Romans Chapter 4 (part 4)

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Quick note for new subscribers: We're in the middle of Romans right now. If you just joined us, you might feel like you're walking into the middle of a movie. You are. Here's what I recommend:

Keep reading below if you want to start where we are (Romans 4:17-22)
Or go back to the beginning - [Here's the intro to Romans], and [here's the full archive] so you can start from Chapter 1.

Either way works. I just don't want you to feel lost.

Before diving into my notes, I encourage you to read Romans 4:17-22 first (or the whole chapter if you have time).

I include all the Scripture below, but there’s something about sitting with the whole chapter first — giving yourself room to be curious.

What catches you off guard?
What doesn't make sense?
Where is that?
Who's that?
Why?

Those questions will make the notes hit deeper.

"When disciples followed a rabbi, they followed him closely so they would never be out of his sight, never be someplace where they couldn’t hear him speak. They followed him so closely that his sandals often kicked up dust."

May you be covered in His dust.

Grace and peace to you, brothers and sisters.

I started studying Romans in October 2025.

That was seven months ago.

I eat it, sleep it, read it, re-read it.
I watch sermons on it.
I take notes on it.
I sit with it in the early morning before anyone else is awake.

And somewhere along the way, I fell in love with it.

I'm so grateful Paul's letters were canonized. We need them. I need them.

Today we're in Romans 4:17-22. I’ve been sitting with these five verses longer than any passage we've covered so far. They’re dense and they’re deep and they’re worth every minute.

But here's what I didn't expect.

A question I didn't walk in with.

What's the difference between faith and saving faith?

Wait. There’s a difference?

I think there is.

And Romans 4 might explain it better than anywhere else in Scripture.

Let’s get into it.

Paul has spent sixteen verses building a case.

Justification is by grace.

Not works.
Not law.

Grace alone through faith alone.

And now in verse 17 he shifts. He's done arguing. Now he's going to show us.

Romans 4 is a painting. And like every great painting, the details matter. Every brushstroke. Every shadow. Every choice the artist made.

My wife is an artist. I've watched her work. What looks simple from across the room is anything but simple, up close.

Paul’s doing the same thing here. He's painting a portrait of Abraham's faith and he’s zooming in on the details so we can see exactly what saving faith looks like.

But here's what makes this painting different from any other.

It's also a mirror.

If you want to know whether your faith is saving faith, you hold it up against Abraham's and you look.

Do I have saving faith?

The first thing he shows us is this. Saving faith is Biblical faith.

Not a feeling you had at a worship concert.
Not the faith your grandmother had that you inherited somewhere along the way.

Biblical faith.

Wait. Biblical faith? Abraham didn’t have a Bible.

He had something more rare. God's word spoken directly to him. And he believed it. That was enough. The word of God was enough.

“I have made you the father of many nations” and Abraham believed.

For us it's written down. Sixty six books. Thousands of years of God revealing Himself. Making and keeping promises.

That's where saving faith begins.

And it never stops.

We walk by faith, present tense.

Every
single
day.

“for we walk by faith, not by sight .” (2 Corinthians 5:7)

Same word. Same God. Same faith.

For 99 years his name was Abram.

Father of many.

That was the name his mother gave him. The name his friends called him. The name that followed him everywhere he went.

Father of many.

And he had no children.
Not one.

Every single time someone called his name they were declaring something he couldn't see any evidence of. Every morning he woke up to the same name and the same empty tent.

Father of many. With no children.

Then God showed up and said we're changing your name.

Not Abram anymore. Abraham. Father of many nations.

More. Not less.

He walked around with that name for the rest of his life.
Every conversation.
Every introduction.
Every time his wife called him in for dinner.

That name was his hope made audible.

We read the word hope and we think we know what it means.

We don't.

Not the way Paul means it.

"In hope he believed against hope."

Two different hopes in the same sentence.

The first is Biblical hope.
The second is human hope.

They’re not the same thing.

When we say hope in English we mean something like, “I really want this to happen but I'm not sure it will.” Desire mixed with doubt.

Paul is saying that Biblical hope is certainty about something you haven't received yet. It's not wishing. It's standing on a promise you can't see fulfilled yet but have no doubt will be.

John Calvin said of Abraham, "When he had no ground for hoping, he yet in hope relied on the promise of God."

Abraham was 75 when God first made the promise. He was 85 when God showed him the stars and said, “so shall your offspring be.” He was 99 when God told him Sarah would have a son within the year.

Twenty five years.

His body got worse every single year he waited. Sarah's womb was dead. There was no medical possibility. No human explanation.

Abraham didn't flinch.

Abraham looked at the same impossible circumstances and he believed anyway.

He knew what God had promised. And believed it was true.

But knowing and believing aren't unique to believers.

Pastor Tom Pennington lays it out better than I can.

Knowledge means you know the truth about God and the gospel.

You know there is one God.
You know Jesus is His Son.
You know He is the Messiah the Old Testament promised.
You know the gospel — that Christ died for your sins, was buried, and raised on the third day.
You know your own sinfulness.
You know your sin is under the judgment of God.
You know your utter helplessness except in God.

Belief means you are convinced all of that is true.

“Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them,” (John 2:23, 24)

The crowd just watched Jesus perform miracles. And many believed. Real belief. They were convinced.

But in the next verse John does something in the Greek that you completely miss in English.

The word for "believed" in verse 23 and the word for "entrust" in verse 24 are the same word. Pisteuó.

They trusted Him. He didn’t trust them back.

Same word. Two completely different kinds of faith.

Jesus could see underneath the excitement. He knew how quickly crowds could change. The same crowds that shout "Hosanna" can later shout "Crucify Him."

But it wasn't saving faith.

Two elements.
Knowledge and belief.

But it’s not enough.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'" -Jesus

You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.
-The brother of Jesus, James

Demons believe.

They know the facts.
They’re completely convinced those facts are true.
They believe in God with more certainty than most humans ever will.

And they’re not saved.

So what's missing?

Trust.
That's what's missing.

Not just knowing the promise.
Not just believing it's true.
But abandoning yourself to it completely.

When I dated my wife, I was getting to know her…gathering knowledge. I was learning who she was and I liked what I found. She was a good person. She was kind. She loved kids.

But real commitment doesn't come until you stand in front of God and witnesses and say “I do.”

Churches are filled with people who are dating Jesus. They hear about Him every Sunday. They carry a book in and out of a building. They're serial daters. They've never said "I do" and they have no plans to.

They think "Why make the commitment when you can get all the benefits without one?”

Except they don’t get all the benefits.

Jesus defined it Himself.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

Lord.
Not just a good teacher.
Not just a miracle worker.
Lord.

Lord means your life is no longer your life.

You were purchased.
Your free time.
Your heart.

They’re
no
longer
yours.

There will be signs.
There will be fruit.

When you make decisions, do you talk to God or do you do the thing and then ask for His blessing?

That's the third element. Trust.

And Abraham had it.

Look at verses 20 and 21.

No unbelief made him waver.
He grew strong in his faith.
He gave glory to God.
Fully convinced.

Twenty five years of waking up every morning and choosing to believe what God said over what he could see.

His body got older, the impossibility got louder.

And his faith got stronger?

That's not normal. That's the work of God in a man who has fully committed himself to the promise.

When you believe God you’re honoring Him. And when you doubt, when you look at the circumstances and let them win, the Apostle John says you’re calling Him a liar.

“Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son.” (1 John 5:10)

Abraham didn't call Him a liar.

He kept believing.

“I want that faith! Where do I get it?”

No one has the capacity for faith unless God gives it.

Not Abraham. Not you. And not me.

In Acts 16:14, Paul is preaching and a woman named Lydia is listening. Luke writes a line that confirms it.

“The Lord opened her heart to respond.”

She didn't will that faith. God gave it to her.

“For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.” (Philippians 1:29)

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Faith is a gift.

Which means if you believe, God did that. He opened your heart the same way He opened Lydia's. The same way He gave Abraham the capacity to look at a dead body and a dead womb and still trust the promise.

True saving faith takes God at His bare word.

Therefore.

One word. And Paul put everything on it.

Everything we just looked at. The God who speaks things into existence. The name Abraham carried for 25 years with no evidence. The dead body. The dead womb. The hope that had no human ground to stand on. The trust that didn't flinch. The faith that got stronger instead of weaker.

That's why.

Because he believed God.

And God accounted it as righteousness.

I’ve been studying Romans since October, and honestly, those may be some of the most beautiful words I’ve read in the entire letter.

"God counted him righteous."

Not because Abraham had lived a perfect life or because he somehow earned it.

God looked at a believing sinner and declared him righteous.

Can you feel that?

There's something in me that still wants to earn it.
I want to contribute SOMETHING.
I want to deserve it.

But Paul keeps taking it away.

Abraham believed God.
And God accounted it as righteousness.

It's 8:30 on Saturday night.

I'm sitting in my office.
We just put the kids to bed.

This is a complete rewrite of my notes. Second week in a row.

Why?

Because this matters too much to settle for "good enough."

I've been sitting with Romans 4:17-22 for almost two weeks, and honestly, I can't shake the weight of it. Every time I think I'm done, I go back in and pull back another layer.

I know this sounds dramatic, but these may be some of the most important verses I've ever studied.

They answer the question every human being eventually has to face.

Do I have saving faith?

And tonight, sitting here at my desk, I keep thinking about the possibility that someone reading this might finally understand grace for the first time.

Maybe even rest in it.

That feels worth rewriting for.

"Father, give them the faith you gave Abraham. The kind that looks at the impossible and trusts the promise anyway. The kind that doesn't just believe on Sundays. The kind that says I do and means it forever. Amen."

I love you,
George

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George Sisneros is a full-time missionary in Guatemala and the founder of Ordinary Missionaries and the El Rosario Christian Academy for Boys.

He’s been married to his wife, Vonda, for 27 years. He’s a father to nine children, five adopted.

In 2024, George and his wife expanded to Cuba, joining forces with nine pastors committed to transforming lives through the gospel.