Sermon by Pastor Brent Kompelien
May 21, 2023
INTRO
We are continuing our Summer Seminars series. Last week was like we were cartographers mapping out the landscape of the grand story of the Bible. This week we are like forensic scientists zooming in with a microscope to understand the beauty and glory of the gospel.
Remember, we are going to have a Q&A time after the sermon, so make sure you look at the application questions on the sermon notes and be ready to talk about what God is teaching you through his Word today.
Let me begin with the question: What is God like? If you stop to ponder this question, what comes to mind? We may have lofty answers like, “God is holy,” or “God is eternal,” or “God is all-powerful and all-knowing,” and these are certainly true!
Yet the great Reformer Martin Luther simply said, “The cross alone is our theology.” At the cross we see Immanuel, God with us, putting on display the pinnacle revelation of what God is like.
Jesus himself explained this to his disciples. He said in John 14, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” But then Philip, one of his disciples said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” And Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
Friends, from eternity God planned that the climactic revelation of himself would come through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, living, dying, and rising from the grave to defeat sin and death and evil, and to achieve our redemption, all for the display of his glory and to reveal the fullness of his very nature and character to us, that we would be welcomed into his presence and enjoy him forever.
You see friends, this morning we are going to learn in our passage that the cross of Christ is the ultimate revealer of God and is the source of good news for us: That we can be made right with our Creator, forgiven, redeemed from sin, and given new life…and it only requires trust, to place your faith in Jesus.
Open with me to Romans 3:9-31. We are jumping into the middle of the most beautiful theological description of the gospel. The Apostle Paul is writing to the church in Rome where there was evidently division between Jews and Greeks about Jesus. The Jews felt themselves superior as God’s chosen people, the ones entrusted with his Law. And yet Paul here levels the playing field, making it clear that ethnic identity or attempting to follow the rules doesn’t deal with the deeper problem of humanity: that we are sinners by nature and by choice. READ Romans 3:9-31.
Martin Luther called this paragraph the “chief point and the very central place of the Epistle to the Romans and indeed of the whole Bible.” He insisted that the church stands or falls on this doctrine, the doctrine of justification. One of my seminary professors Don Carson has said that the most fundamental question that the Bible asks is, “Granted our sin, how shall we be made right with God?…At the heart of all of it is the question: How shall we be right with God? And if we get that wrong, we have nothing. Nothing but moralism and false hope and idolatry.”
This question must be at the center of our theology. And it must address our deepest longings and deepest needs and deepest questions. ILLUST — Don Carson has done university evangelism for decades. A few years ago he was reflecting on the most common objections he hears about the Christian faith from young people. He says that the two most controversial teachings of the Bible in the eyes of college students today are: 1) The exclusive claims of Christ, which Carson says is the same charge Christians faced in the early church because the Romans viewed them as too exclusive and therefore bigoted. 2) The Bible’s teaching on sin. The modern worldview is built on a relativistic view of right and wrong. To be called a “sinner” is a stumbling block to people who are taught to “believe in yourself.”
ORG SENT — Here’s what we are going to do as we look at this passage from Romans 3. We need to ponder two foundational truths of the gospel, and both are good news: First, all are guilty sinners (vv. 9-20). Second, all are justified freely by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone (vv. 21-31).
MAIN 1 — All Are Guilty Sinners (vv. 9-20). (SLIDE 2a)
Before we get into the details, we need to pause here to define some key terms:
Gospel — (SLIDE 2b) Simply means “good news”. It is a word that was used in the secular Greek world to describe a public proclamation by a messenger who would report from a battle that the king’s army has been victorious and that the king’s reign is secure and that everyone was safe. It was usually a written edict that was read aloud by a messenger of the king, then posted publicly in the marketplace for all to see.
APPLY — In other words, the gospel is not something private. It is intensely personal, yes, but it is not private! It is news, it is a public announcement because the death and resurrection of Jesus has universal implications! This is why Jesus says in Luke 8:16, “No one lights a lamp and hides it in a clay jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, they put it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light.” Dear friends, let the light of the gospel shine in every area of your life, in every conversation, in every activity, every day! That’s what you do with good news!
Justification — (SLIDE 2c) A legal word meaning “to declare right” or “to make right.”
A synonym in English is the word “righteous”.
We are going to see this word repeatedly in our passage, and it is rooted in the concept of God’s righteousness, or his “rightness” or his “justice” and how we are “made right” with him.
Now, this word may seem like a distant, ivory-tower, Bible word that has nothing to do with everyday life. But that is certainly not true.
ILLUST — Secular psychologist Jonathan Haidt wrote a book called The Righteous Mind where he says, “An obsession with righteousness is the normal human condition.”
You see, every human being has a system of justification, a filter or expectation, or a controlling story of how to be made right and how to achieve wholeness.
ILLUST — Author David Zahl says that it is “what we lean on to tell ourselves that we’re okay, that our lives matter…it is another name for all the ladders we spend our days climbing toward a dream of wholeness. It refers to our preferred guilt-management system…the justifying story of our life. It is the desire for enoughness.”
And we’ve channelled this universal human longing for justification into all kinds of justifications: comparing ourselves to others, seeking career success, finding our identity in our kids, or being entertained to death.
Let me put it bluntly: You will seek to be justified, to be made right or whole, through something or someone. The question is, who or what can actually make you right or whole? Only God.
In order to come to this realization, we have to start with the assertion that we are all sinners who need a Savior. Every single one of us.
This is why Paul opens verse 9 by addressing the feeling of self-justification by the Jewish people who thought themselves superior to the Greek believers because of their ethnic identity and because they were entrusted with God’s law and God’s promises.
Paul says in verse 10, (SLIDE 2d) “There is no one righteous, not even one!” In other words, no person can possibly justify themselves, proving they are worthy, earning favor somehow with the Living God.
It reminds me of Jesus’ story of the Pharisee who went to the temple to pray in Luke 18:9-14 — “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
The Pharisee was justified before HIMSELF, in his own eyes!
But the humble tax collector, who admitted he is a sinner, was justified before GOD!
APPLY — How many of us take advantage of social media platforms to do a little self-promotion? How easy is it today to get sucked into the comparison game, to strut around in public and posture ourselves to look good. Friends, the public square has become a gigantic mess of self-justification! It will poison your heart!
This is why Paul confronts the Jews who thought they were good enough based on their self-justified good works to make God happy. These are the same Jewish people who had repeatedly rebelled and fail to obey God in the Old Testament, a stiff-necked people! So Paul gives a list of quotations from the Psalms and Prophets of Israel that prove his point! And then he concludes in verse 20, “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law.” Like Isaiah said, “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” Even our best efforts are tainted by mixed motives, imperfect love, and a fleeting desire to self-justify.
But I’ve got some good news. In the gospel, the good news actually starts with the reality that you are a sinner. Stop trying to self-justify! Just admit it! I’m a sinner! I’m in need of someone to help me! I can’t do it on my own! I need a Savior!
ILLUST — An old pastor named Jack Miller once said, (SLIDE 2e) “Cheer up! You're a worse sinner than you ever dared imagine, and you're more loved than you ever dared hope.”
This is where Paul turns to illuminate this love that has been poured out upon us sinners by the grace of God through the justifying work of Jesus on our behalf.
MAIN 2 — Justified By Grace Through Faith (vv. 21-31). (SLIDE 3a)
Verse 21 begins with a glorious turn of phrase: (SLIDE 3b) “But now…” There has been a seismic shift. Rather than the repeated sacrifices of the Old Testament that could never ultimately save, rather than the self-justifying rat race of trying to posture yourself as good enough for others or for God…BUT NOW apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known! The Old Testament law and prophets pointed ahead to it, foreshadowed it, beckoned for it!
Guess what… (SLIDE 3c) It is not YOUR righteousness. Remember, you are a sinner! It is God’s rightness, his justice, his ability to declare that things are “in the right” in the legal standing of YOUR guilt for sin.
You see, in light of our sin, we stand guilty, condemned. Paul later says in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death.” We need a Savior who can deal fully and completely with our debt of sin, with our punishment of death that we deserve.
Praise God, there is good news!
Let me read these verses again to let these most precious words sink in: READ vv. 22-24.
How are we made right with God? How are we justified? How are we declared worthy to be in the very presence of a holy God? Through faith in Jesus Christ. (SLIDE 3d)
Faith is the prime concept in these verses. In the original, “faith” and “believe” are the same root word. The English language has trouble here because the noun “faith” doesn’t have a verbal form. We use a different word for the verb “believe.” A good substitute that would help us see the deliberate repetition by Paul would be the word “trust” in English.
Let me read verse 22 again and let you hear what it would have sounded like to the original readers: “This righteousness is given through trust in Jesus Christ to all who trust.”
This is the level playing field of the gospel: All God asks for you to be “declared right” in the face of your sin is to trust that Jesus paid the price on your behalf. This is an act of repentance, an act of surrender, and it is the most freeing and wonderful good news on the planet! It fulfills everything that the Old Testament was pointing to.
Look at verse 25. READ v. 25. Here’s another key word:
Atonement — (SLIDE 4a) in the Old Testament, this word literally meant “to cover” and it referred to the Mercy Seat that was the cover over the top of the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. This is where the blood was sprinkled once per year at the Day of Atonement.
As this idea of Atonement gets developed over the whole Bible, there are really two concepts that help us understand the deeper reality of what is happening when a sacrifice of atonement is made:
Expiation — (SLIDE 4b) removal of sin. Jesus took away our filth.
Propitiation — (SLIDE 4c) make us favorable to God. He took the wrath.
This is achieved through Christ’ blood. (SLIDE 4d) This is not a legal fiction, a cheap forgiveness, a nicety as though God says, “Oh, it ok. I forgive you.” NO! It is through a costly sacrifice, through the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, fully God, fully man! And in this sacrifice, we are undone!
ILLUST — Michael Reeve says, “On the cross we are given not only the sweet salvation of God but the pinnacle revelation of God! On the cross we see how humble, how self-giving, how perfectly generous and compassionate the Living God is…for as the cross reveals God to us, so in the same moment it unmasks us…The humility of the Son of God, descending from glory to Golgotha, exposes our pride in all its foolishness, pettiness, and ugliness. His kindness exposes our selfishness. His grace destroys our earning. His power proves our plight. His goodness illuminates our moral poverty.”
Friends, I can’t begin to explain how incredible it is that God would show his kindness to us in such a costly way, that he show his just and right and good nature and character to us through something as wonderful and awesome as the cross.
There is a classic illustration that I think will be helpful. Let’s say a criminal is brought before a judge and found guilty for a mugging. But after the verdict, the judge takes off his robe, steps down from the bench, and takes the punishment for the criminal, instead setting him free. This is what God has done for you.
This is nice, but it doesn’t capture the depth of what is going on here. Unlike judges in our legal system, God is not merely an independent arbiter of right and wrong. He is the source of all that is right, the law is a mirror of his own essence and being, and every violation of the law is an offense against God himself!
When Nathan confronted King David about committing adultery with Bathsheba, David wrote in Psalm 51:4, “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.”
KEY — When you sin, God is the most offended party. So it is even more radical that God would himself be the substitute for your sin, paying your debt! He is the judge, the jury, the prosecution, and the offended party! Yet he still steps in to willingly buy you back, to redeem you, from your sentence of death.
But not only is your sentence commuted and your record wiped clean of your crimes, but you are clothed with the righteousness of the judge! You are given the status of holy in God’s sight! You are gifted the same “rightness” as the very Creator of the Universe!
This is God’s justice, his rightness, on full display! It is so shocking, and we are so unworthy! It is pure grace!
When we stand before God at the judgment seat, you will be looked upon as not merely “not guilty”, the verdict is already in that you are “righteous” in God’s sight, and it is credited to your account by faith!
This salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone leaves Paul with a simple application: READ v. 27.
(SLIDE 4e) We boast in Christ! Because our trust is in him!
Why is the gospel such good news? The reward of having been made right, justified by Christ’s blood, is that we get Jesus! He is the fount of all goodness, beauty, and truth. He pays your debt in full, and he gives you the most precious and glorious gift: We get to be with him, to be in awe of him, to know his power and his love, and to rest in his presence forever.
Song called “Grace” by CityAlight
Your grace that leads this sinner home
From death to life forever
And sings the song of righteousness
By blood and not by merit
Your grace that reaches far and wide
To every tribe and nation
Has called my heart to enter in
The joy of Your salvation
By grace, I am redeemed
By grace, I am restored
And now I freely walk
Into the arms of Christ my Lord
Napkin Theology
Kingdom: (SLIDE 6)
Broken World — Romans 3:23, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
Hopeful Vision — Matthew 4:17, “Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”
King: (SLIDE 7)
Colossians 1:13-14, “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Not Idol — Jesus is now our Lord
Not Sin — Jesus is now our Savior
Kindness: (SLIDE 8)
Free gift, not by our works. Open By Faith — Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
Ring: (SLIDE 9)
You are now a citizen of heaven — Ephesians 2:19, “You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household.”
You are now an ambassador to this broken world — 2 Corinthians 5:20, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.”
Application Questions:
How would you describe the gospel in one or two sentences?
How is the concept of “atonement” connected to the Old Testament?
Why is it so important to recognize that all are sinners? What impact does this make on your view of yourself and this world?
How does justification by faith shape your heart and your actions?
In light of the gospel, who or what should we boast in?
Who has God put on your heart to pray for?
Key Terms:
Gospel:
Justification:
Atonement:
Propitiation:
Expiation:
Resources:
Rejoicing In Christ by Michael Reeves
The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross — Leon Morris
“Gospel (Euangelion) Word Study — Bible Project