Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has
for us here today.
We're going to go ahead and open up our Bibles to the book of
Romans, Romans, chapter number three.
We have finished chapter one and two in this series called Theology
Matters, and we need to go back and talk about what theology
is.
What is theology?
Well, literally just means the study of God.
But when it comes to the life of a believer, theology is knowing
God, having an understanding of who God is and what he has done
for us.
And so it's more than just the head knowledge, though.
That's where it starts.
It goes to a place in our life where it grows in our love for him,
when we understand who he is and understand what he has done for
us.
And in chapter two, and really half of most of chapter three, if
not all of chapter three, Paul is making a case for the need for
a savior.
Number one, our need for a savior, and number two, who that
savior is.
That savior is Jesus Christ.
It's not salvation by works.
Remember, we talked about two different words, two words that start
with the J.
We have justification.
That's.
That's that idea that God declares us righteous, that God saves
us from our sin.
And then on the other side of that is God's judgment.
That's.
That's God's righteous wrath given out to those who are in rebellion
to him, those that have no belief in him.
And so that's really what Paul is wrestling with here.
He's saying, look, we need to understand what God does in salvation.
And we also need to understand what God does in judgment.
Because if we are believers in Jesus Christ, we need to understand
what we have in him and how he has saved us and how we don't earn
it.
But ultimately, we trust in the work of Jesus Christ.
But there's a lot of people out there that don't believe that
they need a savior, at least in the terms that the Bible puts
it.
They say, you know what?
I love God, but I think I could do it myself.
I trust in my good, I trust in my religion, I trust in my church,
I trust in my money.
I trust in my strength, whatever it might be.
And so what Paul is dealing with here is there.
There are people who, in their ignorance Say they don't need a savior,
right?
That that was the Gentile.
The Gentile didn't know the law of God.
The Gentile didn't understand what it meant to be religious.
And so we can't rely on our ignorance to save us, because for
all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
We're going to talk about that in Romans Chapter three.
But on the other side of things, information doesn't save
us.
Because on the other side of those that are ignorant to the truth
of God came those who said, you know what?
We're Jewish, we're religious, God spoke to us.
And so therefore that's all we need.
We don't need to believe in faith.
We are good enough.
And Paul says, both parties, those that are ignorant to the truth
and those that have the information are still not saved.
Those that are saved are those that come to Jesus Christ in faith.
And so he deals with the moral man.
He deals with the man who is living in public sin, as we saw in
Romans Chapter one.
But then we get to Romans Chapter three.
And what Paul does essentially is he gets ahead of the game.
And he says, I know that there's going to be some opposition
to what I've taught you so far.
No doubt Paul had already dealt with people asking him questions,
putting up a defense to their way of thinking.
And so the first question that Paul deals with here in Romans Chapter
three is this.
So if salvation is by faith alone and not by where we're born,
and not by our traditions and not by our religion, what advantage
then have the Jew?
So.
So Paul asks a question, but he's asking a question for many people
who might have that question.
He says, so what does it mean to be a Jew, then?
What's the.
What's the benefit of that?
Or what profit is there of circumcision?
And.
And so Paul carefully explained in Romans Chapter two,
that the possession of the law, any act of religion for the
Jewish person, was not going to save them.
And so he says, okay, so you might ask me, what does it mean to
be a Jew?
Why?
Why is it so important to be a Jew?
Is there any importance there?
Well, we're going to study more in Romans chapter 9, 10 and
11 about that.
But he does answer.
He says in verse two, much every way, meaning, yes, there is
a blessing there chiefly, first and foremost, because that
unto them were committed the oracles of God.
So he says, yes, there.
There was an advantage of being born into that culture.
It was because God entrusted them with the truth.
Of the Word.
Remember, the law was given to them, the.
The Word of God.
The revelation of God was given to them, and in time it was
then revealed to the whole world.
So he says there is a blessing in that.
The blessing is as the gospel is, to the Jew first and also to
the Greek.
That's Romans, chapter 1, verse 16.
He says there's.
There's an amazing blessing there, and that is because they were
entrusted.
They were given the oracles of God, the word of God.
Paul is going to later expand upon that advantage in Romans chapter
nine.
We won't get there today.
But he says there is a blessing.
So, so don't use that as an opposition because there were some
saying, well, Paul, what you're teaching is this.
It doesn't matter how we're born, it doesn't matter who we are.
And so essentially, basically there's this attitude of, well, it
really doesn't matter.
We're going to see how that transfers over to verses three and
four.
Verse three says, for what if some did not believe?
And so the fact is, is that there were people that time that
were born into the Jewish customs that did not believe the
gospel.
For the most part, they rejected the Gospel completely.
And so what does that mean to God's faithfulness to them?
Does that mean that God is not powerful?
Does that mean that God is not loving?
So for what if some did not believe, shall their unbelief?
Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
Now, I know that this is some deep stuff here this morning.
I know this is Family Sunday.
And so I'm going to ask if you do your best to follow me, I'm going
to try to do my best to clarify all the thinking here that
Paul is putting out here through the inspiration of the Word.
But essentially what he's asking is this.
He says this, what if people don't believe?
God's people, the Jewish people, what if they don't believe?
Does their unbelief mean that God is not faithful to them?
Does that mean that God has stopped in his love for them?
It's a true question.
Because a lot of people might think that maybe God has failed.
And so.
So the fact that the Jewish people as a whole at this point had
rejected the gospel, it didn't mean that God wasn't faithful to
them.
It doesn't mean that God's love for them was in vain.
It didn't mean that God's work was useless.
And so essentially what he's going to say here is that no, he
reminds them that God will is always justified by his actions.
Verse four, he says, God forbid, that's one of Paul's favorite
saints.
God forbid.
That is not true.
God is not stopped in his faithfulness to his people.
He says, yea, let God be true, but every man a liar.
What he's essentially saying is this.
Anytime we question God's goodness, we're the ones that are
wrong.
God is good in every sense, in his judgment, in his faithfulness,
in everything.
And so there's a lot of people that have a hard time dealing with
God, allowing for difficulty in this world.
A lot of people that even claim to be somewhat religious have
a problem with talking about God's judgment upon those that are
in rebellion.
And so for the what we see is this.
A lot of people avoid the talk of judgment.
They avoid talking about the judgment of God.
But what we see here is he says, no, we can't avoid the judgment
of God because if we question God's character, if we question God's
goodness, what are we doing?
We're essentially lying.
We're lying to ourselves and we're lying to Him.
He says, God is always true.
And so think about it this way.
If everybody in the world saw something different than God, it's
not a democracy, it's God is right, we are all wrong.
So if I'm seeing things wrong in accordance to the theology of
God, if I'm looking at the word of God and saying no, that that's
morally not what I think is a good thing, guess what?
I'm wrong because I am a liar in my flesh.
I fall short in my wisdom, I fall short in my morality, I definitely
fall short.
But God, in our theology, what we believe and what the scripture
teaches is that God is completely worth holy in every way.
So if someone says, well, if God loves the Jewish people, why
do all the people not believe?
That means he's stopped.
That means he's pulled back his love for them.
No, the Bible says that if there ever is a discrepancy in our
way of thinking, it's our problem, not His.
He says, as it is written, that thou mightest be justified in
thy sayings and thou mightest overcome when thou art judged.
But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God.
So now he's going to ask another question here, and this is
where you have to really put your thinking caps on because he's
going to basically follow human logic and say this.
If our unrighteousness shows God's Righteousness even more, why
does it matter?
Why does what we do matter?
And he basically is going to ask this question, if doing wrong
shows God's power in judgment, why don't we all just do wrong?
Why don't we all just live in sin?
Because that's going to show God's power even more.
And you would say, what?
What is that?
That, that doesn't make any sense.
That's the teaching of abuse of grace.
If God is going to be gracious and God is going to be completely
perfect and God is going to be glorified through his judgment, why
don't we all just get judged by God and make God look better?
And it says there in verse number five, what shall we say is
God's unrighteousness?
Who taketh vengeance?
He says, is God wrong by doing this?
Is God wrong by judging?
God forbid.
For then how shall God judge the world?
So this is a very interesting concept here.
What he essentially says is that, hey, the counter argument that
someone is bringing to Paul is if my unrighteousness will demonstrate
God's righteousness, how can God judge me?
Right?
Because what he's saying is this.
God is going to be glorified no matter what.
So, so God is going to be glorified when we're righteous and
God is going to be glorified though we are unrighteous.
He's going to be glorified through the judgment because he's
holy.
And so he gets glory for his judgment and for his salvation.
And so what the person is saying is, if my unrighteousness
will demonstrate God's righteousness, how can God judge
me because it's bringing him glory.
So essentially what someone is asking here is this.
It's the classic question of why can God judge me if he already
knows that I'm going to sin?
Why can God judge me if he's completely righteous and he's going
to get glory through all of this?
And so essentially it's this, how can God judge the world?
How is he moral in judging the world?
But go back to verse number five, because he says, this is God
unrighteous who taketh vengeance?
And then there's this phrase here in the King James.
It says, I speak as a man.
What is he saying here?
In the original Greek, he's saying this.
This is the way that the world thinks.
This is worldly logic.
So in worldly logic it's this.
If God already knows that we're going to do wrong, if God is
glorified through his judgment upon those that are in sin, then
how is God righteous in doing this?
It just doesn't make sense to the worldly mind.
But we have to go back and we have to understand the theology of
God.
I know this is deep here this morning, but let's look at it.
Verse 6, he says, God forbid, then how shall God judge the world?
For if the truth of God have more abounded through my lie unto
his glory, which why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
And not rather as we be slanderously reported and as some
affirm that we say, let us do evil, that good may come whose damnation.
So he's basically playing the other side of the coin.
He says there's people that say it doesn't matter what we do,
that what we're preaching in the grace of God means that we can
just keep sinning.
And by the way, you see that there in the parentheses, he says,
as we be slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say.
So people are saying to Paul, if you preach God's grace, if you
preach God's power, if you preach God's holiness, then basically
everyone's saying, you can just live the way that you want to
live, because God's going to do his thing anyway.
God's going to judge, God's going to save, God's going to be
glorified, so why does it matter?
And he says, no, those people that accuse us of that thinking are
missing the point.
He says that they're going to face judgment for that decision.
That's at the end of verse number eight.
So if the truth of God hath more bounded through my lie or my
sin unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
Well, that's the case that he's making.
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
It's God's holiness and his perfection that allows him to judge
us fairly for our sin.
And so we have to understand there's a big term here today that
we have to.
We don't have to know the term itself, but we have to know its meaning.
And that is harmartiology.
That's the study of sin.
We have to understand the impact of sin in our life.
We have to understand the definition of sin.
Number one, the definition of sin is literally missing the mark
of God.
So God sets a mark, by the way, that's the law, right?
God gives as the oracles of God.
He gave the law to the Jewish people.
And he says, this is my heart.
This is what it means to live a life of righteousness.
And essentially what we can see is that through the law, all
of us, all of us fall short of the glory of God.
That's what verse number 10 is going to tell us.
There is none righteous.
No, not one.
So sin is missing the mark.
Now, some could argue, well, that person misses the mark more
than me.
Okay, well, we know in other passages of Scripture that if we
miss the mark once, we're guilty of them all.
Now, that does not mean this.
Okay?
So, by the way, there's a lot of false teaching with sin these
days.
What that means is this.
All sin is equal.
So therefore, if you sin in this area, you might as well sin
in all the areas, right?
It's not what he's saying.
He's not saying that, hey, if you lie, you might as well steal.
That's not what he's saying.
But what is he saying?
He says that if I'm guilty of the sin, I'm guilty before God because
I would have to be perfect to have salvation in my own strength.
So I'm not teaching this, and the Bible's not teaching this that
all sins have the same outcome here on this earth.
He's teaching that all sins have the same outcome when it comes
to our guilt before God and salvation.
So some people might say, well, I haven't sinned that much.
That's the argument that some people have.
My good outweighs my bad.
Paul says, no, that.
That doesn't work.
Ultimately, what it means is that even if you've sinned a few
times, you're still guilty before a holy God.
And then Jesus, again, you have to remember what he said in
Matthew, chapter five.
He took it further.
Oh, well, Pastor, I have.
I've never done anything bad.
Okay, well, the truth is that you're probably lying in that.
But at the end of the day, he says, it's more than just your actions.
It's also your attitude.
Jesus says, hey, don't.
You've heard, don't murder, but also don't hate your brother.
Because when you hate your brother, you committed murder in
your heart.
And so it's further than what we actually think.
And so even if we convince everybody around us that we are good
people, God knows our heart.
And so sin is missing the mark.
And in sin brings us all, all to a place of guilt before God.
And that's what Paul is talking about here.
So when the person says, God has no right to judge because he's
ultimately in control, what we can say is, yes, he has every right
to judge.
Every one of us deserve the punishment of death.
We're going to get to Romans chapter 6.
For the wages or the payment of sin is death.
Now, I know this isn't popular preaching.
I. I know this isn't something that people turn on on a Saturday
morning and get pumped up about.
I'm a sinner and I deserve punishment.
But that's the truth.
Now, there's going to be a good part to this in a minute, but
I have to build the scene.
We have to see what Paul is talking about here.
And so Paul was familiar with the line of thinking that, hey, God
is in control of everything, so even if I do evil, he will be
glorified.
So why don't I just keep doing evil?
Because he talks here specifically about the change, the
transformation that needs to happen in a relationship with God,
a need for faith in the one who fulfilled the law.
A lot of people might believe or understand Jesus when he came
that he said, hey, you know what?
The law is gone.
I've destroyed the law.
I've.
You don't even need the law.
It's gone, though.
We don't live by the letter of the law because none of us can.
The letter to the law shows us where we are guilty.
It's a school, master.
It teaches us that all of us need something bigger.
All of us need something holy to come into our lives and change
us.
So what does the Bible say?
Some of you already know this.
You guys know where I'm going with this.
Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law.
Jesus, in his holiness here on this earth, fulfilled the law in
every way so that when we trust in him, he is what the Bible's
going to call here in a moment, propitiation.
Because he was the perfect sacrifice.
And as God poured out his wrath and punishment upon Jesus,
he took the weight of all of our sin.
He took all of that payment.
And he said, you know what?
I will take that because I am the only one who can take that.
And so Paul says, worldly way of thinking, do what you want, it
doesn't really matter.
Kind of like defeatism, determinism.
But at the end of the day, he says, that's worldly way of thinking.
That's not God's way of thinking.
And so Paul, he basically dismisses the question.
If things were as what he says as the worldly way of thinking, God
could judge nobody because he wouldn't have the right to.
But we all know that God has the right to because of what Scripture
tells us here.
So, so Paul here is, is giving the certainty that the judgment day
is coming.
There will be some that are justified in faith, and there will
be some that are judged in sin, judged in rebellion.
Doesn't matter if you're Jew or Gentile.
It's the matter of faith.
And so what, what does Paul do?
Paul states the purpose to his, his argument here.
Yes, will God be glorified through, through my sin?
Yes, but it's never his will that we go that path.
How can God judge me?
Well, Paul gets to that point there, Verse number nine.
What then?
Are we better than they?
No, in no wise.
For we have before proved both Jew and Gentile that they all are
under sin.
Paul says, none of us, none of us can avoid it.
Their condemnation is just.
So what we can ultimately take from this section here is that there
are some without the proper understanding of the brokenness and
the punishment of sin that can twist the free gift of God's grace
into a license for sin, into to a license of resting in our human
sin and our human brokenness.
And so it takes a beautiful, beautiful gift that is grace.
And it twists it and perverts it and changes it to a place where
basically says God's grace is actually wrong.
Folks, the only reason that we have salvation at all is because
of God's grace.
And so lot of people say, well, you know what?
If God's so loving, why does he judge?
God is so loving because he offers us a way to not face judgment,
because every single one of us deserve that.
And so it's not a matter of God loving us less by judging us.
It's a matter of God loving us infinitely by offering us a way out.
We condemn ourselves by the sin that we commit in our own lives.
And so what we can see here is that Paul addresses the pagan.
That's Romans chapter one.
He addresses the hypocrisy of the moral religious man in Romans
chapter two.
And he addresses the false confidence of the Jew in their own
system of doing things, their own traditions here all the way through
Romans chapter three.
And essentially it culminates in verse nine.
And we've already read it.
But what then?
Are we better than they says?
Are you better because you're a Jew?
Are you better because you're a Gentile?
Are you better because you go to church?
Or are you better because you're an American?
Are you better because you're a man?
Are you better because you're a woman?
He says, really, at the end of the day, we all stand equal before
the eyes of God.
Are we either there in faith, are we there in anything else other
than that faith in Jesus Christ?
He says, you're guilty.
None of us have an excuse, no in no wise.
For we have proved or demonstrated both Jew and Gentile,
both churchgoer and non church goer, that they are all under sin.
Now why are we so emphatic about this?
Because we have to warn against people who say, I'm good,
I go to church, I'm good.
I don't do those things that that person does.
I, I'm good because I follow all the rules of my church.
We can see over and over and over again in the New Testament that
it's not about being a list follower.
It's not about being part of some group or being part of some
tradition.
He says ultimately it is through faith and faith alone.
He's going to build his case even more.
Here in verse number 10, he says, as it is written.
So he references other passages of scripture.
He says, as it is written, there is none righteous.
No, not one.
He just used a really powerful phrase.
In verse nine, he says, all of us are under sin.
That word under sin literally means before we come to Christ in
faith, we are all under bondage, we are all in chains.
We are all dictated by our sin.
But then we see here in verse 10, he says everyone is righteous.
No, not one.
He starts describing the sinfulness of man without God, a
sinfulness with man without faith and having imputed righteousness
of God in our life.
He says in verse number 11, there is none that understand it.
There is none that seeketh after God.
Now before I go any further, this is a proof text to many people
that say that you cannot be saved at all, you cannot do good
at all without the understanding that God awakened you.
Now what, what does this mean here?
This, this does not mean that, hey, you know what?
I'm, I'm hopeless.
Only if God chooses me am I going to be saved.
No, this speaks to the description of someone who is in
rebellion to God.
And so ultimately what we can see here is that, hey, a lot of people
will use this passage of scripture as there.
You can't even, you don't have a choice in being saved.
You don't have a choice at all.
Like you.
You can never be saved outside of the fact that, hey, you're just
forced to be saved.
And some are forced to be saved and some are forced not to
be saved.
That's the way that God ordains it.
But what we can see here is a description of who we are outside
of faith in Jesus Christ.
And then when the word of God we're going to see In Romans chapter
10, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
As the word of God comes into our life and our hearts are awakened
in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit convicts us to the truth,
we then have a decision to make whether or not we are going
to believe in faith or we are going to reject in pride.
So he says, there is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God.
So what does that essentially mean?
In our flesh we don't seek after God, at least in the right
way, in the biblical way.
They're, they're all gone out of the way.
They are together become unprofitable.
There is none that doeth good.
No, not one.
Again, he is referring to this action that people try to do by doing
good in their own strength.
And he says, you cannot do that.
These are all references to Old Testament scriptures.
You could look at Psalm 14, that's a cross reference.
Psalm 5, Psalm 140, Psalm 10, Psalm 36, and some passages even
in Isaiah 59 speak to this opening statement that there is none
righteous.
There is none that are good in and of their own selves.
Then he goes on a little bit further.
He says verse 12.
He says, They've gone their own way.
Verse 13.
Their throat is an open sepulcher.
They speak evil.
Open sepulcher.
I don't know if you understand the, the picture there, but basically
he's talking about like a dead person is in a tomb and the tomb
is open.
Now all of us understand that there's that stench of death.
And so what he's saying this, he says, what we speak is evil.
What we speak is terrible.
What we speak is poisonous.
Their throat is an open sepulcher.
With their tongues they have used deceit.
They lie.
The poison of asp is under their lips.
He's talking about the venomous aspect of our speech.
How, you know, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words
will never hurt me.
That's not biblical.
What he says is that in our flesh we will hurt others with what
we say, whose mouth is full of cursings and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed blood.
They're violent.
That's what he's saying here.
Destruction and misery are in their ways.
This is all a description of who we are in humanity without Christ
and the way of peace.
Have they not known there is catch this because this is the culmination
of all of it.
There is no fear of God before their eyes.
Speak of that here today.
What are we talking about when we're talking about the fear of God?
Well, it summarizes this entire thought and basically every
sin, every rebellion against God is based in the fact that we
don't have a proper respect for who he is and what he has done
for us.
We believe in a lie.
We believe that our way is better.
We, we love ourselves more, we respect ourselves more.
We respect our, our flesh and its desires more than how we respect
God.
So he says essentially, who are we without God?
We are ones that don't fear Him.
We are ones in sin.
We are ones who lie.
We are ones who shed blood.
We are ones who try to do it all in our own.
And we see there in verse 12, it says that we become unprofitable
or unfruitful in that there is no fear of God before their eyes.
It's all pride, it's all selfishness.
Folks.
We all have to get to a point in our life where there is nothing
that we fear more than God.
Now by the way, when I say that word, fear, I'm not talking
about trembling, thinking that God is going to condemn us because
in faith we have no more condemnation.
That's Romans, chapter eight.
But what does it mean?
It means a healthy respect and understanding of the power of God
and again, who he is and what he has done and how he views sin.
So I've been asked this question before as a believer.
Well, can I just go sin?
Can't, Can't I just go and just ask God for forgiveness?
Can I just live the way that I want to live Monday through Saturday
and do the worst stuff on Saturday night and then come back
on Sunday morning and just say, lord forgive me?
Well, the truth is, is that God's grace is abundant.
God will forgive you of your sin.
But if you fast forward just a little bit, Paul addresses this in
Romans chapter six.
We're gonna, we're gonna get there and talk more about this later
on.
But it says, what shall we say then?
Verse 1?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound, God forbid.
There's another reference as Paul mentions God forbid.
How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?
So when you truly understand what God has done for you, that shouldn't
be our heart.
Our heart shouldn't be.
Well, yeah, I can do whatever I want.
God will just forgive me.
That's called abuse of grace.
And it's not having a proper Understanding of who God is and what
he has done for us in our relationship with him.
And so we go back to Romans, chapter three, and he says, that's
who you are without God.
You are lacking the fear of God.
You are lacking righteousness.
You are lacking hope.
You are lacking fruitfulness.
You are lacking salvation.
Verse 19.
Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to
them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and
all the world may become guilty before God.
So here's what he's saying.
He's saying this lest you think that you can avoid God's judgment.
It says here that everyone, though we admit it or not, are under
the law and that every mouth may be stopped.
Think about someone just running their mouth.
But God, I have this.
And they have all these excuses.
Essentially what it says is that God eventually, in his judgment,
will stop all of that.
Why?
Because of his holiness.
And.
And that all of the world may become guilty before God.
What an interesting phrase that is.
The law cannot save us.
The law doesn't justify in any way.
It is useful, though.
We don't throw the law out.
Why?
It's useful because it gives us the understanding of sin.
It gives us the understanding of the fact that we fall short.
It shows us how much more we need a savior.
You.
You think you're a good person?
I'm a good person.
Like, I, I, I'm.
I'm.
I. I've heard people say, you know what?
I. I really believe that mostly everyone in this world are.
They're just really good people.
We're all just good people in.
In our hearts.
I've even heard some preachers get up and say, for the most part,
I think everyone in this world, we're.
We're all just good in our nature, folks.
That's the complete opposite of what the Bible just tells us.
Here in Romans, chapter three.
We.
We are all.
Though we can have flashes of goodness in our life, all of us are
guilty before the law.
So lest you think you are a good person, unless I think I'm a
good person, I'm gonna go ahead and pull out the Mosaic law.
And I've got about 613 things you got to follow today.
Some of you are like, I can follow maybe one, maybe two.
But hey, let's just even break it down to the 10.
10 commandments, okay?
If we went through all those 10 commandments today, I think all
of us would admit that we have fallen short at at least one of those.
Most likely, almost all of them.
Okay, so.
So the whole point is this, because a lot of times people in
churches will teach this.
Just be better people.
Be more righteous.
Start following the rules more.
No, what he's essentially saying is this.
You can't follow the rules.
All of us are guilty.
We need something bigger than our own works.
So verse 20, therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no
flesh be justified.
Remember that word, justified?
Declaration of righteousness.
We cannot declare ourselves righteous.
We cannot declare ourselves saved.
Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified
in his sight, which his sight's the only one that matters
in his sight.
For by the law is the knowledge of sin.
So you might think, what's the role of the law today for us?
Well, we're not bound by the law.
We don't have to live by the law.
We're not saved by the law.
But the law shows us where we fall short.
The heart of God is this, even if we summarize it to this point.
Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two things hang all the law and the prophets, even that
sometimes we fall short.
So some people think, well, I don't have to live by the law, but
I'm just going to live by loving God with all my heart, and
I'm love my neighbor as myself, and that's what's going to
save me.
That's never what Jesus is saying.
He doesn't say, you're saved by that.
He says that you believe in faith and that's how it's manifested.
And so what I would say is this, as a Christian, we have to
understand that our flesh makes us incapable of saving ourselves.
And so we get to verse number 21.
It says, but now.
But now the righteousness.
So, so you want righteousness.
Don't earn it on your own.
You can't earn it on your own.
It's a.
It's a futile effort.
But he says you can't have righteousness.
And so that's all the bad news, a lot of bad news.
Here's the good news.
As a human, you can still find righteousness, but in.
Not in your own righteousness, in the righteousness of God in your
life.
And so here we see in verse 21, but now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested.
And so here's an interesting concept.
These words provide a wonderful transition from, hey, you're
a sinner.
Hey, you failed to.
Now you move from that judgment that we all deserve to the
justification that we can find in Christ.
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested
being witnessed by the law and the prophets.
Meaning this faith has always been around.
This opportunity has always been around.
For those before Jesus Christ, it was looking for a messiah that
is to come.
If you think that the people in the Old Testament were saved by
the law, read the book of Hebrews, Specifically Hebrews, chapter
11.
Abraham was saved by faith.
Noah was saved by faith, always through faith.
And so he says, you want to find that righteousness.
This type of righteousness has been found throughout all of history
through the law and the prophets, verse 22.
Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith in Jesus Christ,
that, hey, that's it.
That's the call to action.
That's the good news.
That's the invitation.
That's the hope that we have.
That's the beauty of it, that it's not on me, it's on him and it's
faith in him.
And so what we can see here in verse 22 is this.
You want righteousness in your life.
You want the opposite of what's described in verses 10 through
19 and 20.
You say this, hey, it's not about me.
It's the righteousness of God which is found in not my good works,
not my church I go to.
But it says there in verse 22, exactly word for word, what we do
by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe,
for there is no difference.
Everybody is saved the same way.
Well, Pastor, I'm going to come to church and I'm going to get
cleaned up, and I'm going to look right, and I'm going to talk,
right?
And then I think I can get saved.
No, the Bible says that the person in the gutter addicted to
drugs is saved the same way as the moral man who's living in a penthouse
in New York City.
Everybody is saved the same way.
You can't earn your way to heaven, you can't buy your way to
heaven.
And what we can see is that every other faith in this world outside
of biblical Christianity says, you got to do something, you got
to pay something.
I was even having a conversation in our Bible study this
morning.
There are certain, what we would call religions, I would call
cults out there today that say you got to pay this much money to
get to the next level, and then you can finally reach the level
of complete wisdom when you pay enough to us.
But the Bible says there's nothing that we can pay.
There's nothing that we can do we are all saved the same way.
That's what we see in verse 22.
So many times we quote verse 23, for all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God, and we leave it there.
And there's a truth there.
But the complete truth is this.
Yes, we all have sinned.
Yes, all of us have fallen short of the glory of God.
But even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ
upon all them that believe.
For there is no difference, folks.
There's a remedy to the problem of sin.
There's a remedy to the point where we all fall short of the glory
of God.
You know, what if we went to the Grand Canyon today and.
And.
And we, like, we went as a church.
I've never been to the Grand Canyon.
Some of you have been there, so if I say something wrong, you
just correct me later, okay?
But I'm pretty sure at most places in the Grand Canyon, I could
not jump across, okay?
So I'm sitting there and I say, hey, guys, I think I can jump
across there.
And you guys are like, don't do that.
Hopefully you would say that.
Hopefully none of you are like, all right, go ahead.
Let's see the pastor.
But.
But I run and I jump and I go maybe 20ft.
But guess what's going to happen?
I'm going to fall to my demise.
And then we have an Olympic long jumper come up there.
He comes up and he's wearing Olympic long jumper shirt.
And we say, whoa, he's.
That's the gold medal Olympic long jumper.
And he comes there.
He goes, hey, guys, I'm gonna jump across.
Some people would say, well, I think that's still pretty far for
an Olympic jumper to jump, but let's go ahead and see it.
And he jumps and he goes three times farther than me.
But guess what?
He's still going to fall to his demise.
That's the futility of saying that.
I'm better than that person.
I've done more than that person.
I'm more religious than that person.
The truth is, is that the VI can only be bridged through the cross.
It only can be, you know, walk.
Walk across on the cross.
And the idea that it's only through Jesus Christ that we can
find that salvation.
And so we Forget about verse 24.
We forget about verse 24 when we quote verse 23.
For all sin and come short of the glory of God.
Yes, but it says this.
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that
is in Christ Jesus.
The answer to verse 23 is verse 24.
We can be justified freely.
It's a free gift of grace to us through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus.
That is the gospel.
Some of you have heard the Romans road before.
You've heard of the.
The path to lead someone to Christ.
And verse 23 is always on that path.
I think that when we read verse 23, I think we should always
read verse 24.
Because, yes, we do need to show people that they are in sin.
We do need to show people that they have fallen short.
We do need to show people that they need a Savior.
But then verse 24 tells us exactly how we can find that salvation
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God has set
forth to be.
And here's this word that we were kind of alluding to for a while,
the propitiation through faith in his blood.
Verse 25 tells us how Jesus can do this.
We talked about why does.
How can God judge?
Because he's completely holy and we're completely sinful.
But then we see, how can Jesus save?
How.
How is Jesus sacrifice better than any other martyr in this world?
Well, it says it right here.
Whom God has set forth.
It's God's plan, God the Father's plan to be a propitiation
or a satisfaction of God's wrath.
He's the perfect sacrifice is what it's saying here to be to declare
his righteousness.
Now, the way that he could do that propitiation is through his
blood.
His blood.
We're going to celebrate that here in a few moments in communion.
But the fact is, is that his perfect blood is the satisfaction
to our sin.
Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission and forgiveness
of sins to declare his righteousness.
For the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God, it is by the grace of God, it's through the forbearance
of God that we are offered this opportunity through Jesus Christ
to have salvation.
It's only through his perfect shed blood that we have this opportunity.
And so we're going to finish to the end of the chapter.
Here we go.
This is what we're going to do.
We're already this close.
We're going to go all the way to the end.
So then it says in verse 26 to declare, I say at this time, his
righteousness.
It's his righteousness that he might be just and that the justifier
of him which believeth in Jesus.
Where is boasting then?
How can we boast in this?
We can't boast in this.
It is excluded.
By what law or works?
Nay, no, but by the law of faith.
So what is he saying here?
He says, then how could anyone boast in their salvation?
You can't, because it's not something you did.
It's not some law you kept.
It's not by some action that we did.
It is only, only through faith in Jesus Christ.
Is he the God of the Jews only?
Is he not also of the Gentiles?
Yes, of the Gentiles also.
Folks, what he's saying, this is this salvation is not just the
one people.
It's not just for one culture.
It's for everybody seeing it is one God which shall justify the
circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith.
Jew, Gentile like are saved by faith, do we then make void the law?
So now he's going to ask a question.
This is going to be our transition for next week.
He says, okay, we have established Paul, Paul.
I believe Paul believes here.
At this point, you all understand it's not by the law.
Okay, by faith, verse 31.
Do we then make void the law through faith?
Then he uses his phrase here.
God forbid.
Yea, we established the law.
And so next week we're going to look more into the idea of why
do we still have the law?
What's the role of the law today?
How can we as Christians reconcile the need for the law but
also salvation by faith alone?
And so we'll get to that next week.
But what I want us to see is this verse 30.
It summarizes his whole thinking here.
Again, there's a lot of summation verses, but verse 30 is
another great summary verse, seeing it is one God which shall
justify the circumcision, that's the Jewish by faith and the
uncircumcision through faith.
Salvation by faith alone, sola fide.
That's the Latin.
And what we have to understand is, you say, pastor, you're preaching
to a church that for the most part believes in faith completely.
Why does this matter?
Because salvation is isn't just a miracle of the moment.
Even though justification is a transaction, it's a change in that
moment.
But as a Christian, we can't just say, I'm saved today.
Now I can live the life the way I want to live it.
I can do what I want to do.
That goes back to what exactly Paul was talking about.
So what does this mean for us in theology?
It means this.
When we are tempted to doubt God in his goodness, when we're tempted
to think that we are better than we actually are in our own strength,
when we're tempted to think that we can earn our way or do our
own thing, when we're tempted to teach someone something outside
of faith in Jesus Christ, we must go back to what the Bible says
and rethink what's going on.
Because what does it say?
God is truth and man is a liar, and so we don't get our truth
from man.
I understand the beauty in democracy, but I also understand
that the majority isn't always right.
I've heard people make an argument to say, well, Pastor, most
Christians believe that, so why don't you believe that?
Well, what does the Bible say?
What does the Bible say?
We're getting to a point in our house where we're outnumbered,
right?
We've got three kids, and when Silas starts speaking, I guarantee
you he's going to go with his siblings.
And if he says, okay, we're going to have ice cream tonight,
well, no, you're not.
Mike is like, yeah, we're having ice cream.
Dad, we already voted you out.
Three, verse two.
That's not.
It's not how we do it in our house.
Dad has more than one vote.
All right.
No.
The truth is that sometimes we know in a silly fashion, sometimes
within a smaller setting, we.
That the group can be wrong.
Because.
Because what.
What if we said, hey, you know what?
Whatever the.
Whatever the mass majority says, we're going to go with.
Well, many times the majority, the crowd is against scripture.
Well, it makes a lot more sense to say that I can just be a
good person and get to heaven.
That.
That means.
That shows God's loving.
No, that's showing that you don't have a good grip on what the
Bible says about the truth of salvation and salvation by faith
alone.
And so it's always going back to scripture and saying this, hey,
you know what?
Even though I'm tempted to drift and tempted to think a different
way, why does God do that?
Why does God allow this?
Maybe God isn't loving as I thought.
We have to go back and realign our thinking and say, no, God is
completely loving.
I must be wrong in the way that I'm doing these things.
So may we never abuse the grace of God.
May we never lack in the fear of the Lord, and may we get to a
place in our life where we can celebrate the fact that it is not
something that we do, but ultimately what he does through us
in salvation and sanctification.
Because last point here, many of us will say, I Know, I'm not saved
through my works, but I, I grow through my works.
Just as you are saved by the grace of God, you grow in the understanding
of who God is and you grow in your spiritual maturity through the
grace of God as well.
That's why he says in the New Testament, grow in grace.
It's understanding that everything that we have in our life
is through him and him alone.
Yeah, I can read my Bible more, but that doesn't equate to
spiritual growth.
Spiritual growth equates to me relying on God for everything in
my life.
That's how I become more Christlike.
That's how I live out a Christlike life, is by relying on
him to give me the strength and the wisdom and not in my own
strength.
And so for you today, that maybe have been saved for a long
time, and maybe you're tempted to think that, yeah, I'm saved by
faith, but I work my way to become a better Christian.
None of us, none of us can work our way to that place.
It's only through the grace of God and His presence in our life.
Well, I'm going to ask if you're able to just stand with me.
Every head bowed, every eye closed.
As the music plays here this morning, we're going to have a time
of invitation.
I know that today was heavier on the theology, heavier on the logic.
But folks, if Paul thought this to be so important to preach,
all the more reason why we need to preach it today.
So many people are getting their eyes off of what the Bible
says about God and putting their eyes on the things that the
world says about God.
The world as we saw already.
What does it say?
The that man is a liar.
God is the truth.
Who are we going to go to to have our definition of how God works?
What God does, who he is?
Are we going to go to the world?
Are we going to go to our own definitions?
Are we going to go to what culture says about God?
Are we going to say, no, that's a liar?
The only one who's telling me the truth is God.
And I'm only going to find what I believe through His Word.
Because what you believe matters.
Because what you believe will be translated to how we act.
Folks, if you want to live a godly life, you got to think Christ
like things.
You got to think what the Word of God says in your life.
Meditate upon the truth of God.
Folks, I am tempted every day to doubt what the Word of God says
in my flesh and in the world's system.
But what we must do is die to our flesh, die to the world and say,
it is through Jesus Christ that I have life and therefore I'm
never going to doubt Him.
His word is true.
His word is a sword.
It is alive.
It is profitable for doctrine, for approved, for correction, for
instruction and righteousness.
So here this morning, may we be aligned to his truth and not our
own.
May we be aligned to his truth and and not the world's.
I ask you this morning, think about what we've talked about today,
the doctrine of sin, the need for a Savior, and the perfection
of the gift of Jesus Christ.
Lord, I pray that you be in this time of invitation, working
hearts and lives today.
Lord, help us to get to a place in our lives where we are relying
on you and you alone for our growth, for our salvation, for our
patience, for our peace, for our comfort.
Lord, help us not to believe the lies of this world.
Help us not to buy into man's logic.
Help us to follow your economy, help us to follow your purpose
and your plan for our lives.
Lord, I pray that you'd be in this time of invitation, working
hearts and life.
So if there's someone here today who does not know you as personal
Savior, may today be the day of that salvation.
Jesus name Amen.
As the music plays, some have already come Follow as the Lord leads.
Here this morning it thank you again for listening to the Middletown
Baptist Church podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
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Thank you so much.
God Bless.
Have a wonderful day.