Right with God - Romans 3

We're going to open God's Word together. We're into week four of our series in the book of Romans, and we're Turning to Romans 3 today. So if you've got your Bibles with you, you can turn there with me. Otherwise the words will be up on the screen in just a moment. And as we come to God's Word, why don't we pray our God?

We come now with open hearts and open ears, ready to receive from you. We pray that through your word, by the power of your Holy Spirit, that you might speak to us. That you would plant something within our hearts today, Father, that it would transform our lives, that we would come away with a deeper and a richer understanding of who you are. And so we ask you this in Jesus name, amen.

Over my years of working with teenagers in a school setting and having my own kids as well, I've seen some very predictable responses when a child is confronted with having done the wrong thing. When you sit them down and they realize they've been caught out, and you say to them, why did you do that? I've seen three types of responses that commonly come. Perhaps you've seen them yourself, or maybe you have experienced them or remember them from your own childhood. But the first one of those is denial.

You might be standing there and watching it as it happens. One of your children walks past and slaps their brother or sister. Maybe that only happens in our house. And you say to them, why did you do that? And their first response is, I didn't.

And you're standing there thinking, I literally just watched you as you slapped your sibling. They know you saw it. You know they know you saw it. And yet somehow the instinct is still to say, it wasn't me. Another type of response is the excusing that happens.

This time, instead of denying it, they excuse it. Oh, I didn't realize I was going to hurt them. I was just playing. Or my favorite, I was just pretending to slap them, and then I accidentally did the other one. The other type of response is deflection.

It's where they try and shift the focus of their wrongdoing. It's the excuse that goes, they started it. Or my favorite is the one where they say, well, yesterday they said a mean word to me and they didn't get in trouble or like, happened in our home last night. I only slapped them. It was a natural reaction because they jumped out and scared me and my hand just slapped them on the face.

It's their fault. All those patterns of responding to being caught out doing the wrong thing, I would suggest to you, are not unique to kids. We, as adults, we don't really grow out of those instincts. We become a little bit more sophisticated in how we express it, a bit more nuanced. But at its heart, it's the same.

And the reason, I reckon, is because we want to feel. Deep down, we want to feel like we're good. But I think we realize maybe that we're not quite as good as we wish we were. And so society tells us, if you want to feel good, just try really hard to do good things. Try to make sure that on the balance you've done more good than bad.

And when you don't do good things, it's okay because other people are worse, or your intentions were good, or there's some excuse as to why you acted the way that you did. In these opening chapters in the book of Romans, we see that nothing has changed. Paul has spent two chapters stripping away every way that people try to justify themselves. In chapter one, he speaks to the person who lives as though God isn't there. The one who says, I don't need God.

I'll live life in my own way. And Paul says to him, that doesn't make you right before God. And then in chapter two, he turns to the person who says, well, I'm not like them. I'm not like them. I'm a good person.

I think many of us have a tendency to place ourselves here. We consider ourselves to be morally upright. We trust in our own behavior. But Paul says, that doesn't make you right with God either. And then Paul, in the second half of chapter two, turns to the religious person.

That's a bit confronting. He says to them, even if you think you've got the right heritage, that in and of itself doesn't make you right with God. And now, as we move into chapter three, Paul anticipates the response that's going to come as the church in Rome of open up this letter and read it. He knows that people will respond with those same three tendencies. They'll excuse, they'll deny, they'll deflect, they'll try to explain away their sin.

And as we turn to verse one of chapter three, if you have your Bibles there, Paul deals with those who might claim heritage as an excuse. To those who might say they then what's the advantage of being a Jew? Is there any value in the ceremony of circumcision? Paul would say, yes, there are great benefits. First of all, the Jews were entrusted with the whole Revelation of God.

You see, Paul knew that those amongst the church in Rome who were Jews would respond to Paul's statements about their sin and say, but hang on a minute, Paul. Surely my background counts for something. I'm part of God's people. I fulfilled the ceremonies that are expected of me under the law that has to put me in a better position in God's eyes. And Paul answers to them.

Yes, there's an advantage for you. You, as a Jew, are entrusted with God's word, the truth about God. But that advantage does not cancel out your sin. In verse three, we read, true, some of them were unfaithful, speaking about the Jews. But just because they were unfaithful, does that mean God will be unfaithful?

Of course not. Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true. Paul speaks now to the Jews who would try and deflect the responsibility of their guilt. It seems that he's heard people say, if we're failed as God's people, if we weren't able to be right with God, maybe that's not our fault. Maybe that's God's fault.

And Paul's answer to them is blunt. Even if God says one thing and every person on earth claims something else, what God says is true. God is completely faithful. So the problem is not with God's faithfulness. It's with our unfaithfulness.

And then in verse five, Paul exposes perhaps the most twisted response of all. Denial, dressed up as theology there in verse five says, but some might say our sinfulness serves a good purpose, for it helps people see how righteous God is. Isn't it unfair then, for him to punish us? This is merely a human point of view. Of course not.

If God were not entirely fair, how would he be qualified to judge the world? But someone might still argue, how can God condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty highlights his truthfulness and brings him glory? And some people even slander us by claiming that we say, the more we sin, the better it is. Those who say such things deserve to be condemned. Paul speaks to those who might actually claim that their sin is not a bad thing, that might claim my sin is actually just fertile ground for God's goodness to be shown.

So maybe the more I sin, the better it is because it shows God to be righteous. What a hollow argument that is. You can imagine Paul, as he writes, shaking his head as he outlines these wild excuses for sin that he's heard emerging from the early church. Now, I suspect we wouldn't put it like that we wouldn't speak about our Jewish heritage. But I think many of us are not immune from this same tendency because the human heart, when confronted with sin, reaches for denial.

It says, how dare you call me a sinner? It reaches for deflection. But I'm not as bad as other people. They're much worse than me. And it tries to excuse it.

It says, but I try to be good. I try really hard to be good. I've grown up in church. Surely that's enough. But Paul says the Gospel doesn't work like that.

It's why, between verses 10 and 20 of Romans 3, Paul pulls from various places in the Old Testament to say, every single one of us, whether Jew or Gentile, are the same. None of us are right with God on our own. Now, can you imagine the believers in Rome as they've gathered together in these homes across the city and had this letter read aloud to them? Like, I suspect there was probably a sense of excitement. You know, the great apostle Paul has written to us, and it opens in Romans 1 with, you know, he's heard of their faith, you know, they're feeling pretty good.

And then he spends the next three chapters saying, the immoral, those who consider themselves to be moral, to the Jew, to the Gentile, to the religious, you are all in the same boat. No more excuses, no more deflection, no more self justification. All of you are sinners. And no one is made right with God by their own works or their heritage.

I feel for the person reading that letter. I wonder if it felt like the air had been sucked out of the room as people started to shift in their seats uncomfortably, like, hang on a minute, started good. Now Paul's telling us that we're all sinners, doesn't matter that we're a Jew and we've fulfilled all the obligations under the law. He's saying that still doesn't make us right with God.

But then in verse 21, there's some crucial words for us because we read these first two words, but now, but now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who they are. What a relief those words must have been after all that had come before. Paul says, but now God has shown us a way that we can be made right.

It's been his plan all along that there would Be a way that no matter who you are, you can be made right with God. And then he outlines for us in verses 23 to 26 these three essential realities of the gospel. You see them there on the screen. Firstly, in verse 23, that we all fall short.

In verse 24, that God gives us a gift we don't deserve. And in verses 25 and 26, we receive God's gift through faith. Let's look at verse 23. For everyone has sinned, we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Now this is the starting point of the gospel, isn't it?

I think sometimes we can feel unsure speaking about sin, but this is where Paul starts. Because if we don't realize the desperate state of our condition, we don't realize that we need saving. And I want us to notice that Paul doesn't say some of you have sinned or most have sinned, or some have sinned a lot and some have sinned a little. He says, everyone has sinned. There's no distinction here between the person who's made a mess of their life and the person who has tried their best to be good.

And I suspect that some of those in Rome, as they hear this, were confronted. Maybe the Jewish believers looked at the Gentiles and said, but I've been raised in God's word. I've fulfilled the ceremonial customs and laws. I've the right heritage, unlike you Gentile, who was born and raised far away from God. I suspect some of those gathered looked at others and said, well, at least I'm not as bad as them.

And that thinking can infiltrate our church even today. But Paul says everyone has sinned. Everyone has fallen short of God's glorious standard. I love watching sport. It's.

I talk about it quite regularly from the front. Lots of my anecdotes are sport related, so it's not a surprise to you. But last year I was enjoying watching the World Athletics Championships. And that's always hard watching as an Australian, because it's not necessarily something that we're naturally good at, but one of the events that we are good at is the high jump. We've got some great high jumpers.

And so I spent some late hours watching the high jump and I was always terrible at high jump as a kid. Like God didn't give me the gift of jumping over things. I mean, that might shock you, but I was not good at it. But the reality is this, that if you got the world's best high jumpers, the best women, the best men, and me and you set the bar at three meters high. And you said to them, if you get over that bar, you get a medal.

Otherwise nothing counts. You have to get over that bar for it to count, for it to be worth it. If we all lined up and tried to jump over it, I mean, it'd be humiliating for me. But if we all tried to jump over it, no one would, not a single person would clear the bar at 3 meters. It's like Paul's saying here that it doesn't matter if on your attempt you clear 2 meters because the bar is set at 3.

Doesn't matter if, like me, you clear 30 centimeters, the bar is set at 3. You've both failed. You've both missed the mark. The risk we run into and what our human nature does to us is it sets us about measuring ourselves against each other, measuring ourselves against other sinful people when we should have been measuring ourselves against God's perfect standard. And when we do that, we discover that what Paul has shown us all along is that we all fall short.

I wonder if that feels confronting to you this morning, because our culture tells us that as long as we're trying our best, as long as you can be considered by others to be a good person, that should be enough. But God's standard isn't trying your best. God's standard is perfection. And none of us reach that on our own. And that's what makes verse 24 so important, because it tells us that God gives us a gift we don't deserve.

Says, yet God in His grace freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty of our sins. We had two words before, but now here we have. Yet God. And I think perhaps these are the most significant, powerful words in all of Scripture yet God.

You see, for three chapters, Paul has broken down every sense of self justification, self righteousness, that we might carry, any belief that we are good with God and our own merit. And just as we realize we can't do it on our own, we read, yet God in His grace freely makes us right in his sight, where we deserve judgment, where we deserve condemnation and separation from God. God instead says, I'm going to make you right in my sight. I'm going to treat you as if you never sinned. I'm going to give you my righteousness as a gift.

And that's comforting for those of us who have a strong sense of the reality of our own sin, that we know that we've mucked it up. We know we aren't as good as we wish we were. We know what goes on in our hearts and we think, God, you could never accept me. But here, Scripture's clear. God offers you a free gift that makes you right in his sight.

It's shocking for those of us sitting here thinking, I've done pretty good. I'm pretty good. I've ticked a lot of the boxes. I'm working hard at making myself right in God's eyes. And to us as well.

God says, this gift I am offering you is free. But here's what I want us to see this morning, that the gift is free to us, but it wasn't free to God. Look at what it cost there in verse 24. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty of our sins. That's grace.

God gives us what we don't deserve because Jesus took what we did deserve. Every time we try to add our own works or our own goodness or our own efforts to this gift, we're essentially saying to God, thanks, but I'll help pay for this. And God says, you can't. It's already been paid in full.

That's not cheap grace, that's costly grace that cost God everything and is offered to us freely. It's also not easy grace because it's grace that required the cross. But for you and me, it is free grace available to everyone equally. And Paul tells us in verse 25 that we receive God's gift through faith. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.

People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who had sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God this to demonstrate his righteousness. For he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. Paul uses some words here that would have connected with the Jewish believers because it would have taken them straight to something that is familiar, would have taken them to the temple.

As he speaks about sacrifice and blood, to a place where sin was dealt with by animal sacrifices year after year, where blood was shed as a way of saying that sin has a cost and that cost needed to be paid. And Paul says that all of that was pointing forward to this moment. That Jesus is not just one more sacrifice in a line of sacrifices. He is the one whom those sacrifices were always anticipating. His death is not symbolic.

It's the moment where sin is finally and fully dealt with. And I think it's important for us to grasp that this morning, because when we hear of the language of forgiveness, it's easy for us to imagine God simply deciding to ignore sin for our benefit. It's easy to think that kind of God goes, ah, don't worry about doesn't really matter. But that's not what Paul is describing here. God doesn't ignore sin and he doesn't lower the standard to our benefit.

Instead, he deals with it completely through Jesus.

And the way he does that is by taking it on himself. Jesus steps into our place and everything we have carried, our failures, our sin, every moment we've fallen short, it's placed on him. Which means the cross is not just an expression of God's love. It's also the place where his justice is upheld. What Paul is showing us is that at the cross, justice is not set aside.

Instead, it's satisfied not by us, but by Jesus. And that's comforting. We should take confidence in that fact because it says to us that God won't change his mind. He won't decide tomorrow that your sin is too much. He won't decide that he was being too lenient because the penalty for sin has already been paid.

All you have to do is put your faith in Jesus, turn to him to say, jesus, thank you for paying for my sin. Thank you for the gift of grace. God, thank you for making me right in your eyes.

If you're into history, you might have heard of the Habsburgs. They were a dynasty that ruled vast parts of Europe and the Americas during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. They were probably the most significant empire rulers of their day. But there was a really interesting tradition that occurred when the Emperor died, as they took the emperor's body to its final resting place in a crypt in the center of Vienna in Austria. As the coffin was carried to the door of the crypt, the master of ceremonies would knock on the door and the monk inside would call out, who is there?

The master of ceremonies would call out the emperor's name, this is Franz Josef. Followed by the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, King of Croatia. And then they would list the 27 or so different titles that the emperor held. And after the master of ceremonies finished reading out all of these grand titles, the monk would call out from inside the crypt, we don't know him. So the master of ceremonies would knock again, and the monk would say, who is there?

The master of ceremonies this time would say, his Franz Joseph, who conquered this land, won these wars, made these allies, and they would list off all of this grand list of achievements that the Emperor had made in their lifetime. And as the list was finished being read, the monk would call out and say, we don't know him. So the master of ceremonies would knock a third time, and again the monk would say, who is there? And this time the master of ceremonies would simply say, franz Josef, a poor sinner. And in reply the monk would open the door and let them in.

Isn't there something incredible in that story that a powerful person with a long list of titles, a long list of achievements, knew that at death they were just the same as anyone else. They were just the same in God's eyes as anyone else. And that's the great thing about the cross, because at the foot of the cross, the ground is level. We're all sinners. We've all fallen short.

We all need saving. And Jesus offers forgiveness and grace through his death and resurrection. And he offers that to all who would receive it, regardless of earthly success or title. It's offered the same to everyone. And I want to give you an opportunity today that if you need to make yourself right with God by accepting that, by putting your hope and your trust in Jesus, I want to give you the opportunity to do that today.

So why don't we close our eyes as we prepare our hearts.

If this morning you have a realization that you are a sinner, that you've fallen short of God's perfect standard, maybe you've been trying to make yourself right with God through the things that you've been doing, through trying to be a good person. And Paul would say, those things don't make you right with God. The only way to be right with God is by putting your hope and your trust in Jesus, that his death and his resurrection, that gift of grace that is offered to us freely, trusting that that would be enough, that it would make you right with with God. And so if that's you today, I'm going to pray a simple prayer. And I'd encourage you to pray this in your heart, wherever you're sitting.

Heavenly Father, I know that I have sinned and fallen short of your standard.

I can't make myself right with you by my own effort.

Thank you for sending Jesus to take away the penalty for my sin and to make a way for me to be forgiven.

Today I turn to you. I place my trust in Jesus.

Thank you for your grace and for making me right in your sight.

Help me to follow you from this day. Forward.

Amen. Amen. If you've prayed that prayer this morning, whether it's for the first time or whether it's an opportunity to recommit your heart to the Lord, I'd encourage you come and have a chat with Pastor James, myself, one of the team. We'd love to pray for you, we'd love to encourage you. We'd love to walk alongside you as you now endeavor to live that out.

And we want to encourage you what you have done and pray. That prayer is a really significant thing. You can take confidence that regardless of your background, regardless of your past, that putting your hope and trust in Jesus makes you right in God's eyes. What a great hope that is.