Faith is future-oriented, justifying faith, the faith that justifies you that makes you right with God that receives the imputation of

righteousness is future-oriented faith in the promises of God.

Does faith look to the past or to the future?

In this episode of Light and Truth,

John Piper examines Romans 4, 16 to 21,

to explore how faith embraces both God's fulfilled promises in the past and the future hope those promises guarantee.

The sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on September 26th, 1999.

The faith that glorifies God is a future-oriented faith, not a past-oriented faith. It's all about

promises here. Look at verse 18, in hope against hope, in hope

against hope, Abraham believed. What's the relationship between hope and faith? How do hope and faith relate to each other?

Answer, faith is in a person, God, Christ.

But think about it.

I trust you God, I trust you Jesus.

And the answer is to do what? To do what?

And when the answer of that is to fulfill your promises,

faith is indistinguishable from hope. If you trust a person to fulfill

a promise, that trust and the hope in the promise are indistinguishable.

Faith is hope, as Hebrews 11-1 says. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.

Faith is future-oriented.

Justifying faith, the faith that justifies you

that makes you right with God that receives the imputation of righteousness is future-oriented faith

in the promises of God, to which somebody might say, well, wait a minute, you're drawn that out of this, you're drawn that out of this text?

...