
• 10:20 Promise By Faith, Not By Law
• 12:10 Hope Against Hope: Abraham’s Conviction
• 14:00 Justified By Faith, Then Walk It Out

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the BibleBreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's Word together. Well, hello, everybody. Hope you are doing well. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Romans chapter 4. And today's title, I want to I want to re-examine the word faith. And I want to say it's all about believing loyalty. Believing loyalty. Believing something and being loyal to it. That's the idea of what faith is. In a world we live in where it seems like a lot of different words are changing their meaning, I think we need to come back to understanding what faith truly is. And we're going to get into that in just a moment. But as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share, and subscribe to this video. Make sure you are commenting on it. You are doing all the things. All my favorite podcast listeners, make sure you are like, sharing, and subscribing to all of those. Make sure you're leaving us a five-star review. Share this with someone on social media as we are just building this idea of what would it look like to have a community of people that are reading God's word together. And the more we dig, the more we find. Which is why I also want you to go over to our Facebook group at the Bible Breakdown Discussion and just see a lot of the stuff they're doing over there. It's so good. Oh my Lord, it's so good. And as we're getting into this fall time of the year, I don't know when you may be listening to this, but right now, fall is starting to get in the air. I love it and I love all the things about it. And so I want you to let me know in the comments below on the Bible breakdown. What is your favorite fall type of coffee? Are you a pumpkin spice latte person? Are you a chai tea person? Or are you just like one of me? Just give me coffee, give it to me as often as I can get it. Go ahead and put it on tap. Yeah, just whatever. I am a massive fan of coffee. And so while you're getting your NLT Bible open, getting your favorite fall drink open, let me bring you up to speed with where we are, because Paul is slowly building the foundation for this amazing explanation of the gospel. The apostle Paul was a missionary, and he had been all over the known world at the time, planting churches, you know, seeing people come to Christ, all this amazing stuff. He'd always wanted to go to Rome, but he hadn't been there yet. He had a lot of friends who had been there. You want to skip ahead to Romans chapter 16? It seemed like all of his rowdy friends had already been to Rome. So he's shouting out everybody. Two people in particular, Priscilla and Aquila, were two of his friends, likely planted the church in Rome, possibly with the help of Peter as well. And Paul is now getting ready to go to Rome. But before he goes, he's sending ahead of him the first sermon likely that he would preach. He would go to the synagogues. Because that's what this is. The book of Romans was actually a letter that he sent, and it was supposed to be read within the context of the assembly. So someone would stand up and read it as though Paul were actually talking. So he is sharing with them the gospel so that they can know this is what he's preaching. And so he's just like a skilled orator, public speaker, is doing, he is building his case one chapter at a time. Chapter one, he says that God has done this amazing thing because all of us, all of creation, has gone our own way and turned our backs on God. Chapter two, he said, it doesn't matter whether you're a Jew or a Greek, Gentile, everybody is an equal opportunity sinner. All of us fell short of the glory of God. It's like we all fell down in a pit somewhere. Chapter three, he says, and that's why the law came. The law came to show us what God's perfect holy standard is, and showing us that we're never going to get there. Because if you've already sinned, you've already messed up. You've already, at some point in your life, messed up the perfect holy standard of God's law. And so it's like we're looking at the bottom of the pit, looking up, going, well, messed that up. You know, what are we doing? Turns out we need a savior. That's who Jesus is. And so the second half of chapter three says that's why Jesus came. So that everyone who has belief in him would have the opportunity to receive him, and we could have eternal life. That is that believing loyalty. And so today, he's going to show us what that kind of faith looked like all the way back in the Old Testament, even before they had the gospel, understanding what faith really looked like and how that turns into salvation. Now that's why I want to say from the very beginning, I want us to relook at this word faith for just a moment. Because a lot of times we think that faith is believing without any evidence, or faith is having a general idea about something. But the word faith, especially in the context of the Bible, it means believing something and then being loyal to that belief. So that's why I like the idea of faith in God as believing loyalty. It'd be the same thing as, you know, I believe that my wife loves me. And I believe that she's my wife. Well, if I just believe that, what does that really do? But if that belief leads to me being loyal to her, then it changes everything. And that's the same thing. I believe that Jesus died for my sins. But then if I am loyal to the commitment I make to following him, that is the saving power of Christ, that I now walk after the goodness of God in my life. So let's look at Romans chapter 4. If you got your Bibles ready for me, and we're going to see what God's Word has to say in teaching us about what living out a loyal faith looks like. That it's not just happening in the New Testament, but all the way back in the Old Testament it happened as well. You ready? Here we go. Abraham was humanly speaking the founder of the Jewish nation. What did he discover about being made right with God? If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But this was not God's way. For the scripture tells us that Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith. And think of that, because of his believing loyalty. Verse 4. When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. But people who are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners. David also spoke of this when he described the happiness of those who were declared righteous without working for it. Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, those whose sins are put out of sight, and yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin. Now, is this blessing only for the Jews, or is it for uncircumcised Gentiles? Well, we have been saying that Abraham was counted as righteous by God because of his faith, believing, loyalty. But how did this happen? For he was counted righteous only after he was circumcised, or was it before he was circumcised? Remember, circumcision was the physical representation of the covenant made with God. So he's saying, how did all of this actually work? Was it because he conformed to the covenant, the law of God that he was saved, or was it because of something else? Clearly, God accepted him before he had obeyed all of the law. Circumcision was a sign that Abraham was all, that Abraham already had faith that God had already accepted him and declared him to be righteous. Then, before he was circumcised, so Abraham is the spiritual father of those who have faith but have not been circumcised. They are counted as righteous because of their faith, their believing loyalty. And Abraham is also the spiritual father of those who have been circumcised, but only if they have the same kind of faith Abraham had before he was circumcised. Now, make sure you remember circumcision in this context is an example of Jewish people obeying the law of God. He's saying Abraham was accepted by God before he got the law right, because it was the believing loyalty. Like I believe that God is real and I'm going to be loyal to him. That is what saved him, not being not perfectly obeying the law. So he is the spiritual father to all of those who that's what that they do. That they're they're not perfect because they're acting perfectly. They're striving for it, but they're not there yet. They're they're perfect, spiritually speaking, because of their believing loyalty in God. He's like the spiritual father of all those. He's also the spiritual father to all of those who believe God. And then now, because of their belief in God, they are walking out their faith every day. He's like he he works for both. He's not just for one, but for both. Verse 13. Clearly, God's promises are to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants. And it was based not on his obedience to God's law, but on his right relationship with God that comes by faith. If God's promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary, and the promise is pointless. For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it. The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break. So the promise is received by faith. It is given as a free gift, and we are all certain to receive it. Whether or not we live according to the law of Moses, if we have faith like Abraham's. For Abraham is the father of all who believe, have believing loyalty. This is what the scriptures mean when God told them, I have made you the father of many nations. This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings back the dead to life and who creates all things new out of nothing. Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping, believing that he would become the father of many nations. For God had said to him, That's how many descendants you will have. And Abraham's faith did not weaken, even though at about a hundred years of age he figured his body was as good as dead. And so was Sarah's womb. Abraham never wavered in believing God's promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought about the glory of God. He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. And because of Abraham's faith, God counted him as righteous. Then God counted him as righteous. And when he counted as righteous, it wasn't just for Abraham's benefit. It was recorded for our benefit too, assuring us that God will also count us righteous if we believe in him and the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, and he handed uh he was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. So there's a lot of words there, and Paul is trying to make a point. Notice how he said, God told Abraham, I'm gonna make you the father of many nations. So not just one nation, but many nations. And so what he's saying is that Abraham can be the spiritual father to all of those who don't know anything about the law and they receive Christ. They receive, they have believing loyalty. That's good. But here's the thing justification is by faith alone. But justification should not stay alone. Once we receive Christ, then we begin walking after him. We start getting the sin out of our life. We start cleaning up our life. He's saying he's a spiritual father to those people as well. Because when God started to reveal himself to him, he started walking more closely to God. And so he's saying it wasn't, it wasn't his good works that got him saved, it was his believing loyalty that did. That's what made him righteous. And then he walked it out closer to God and he started walking and healing more every day. So, what does this mean for all of us today? That is, maybe you grew up without any church background in in your life. You just grew up not having a clue. So you don't have to unlearn any of this. And so the lesson for you today is that you are made right with God, not by your perfection, but because God has chosen to love you and to wash away your sin. Now, as he's already said, and he's going to say again, that doesn't give us the excuse to sin. Well, God loves me so I can sin. No, no, no, no. It's because he loves us that we now want to obey the law, that we want to walk closer to him. But the difference is it's out of joy and honor rather than fear and worried about justice. If you come from a certain environment, maybe you heard this legalistic idea that if you are perfect enough, God will save you. If you do everything right, God will love you. Well, that couldn't be further from the truth. God loves you before you loved him. And so therefore, the lesson for us here today is that we are justified by God by faith in him, by the grace of God through faith. But then once we are justified through by grace through faith, that should not stay alone. We start walking with him. But that's a later time we start off with justification is by the grace of God and by believing in him. So don't let anyone ever tell you that the only way God will ever receive you is if you are perfect. Because as Paul said, if we could be perfect without the law, we wouldn't need salvation. But if you remember, all the way back to chapter one, we messed up at some point. And when we messed up, we separate ourselves from God. Chapter two says it doesn't matter who you are, good or bad, uh, or not good or bad, but Jew or Gentile, we all fail. Chapter three says, then God showed us what the Holy Standard looks like, and we looked up and realized we couldn't get there. But Christ could. And then Chapter 4 says, and the way we get back there is not by doing it ourselves, but having a believing loyalty in Christ. I believe that Jesus died and paid for my sins, and then I am loyal to him because of what he has done for me. So I hope that brings you some comfort today to realize that if you get it right today, you do everything perfect today, praise the Lord. But if you struggle today, you get a few things wrong today, it's not going to change God's mind about you. He chose to love you way before you ever wanted him. And I hope that brings you some comfort today. Let's pray together. Father, thank you so much for your goodness and your mercy. Thank you, God, for a systematic look at your word. Thank you, God, for our spiritual father, Abraham, who before he even knew of a law and a covenant, he chose to follow you. And that believing loyalty opened the door for all of us. Lord, I'm so thankful that even today, you have chosen to love us way before we ever knew about you. And I'm thankful, Lord, that your love doesn't change, whether we get it right or we get it wrong. I pray you will help us to have that believing loyalty in you. And we will turn our hearts more fully to you every day. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Don't forget, God's word says this in Romans chapter 1, verse 16. For I am not ashamed of this good news about Christ. For it is what? The power of God at work, saving everyone who believes. I love you. Hope you have a great day. I can't wait to see you here tomorrow for Romans chapter 5.