Romans 3:21-31
Notes
Transcript
Everyone can be considered righteous.
Everyone can be considered righteous.
We have talked about how everyone is unrighteous and nobody deserves to have a relationship with a Holy God. We also talked about how Sin separates us from God. We are unworthy to be able to be in God’s presence and since that is the case we all deserve to spend eternity in Hell. Thankfully God made a way through Jesus for us to be made righteous.
Since God gave us this gift how dumb is it for us to ignore it and not accept the gift. For centuries prior to Jesus dying on the cross the only way that someone could be considered righteous is through the law and by sacrificing animals as a covering of your sins. We have discussed that there is no keeping the law at all and sacrificing animals gets really messy really quickly. Thankfully we have the ultimate sacrifice that doesn’t just cover our sins but actually wipes them away.
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.
Romans 3:
The only way that we can be made righteous is through our faith in Jesus. What exactly is faith?
1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Faith is something that we hope for and believe that is there but we cannot see it with our own eyes. We have faith that Jesus is who he says he is even though we have not seen him. We also have faith that God will save us through his Son.
However, we do have the evidence of God all around us. From the trees to the microscopic atoms.
We have to have faith for us to be made righteous
The promise of God is that if we have faith and believe in Jesus then we will be made righteous. This salvation is not just for the “good” people or the “bad” people but for everybody. There isn’t someone who is good enough to get into heaven or bad enough to stay out of heaven.
We have all sinned and all of deserve the punishment of that sin because all of us do not match up with God’s standard. We cannot do enough good in our entire lives to be good enough to match God’s standard. We are all under the condemnation of sin. We have covered this during the past couple of weeks.
Everybody is guilty of sin. In today’s world you are innocent until proven guilty but in the spiritual world you are guilty until you are proven innocent. We are all guilty because we have all sinned.
No one ever goes free from being guilty because everybody has to pay for their wrong doings. This is the crazy thing about God. God is the judge for all people, He is ultimately going to judge everybody. The insane thing about sin is that God, the judge, also paid the price for the guilty party, the sinners. God paid the price of the our sin by sending his son to die in our place.
We should all
BUT those who believe are justified by his grace as a gift! Many people will read verses
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,
Rom
by themselves and it sounds like all people will get saved but when you add
22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:
it shows that only those who believe are the only ones who are saved. Those who believe are the ones who are justified through the free gift.
The gift of salvation is exactly that a gift. For your birthday whenever people bring you a gift do you deserve it? The people that are giving the gifts probably deserve it more than you because they are putting up with you everyday.
The gift though is something that we must also accept. It is out there for everyone to receive but only a few people ever obtain it. The only way that the gift was ever offered was through Jesus Christ sacrificing his life for us.
Everybody has the opportunity for salvation. God does not discriminate when it comes to his grace.
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
Rev.
When us believers get to heaven there are going to be people from all over the world. There are going to be white, black, Asians, Jews, Mexicans, Iranians, presidents, kings, slaves, and people from all different walks of life. Christians should be the greatest force for breaking down different racial and ethnic barriers. There are alot of different people that are going to be disappointed when they get to heaven and notice that there are more races than just white people.
Paul writes that all people will receive righteousness the exact same way through Christ.
They will all receive it the same way because all have fallen short of the glory of God. Fallen short of the Glory of God means that we will never be able to obtain the glory no matter how hard we try.
Like a horse that is being lead by a carrot on a pole. The horse is going to continue to go after the carrot but will never reach it even though it is right in front of him.
Salvation to us is free but it was never free to God. God gave up his son for us to be able to be righteous. From the devotional my utmost for his highest talking about “There is a certain pride in people that causes them to give and give, but to come and accept a gift is another thing. I will give my life to martyrdom; I will dedicate my life to service— I will do anything. But do not humiliate me to the level of the most hell-deserving sinner and tell me that all I have to do is accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.”
For salvation it also cost us our pride for us to lay down all that we want to work for and accept a gift knowing that we cannot achieve it on our own.
What does it mean to be justified?
It means that God has cancelled our sin debt because of Jesus. Jesus was the final payment needed to make us debt free.
We are sinners and do not deserve righteousness. This should make us so much more in love with Christ to know that God accepted us where we were in our filth and saved us from our deserved fate and punishment. God made a way where there was not a way and we did not deserve it at all.
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.
The insane thing about sin is that God, the judge, also paid the price for the guilty party, the sinners. God paid the price of the our sin by sending his son to die in our place. Jesus’ blood is what appeased God as a sacrifice. Why did His Son’s blood appease God? Was because the shedding blood of the perfect sacrifice made it possible for all of us to be made right with God. We have to believe that we will be made right with God through faith alone.
With God making away for us to be made right with him shows His righteousness completely. He did this because of divine forbearance (godly patient self control). This is one of the key attributes of God. Patient self-control! He made away where there was no way and at a time when we did not deserve to have a second or third or 10000000000th chance. But through Jesus, God has passed over all the former sins of those who have faith in him.
This means that he does not count our sins against us but rather looks at us through Jesus who is perfect so sees us as perfect. This is much better than the Old covenant of sacrificing animals because that only covered your sins not take them away.
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.
When Jesus died on the cross it was to show another attribute of God which is his justness. God displayed him being just because he showed the punishment of our sins. This also shows that those who have faith in Jesus have already had their sins paid for.
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. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
Romans 3:
There are some people who will then start boasting in their salvation because they feel like they are superior since their sins are wiped away. But in all honesty what have they done to boast in? Nothing!
They cannot boast that they are saved because they do not deserve to be saved. They can only boast in God who has saved them and only give the glory and honor to God.
You can only boast in things that you accomplish but you did not accomplish anything when it comes to salvation. You came to a point in your life where you are worthless and not deserving of any forgiveness. That is the only thing you can brag on is the fact that you did not deserve salvation BUT GOD gave it to you.
29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
God is God to everyone there is no longer a group of people that could not enter into a relationship with God. We all have to have faith for us to be justified as righteous in the sight of God. We no longer have no hope at all, but we have the only hope in the entire world.
People also believe that since they are saved by faith that the law is invalid. They think that we can disregard the law that God has put in place for the Israelites. This is extremely far from the truth. Since we have been saved we should uphold the law that God has in place. We should then be doing this out of love rather than necessity. God saved us when we did not deserve it. Jesus laid down his own life for us why would we not want to follow what God has commanded us?
Salvation is one of the most important decisions you can make in your life. The reason that it is because eternity is far longer than your life. Some people value money or education or sports but when looking at the big scheme of everything these things are worthless and meaningless. The reason its meaningless is because we are only going to be living on average 75 to 80 years. When comparing it to eternity that is nothing. James wrote of life being like this:
14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
Our lives in the scheme of eternity are just a vapor. A vapor is something that only last a second or two. Our lives are extremely short compared to eternity. We need to be sure that we are saved because no one knows when our last day on this side of eternity will be. We also need to be sharing and praying for our lost friends and classmates! Finally if anyone in here does not know Christ please come talk to me or Breanna or someone else.
2 For he says,
“In a favorable time I listened to you,
and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”
Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
2 Cor.