Soli Deo Gloria
Notes
Transcript
Text: Romans 3:21-27
Primary Audience: Mixed
CIT: Paul explained to the Romans that God has saved them by faith alone, not the Law or works but through Christ, for His Glory alone.
Proposition: The Church must preach only the grace of God as the means of salvation to the world, to the glory of God alone.
Purpose: I want my listeners to see God’s glory in their salvation, and live their lives to the Glory of God.
Title: Soli Deo Gloria
Outline:
Intro
Hey Y’all, how’s it going?
Cool cool, y’all it was foggy this morning.
So question for you
Have you ever taken anything for granted?
Like you just assumed it would work, like the wifi?
Who takes the wifi in their house for granted? Everyone.
What happened when it doesn’t work? it’s awful right?
You just lose sense of what’s going on. Wifi went out two weeks ago at the office and like zero work got done. We didn’t know what to do.
But when it comes back on you’re like, yessss, I’ll never forget you wifi. Until you do.
So tonight I want to look at something that we kinda forget about as Followers of Christ. That since we are saved, we are saved for a purpose, not just to not go to Hell but to have God.
We need to understand what salvation is, and why we have it for us to really see that we are a people set apart. that the church is a whole people pursuing holiness together.
We must live our lives like we are saved. And live for the Glory of God.
So if you have a bible, go ahaed and turn to Romans 3.
Does anyone need a bible? Throw a had up if you do. Who needs a bible?
Cool.
Context
So let me give you some context to what is going on here.
We are in Romans 3:21-27. we are going to talk about the whole chapter, but we are going to kinda live in those 6 verses.
So this whole time in Romans, chapters 1 and 2, Paul has been laying a case out against everyone as sinners,
Gentile and Jew,
which was a huge break from the Jewish perspective, because up until now, the jews saw only the outside world, non jews, the gentiles as sinners.
The Jews followed the law, they weren’t sinful in there mind, they might be unclean, but they weren’t sinners. Sinners was a term for other people.
But Paul is lumping together both the Jews and the Gentiles as sinners,
one group of people as those who have sinned against God.
Verse 9 in this chapter says that, both Jew and Greeks are under sin.
then he says “3 They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”
no one -
So Paul is Laying an argument against everyone, that everyone is guilty of sin. And that God is perfectly just. We talked about that in the in the first chapter that God is perfectly just.
So Paul has laid out a problem that all of us have, which is sin. We are all guilty of sin. Everyone of us has a sin nature and are sinful.
if this is a court case, there is no way we don’t get convicted.
Everyone, under the law not under the law, doesn’t matter
you have sinned against God.
So that’s where we are tonight, Paul has laid out the bad news, but now we get to some good news.
So let’s read this together, but before we do that, let’s pray for our time in the word.
pray
Okay, let’s read this together, Romans 3:21-26
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
So whats going on here?
Faith Alone. v. 21-22
Look at this first two verse, it would have really been shocking to the Jewish folks reading this, they would have seem jews and gentiles grouped together and would have been floored
and to the romans folks this would have been confusing if not a relief.
look at it
Rom. 3:21-22 “21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:”
That verse sums up the whole of biblical theology right there, and confuses me as to how the jewish people missed and still miss Jesus.
Have you ever thought about that? We are very removed form the events, and hindsight is 20/20, but how did the Jewish folks miss this? you spend your whole time studying the law and the prophets, the old testament. You are waiting for this messiah to come, and just flat miss it.
That’d be like a golfer training their whole life to play the masters and when the invitation comes, they’re like, i don’t think that is the right shade of green for Augusta National.
But this is what Paul is saying, Christ has come don’t miss it.
The righteousness of God has been made manifest apart from the Law. So what does that mean?
If you look at the passage you see the word righteousness 4 times, used the same way every time. When you read scripture, if you see a word that is repeated pretty close to each other, that means the word is important.
So what does this word mean? Righteousness, specifically the righteousness of God. So let’s look at it, the greek Paul uses here for righteousness means “adherence to what is required according to a standard;” So a standard, it’s is something you measure something by.
Here in Gray what are all other fast food places measured by? Dairy Queen, thats the standard, if you aren’t as good as DQ you are not good.
The word used here means the standard of God basically. God is the standard for righteousness. If you don’t measure up, you are not righteous but unrighteous. Tracking?
So when you see righteousness of God in this passage, that’s where your mind should go, the standard for righteousness is God.
So what s significant about the righteousness of God here? That is now come in to being apart from the Law and the Prophets
Thats a shift from Judaism, if you go through the whole OT you’d see that The Law was how you followed God, the Law was what set the Hebrew people apart.
The Law, provided the means to the righteousness of God. The Law was the standard.
Also through out the old testament you see that the Hebrew people couldn’t keep the Law perfectly. So the whole old testament is the story of the Hebrew people, the chosen people, trying to follow God, then not being able to do, and turning from God. But God keeps his promises and redeems and restores them every time.
So if you look at the whole story of the OT is a rise and fall of the faithfulness of the Hebrew people, one moment, they are very faithful, the next, they reject God.
I’m reading through 1 Samuel in my quite time and the Hebrew people reject God as king, and want a human king. So the Get Saul, who is corrupt. But through that, God gives them King David, and it is his line that we get Jesus.
Rebellion, redemption, restoration, that is the flow of the OT
So what Paul is saying, shifts from that. God has come and redeemed and restored you for good. He has made a way for you. And that way is through faith in Christ Jesus.
Not just for the Jews but for all people, the Jews and the Gentiles.
Aren’t you glad that we don’t have to earn the righteousness of God? For how any of us does our life look like the Hebrew people in the OT, trying to be good, week after Fuge, you are on the mountain with God. You got your quiet time going, two weeks after Fuge, you’ve fallen off. You get our of rhythm. next thing you know you aren’t following God as closely.
But, God keeps your salvation, not you.
So you need to ask yourself, do you live like Christ is the way to God or do you still have the mind set that ultimately works is you get to God. IF you still live like that look at this, Christ does the work for you.
It is through Faith in Christ that we have the righteousness of God.
So this is the what of salvation. Through Faith Alone we are able to meet the standard of God. Because we don’t meet it at all Christ meets it for us.
This isn’t just for the Church in Rome, this is for us to remember as well. We are saved through Faith in Christ. That’s it. There is not distinction in who can come to Christ, God’s righteousness is available to all who have faith. Trust in the Christ brings about the righteousness of God.
This is he first part of the good news of the Gospel. You don’t have to keep the Law in order to be righteous in the eyes of God.
Let’s keep going.
Christ Alone. v. 23-25
Verse 23 this is one of those verse that is so famous that we kinda lose the weight of it.
For some of us, if you just start to say For all have sinned, you want to finish it. This is a prime Awana verse.
And if the first couple verses in this passage are the what, this is the how? How are we saved, what had to happen for the righteousness of God is to be made manifest apart from the law?
Look at verse 25 Rom. 3:25 “25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”
That word in there propitiation is a super important word.
This is actually a word that has really been up for debate. How we understand it, it’s a legal term, the way we see it it means bascially “in your place.”
Remember Paul is laying an argument. If this was a court case the evidence would show that you are a sinner, you do not meet the standard. The consequence is God’s wrath. God’s wrath is Hell and separation form His grace. Propitiation would mean then, christ in your place.
It should have been you on the cross. Christ was perfect, we are not, but who died on the cross? us or Him? Christ did as the propitiation for your sin, he took what you owed and paid it.
So in legal sense propitiation means in your place.
But that’a not al of it, it also answers the how. The word comes from the hebrew word for mercy seat. The mercy seat used to be in the Tabernacle, in the temple, in the holy of holies. It sat on top of the ark of the covenant.
So in the OT there was the sacrificial system, and the priest would make sacrifices to atone for the sins of Israel. he would take some of the blood an actually sprinkle some on the mercy seat which was on top of the Ark. This was how Israel atone for sin. Something had to die.
The way Paul is using this word Propitiation, it is saying Christ’s blood on the mercy seat in place of your blood. The righteousness is given to you through the blood of Christ on the cross, through faith.
By Faith alone, In Christ Alone.
And who is offered to? For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace.
That is the how of our salvation.
Look is what God is doing in this passage.
In the beginning, God created a people in the garden. That would have been it, had we not sinned, the garden would have been it.
But we sinned, and were kicked out.
So God made covenants with Abraham, the hebrew people. It was one people who were given the law, given a law thy couldn’t perfectly keep.
The Hebrew were a chosen people. But now we are seeing that God, through Christ is opening the way for even those who are not Hebrew to also join in to the people of God.
All have sinned, all are justified by His grace as a gift. Take the gift.
This was the plan all along. Even in the history of the Hebrew people, we see people being grafted in to the Hebrew people and receiving the law.
This is the final part of God’s plan to unite the world in Christ. We have gone from all people in the garden to only the Hebrew people, to the all people through Christ.
This is what we need to preach as followers of Christ. Christ is the way, he has done the hard part, all we have to do is trust and follow. This is the good news of the Gospel.
This is what Jesus meant when quotes Isaiah 61:1
1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
We were all at one time under the weight and hold of sin, Christ takes that from us. Don’t lose sight of the weight of your salvation.
This is what we are to preach, Christ crucified is liberty to the captive, sight to the blind.
We were all at one time, captive and blinded by sin. Christ takes this from us and gives us the righteousness of God through faith in Him.
Let’s keep going
Glory of God alone. v. 26-27
Have you ever wondered why? Not what were you saved for, but why God chose to save at all?
He’s God, he could have and had every right, to just be done with us.
He could have chosen to not save us, so why?
Look at this last bit, Rom. 3:26-27
26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.
What are we to boast in? not ourselves. God chose us to save us for His glory.
He is just, he keeps his promises, and is justifier, he makes it happen. He is the only one who can save you, to show His glory. That God is in control.
So this is what I want you to see God does all things for His glory alone.
I want you to see God’s glory in your salvation.
You were saved to join in the missions to bring about redemption and restoration to all.
you were saved for God’s glory and so we need to live our lives to the glory of God.
So how do we do that?
If you want to live your life for the glory of God, start looking for the darkness where you are.
We are called to be salt and light in this world.
What does Light do? makes things bright, if we turned off all the lights in here and it was like advanced level dark, you would be able to see even the smallest amount of light.
If they’re off and we turn them on, it’s no longer dark, you can’t out dark light. Light overcomes darkness.
light shows the way, light warms, light gives life.
Salt, what does salt do? It gives flavor, to preserves, it heals.
If we are going to live our lives to the glory of god we need to be salt and light.
Look where the darkness is, be that light, meet those needs.
And flavor, go be the salt that brings healing.
It starts when you wake, up, are you going to be the salt and the light? Are you going to follow.
For some of us, we don’t feel like we can because we are still putting it on ourselves to be God. We are still trying to earn God. We have God, go and showHim to the world. That is what we are called to do.
Ask yourself, who are you around, who needs to see the light of Christ, be that person.
Listen and ask good questions, be intentional with who God has placed in your life.
I know we look around sometimes and see people and say, “man they need Jesus” and they do! You are the one who is supposed to give it to them.
God has placed you around specific people at this specific time to be the salt and light to.
Ask the Lord to lead you and be willing to follow.
If you are a follower of Christ, be willing to follow.
For those of you who are not a follower of christ, or don’t know what you are, this test is the gospel.
If you have ever felt like this world is broken, it is because it is, the reason is sin. If you have ever felt like your life is missing something, it is, you have a sin problem that needs to be dealt with. The Good news is that Christ dealt with it for you on the cross. You didn’t meet the standard and never could on your own, but Christ meets it for you on the Cross. You can the righteousness of God through Christ.
If you have and questions about this, come talk to me.
We have salvation through Faith Alone, In Christ Alone, For the Glory of God alone.
Y’al Pray with me.