Salvation is a FREE Gift

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Please take out your Bibles and open them with me as we go to the Word together for our time of study.
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And this morning we're going to be in the book of Romans, chapter 3.
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And as most of you know, the chapter divisions in our Bible are artificial.
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They were added later, they're not part of the original text.
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And so we're going to look at chapter 3, verse 19, but we're going to go on into chapter 4 all the way to verse 8.
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And my desire today is to look over this passage as a whole, as Paul's argument does not end at the end of chapter 3.
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So beginning at verse 19, Romans chapter 3, 19 says, Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
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For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
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But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
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For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith.
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This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins.
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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.
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Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.
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By what kind of law? By the law of works? No, but by the law of faith.
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For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
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Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is He not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
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Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means.
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On the contrary, we uphold the law.
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What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
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For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
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Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.
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And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
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Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.
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Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sins.
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May God add his blessing to the reading and to the hearing of his word.
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And let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for all that you give us.
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And I pray now that as I seek to give an explanation of the word, an exposition of the word, that you would keep me from error.
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For Lord, your people are precious.
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They are valuable.
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And they are worth truth.
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Lord, for me to stand and to spit error at them would be a shame on myself and a shame on your people and a shame against you.
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So I pray that you would keep me from error.
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And I thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to preach again.
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And I pray that the hearts of the people would be opened.
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Lord, if there are those who are not justified by faith today, if there are those who are trying to find their justification in righteousness, in something that they have done, Lord, they may, may they ever fall under the strongest conviction of the spirit to abandon their works, to abandon their self-righteousness and to trust in what you have done freely through the cross.
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And Father, for those who have trusted in Christ, whose hearts have been open to the truth of the gospel, may they ever firmly hold to the truth of their salvation as a free gift from you, not something they could ever, ever even hope to be worthy of.
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In Jesus name, amen.
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Well, it's good to see everyone again this morning.
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As I mentioned earlier, so many of you are here today and I'm excited to see you and I'm happy to get to open the word together.
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If you haven't been here, we've been in a part, we've been in a series looking at the history of the Reformation.
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Tomorrow, actually rather Tuesday, is Reformation Day.
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And every year we celebrate it on the Sunday after, but technically the Sunday before is Reformation Day.
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So today is the day of the celebration, even though we'll be celebrating as it were next week.
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But for the last probably four months, we have gone through history of the Reformation and we now are looking at the First London Baptist Confession as an outline of the theology of the Reformation.
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And I realize this is probably not what many people are doing in church this morning.
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I got to thinking about this this week because we're not talking about, you know, how to have a better marriage or how to have a more prosperous business or five ways to be a healthier you.
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We're taking a systematic approach to the study of the Bible and the theology of the scriptures.
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And I got to tell you, that is very odd.
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In fact, there was a survey done recently and it came across my desk this week.
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My wife actually found it and was reading it and gave it to me and said, you need to read this.
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The title of the article is Most American Christians are Heretics.
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That was the title of the article.
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Most American Christians are Heretics.
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And so I said, well, that's enough to get my attention to want to read.
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So I began to read the article.
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And what it said was that a survey done by Lifeway Research, which was commissioned by Ligonier Ministries, and most of you are familiar with Ligonier, that is the ministry of Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul.
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They commissioned a survey of 3000 people and they found out that most of those 3000 people identified themselves as Christian.
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But a startling percentage of them embrace teachings or theologies which have long been considered heresy.
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They're not minor points of teaching.
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They're not minor points of doctrine.
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But serious, major theological beliefs are absolutely foreign to the vast majority of people who were surveyed.
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More than half said that they believe that Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.
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In case you don't know, that's what the Jehovah Witnesses believe.
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That's not what Christians believe.
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That's not what the Bible teaches.
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The Bible doesn't teach Jesus was created by God and that he's the first and greatest being created by God.
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Two thirds admitted that they have sinned a little bit, but insisted that most people are good by nature.
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Just in case you didn't know, that's what the Bible says is wrong.
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We are not good by nature.
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In fact, Jesus was called good.
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And what did he said? Why do you call me good? There is none good.
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And Paul reiterates this in Romans chapter 3.
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Seventy four percent said that the smallest sins are not worthy of eternal punishment.
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That's three quarters of the survey.
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A full 60 percent agreed that everyone will eventually go to heaven.
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Hey, I can I can attest to that.
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I've been in the ministry now for 12 years.
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I've done over 100 funerals and I've probably done about five weddings.
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I don't know why nobody wants me to do their wedding, but every wedding I've done, every funeral I've done, it's been a Christian wedding and a Christian funeral.
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Because people still want that.
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They want that cultural connection in their moments of life that are important.
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And again, when I go do the funerals, mom is up in heaven, daddy's up in heaven, because we don't want to consider any other thing.
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Two out of five evangelicals say worshipping alone or with family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church.
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That is untrue.
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That's biblically untrue.
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I can show you clearly that the Bible teaches that that's wrong.
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But it's what's believed.
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Kenneth Briggs recently told Religion News Service that the faith he finds in the megatype churches is a Bible-less, alternative version of Christianity.
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Scripture, he says, has become a museum exhibit, hallowed as a treasure, but enigmatic and untouched.
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In his book, The Invisible Bestseller, Searching for the Bible in America, he describes a two year pilgrimage across the country, visiting hundreds of churches to find Christians who were still literate in their own sacred text.
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And he said to them, the Bible remains phenomenally popular, of course, but practically everyone has one in his home and many families have four or five in their home.
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But he characterized the love of the Bible as a love of an artifact or a keepsake or a lucky rabbit's foot.
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The talisman of faith mainly stays on the shelf next to the mantle where grandpa's ashes are kept.
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And the article ends with a very strong indictment.
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There is no excuse to be a nation of heretics, but that's what we have.
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Most American Christians cannot answer the most basic theological questions.
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In fact, they get angry if you even ask.
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I got to thinking about the time I spent at the fair this past two weeks ago.
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Everybody I talked to was saved.
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I mean, I guess there was one or two, you know, that didn't confess any type of faith.
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But most everybody I talked to, yeah, man, I'm saved.
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And then when they say, yeah, I'm saved, I'm good.
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But then you ask them any simple thing about their faith, about scripture, about anything, and it's crickets.
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I was saved when I was seven.
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I was saved when I was 10.
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Did Jesus change your life? I don't know what that means.
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If there's anything I believe, and you know I believe this, I've adopted it as my official, sort of unofficial motto of the church, my official motto, and that is theology matters.
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And what we believe about God affects every area of our life.
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Is there any reason why a nation of heretics would also be a nation that kills 3,000 babies a day in the womb? I mean, and let me tell you something, statistically speaking, at least from surveys, most of those women going and doing that, not most, but I'd say at least half, confess to have Christianity as their faith.
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So over the past week, as I was reading this and I'm sort of contemplating, I've been in this confession now for two months and I've been thinking about it, I got to thinking, you know what, I'm ever more committed to this because we need this.
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The church needs to understand a systematic understanding of the Word of God.
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And my prayer for you is that you're listening, that you are engaging what is being taught.
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Because over the last six weeks, we have looked at the nature of God, the Trinity.
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We've looked at the sovereignty of God, the providence of God over all things and the specific providence of God for his elect.
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We have looked at original sin and how that original sin has affected all of mankind.
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And let me tell you something, those specific theological doctrines are lost on most people.
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But this is valuable, insightful, important stuff.
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I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about the Word.
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You know, when I'm teaching, you know, we talk about how to have a better marriage.
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You know, when I'm teaching marriage, premarital counseling, I do that.
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Anytime somebody wants to be married and they want me to do it, I have to.
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I tell them that I'm not going to do it unless I go through counseling with you and minimum of a month or more, four weeks minimum.
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But I say, I show them a picture of a triangle.
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I say on this side of the triangle is you, on this side of the triangle is your wife or vice versa.
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It's the man, the woman.
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And at the top of the triangle is the Lord.
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I said, now you can work all your lives to try to come together.
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But if both of you go toward the Lord, you will both come together naturally.
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That's how it works.
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And so when somebody says, well, you're not teaching how to have a better marriage, how to have a better life.
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Theology matters.
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And again, what we believe about God affects every area of our lives.
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When we're struggling, does not the sovereignty of God give us strength? When we're feeling lost, does not justification by grace through faith alone give us confidence? The word of God is our strength and our shield.
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It is our foundation of truth.
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So I just I'm ever more committed after reading that article, and this is all introduction, we haven't even got to the lesson, but I'm ever more committed to doing what we're doing.
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But I am I am shifting a bit and I did it last week.
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I'm doing it again today.
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I'm looking at the confession, but I'm also exegeting a passage because what I had been doing is sort of just exegeting the confession.
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But the confession is not the inspired right or the inspired writ, the word is.
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So we're going to read the confession, but then we're going to go to a passage and look it over and go through the passage.
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And that's why we have the passage that we have today.
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But I didn't put the confession in the bulletin this week, and that was my fault.
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I forgot to send it to Pat before the bulletins were printed.
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So I'm going to put it on the on the board.
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This is where we are.
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We're in Article six.
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And I realize that might be kind of small for some of you.
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If I see you doing this, I apologize.
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This is Article six.
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This is where we are today.
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And it says this all the elect.
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Don't let that word bother you.
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Some people get really, really worried about that word elect.
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Don't let it bother you that that means chosen by God.
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If you're in Christ, that's who you are.
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But just moving on, it says all the elect being loved of God with an everlasting love are redeemed, quickened and saved, not by themselves, nor their own works, lest any man should boast, but only and wholly by God of his own free grace and mercy through Jesus Christ, who is made unto us by God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, and all in all that he that rejoiceth might rejoice in the Lord.
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That's beautiful.
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That's powerful.
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And the part I want to focus on today is the fact that it reminds us, you see, this still as far as the confession goes, this is still dealing with God's attributes, because the first seven articles are all really dealing with God's attributes.
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And you say, well, how is this dealing with God's attributes? This is dealing with the fact that God is the one who saves.
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Later on, it's going to deal with justification by faith a little more clearly and talk about justification is by faith alone, and it's going to address that more clearly.
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But this particular article is talking about the fact that God himself is the author of our salvation.
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I love the fact that it says God's love for the elect is an everlasting love.
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We always think of everlasting as going forward.
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You know, God loved you before you were, that God loved you before the world was, that God loved you with an eternal, everlasting love.
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Isn't that amazing to think about? See, we can't comprehend that because we really can't comprehend the eternality of God.
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Eternality for us is it's it's it's it's beyond our ability to comprehend because we think in the we think in terms of starting and stopping and everything we know starts and stops.
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Even our universe had a starting point and will some point have an ending point.
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But God doesn't have that.
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God is eternal and thus his love for you is also everlasting.
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And as a result, the salvation that he gives to you is completely from him, not because of anything that you have done.
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You realize God doesn't love you because you deserve it.
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I just heard a guy recently, a TBN preacher, talking about just how valuable we are because God loves us.
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And you can take that one of two ways.
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You could say we're valuable and that's why God loves us.
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Or you can say we're valuable because God loves us.
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And there is a difference.
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And I'm not sure which way he was saying it, but I know the way that's true.
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I'm not valuable and that's what makes God love me.
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I'm valuable because God loves me.
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You're valuable because God loves you.
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That's where your value comes from.
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So like I said, I want to I want to go to Romans chapter three and I want to explain this from the text.
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But I wanted us to start with the confession to see what it is, where we are in the confession.
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But let's go to Romans three.
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And we're going to begin at verse 19.
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Now, doing what looks like about 25 to 30 verses in the next 25 to 30 minutes probably is going to be a bit of a stretch.
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But we'll see what we can do.
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Starting at verse 19, he says, now we know.
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That's the middle of a conversation, isn't it? If I walk up to you and I say, Jennifer, now we know, you say, wait a minute, what happened before? Because I came up with the idea, now we know.
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You'd be like, that doesn't make any sense.
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And so what came before? What got us to verse 19? Well, chapter one, two and three of Romans is Paul's indictment of man's sin.
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Chapter one, he indicts all people as being ungodly and unrighteous and suppressing the truth and unrighteousness.
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Then in chapter two, he indicts specifically the Jews who have the law, but in they're not keeping the law, demonstrate their ungodliness because not only are they opposed to God, they're law breakers.
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And he goes through the law in chapter two and how those who have the law make themselves even worse because they get on to other people for not keeping the law and they themselves don't keep it.
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They're hypocrites.
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But then in chapter three, in the beginning of chapter three, verse nine, he says, what then? What shall we say? Let's read it together.
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Starting in verse nine, he says, what then? Are the Jews any better off? No, not at all, for we have already charged that all both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.
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As it is written, none is righteous.
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No, not one.
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That's the key to Romans one through three is verse 10 of chapter three.
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That's what he's trying to be.
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That's what he's been getting to is that all are sinners and there's none righteous.
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No, not one.
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And he goes on to say there's none who understands, none who seeks after God.
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All have turned aside.
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They've become worthless.
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No one does good, not even one.
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And then verse 17, the way of peace they've not known.
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And verse 18, there's no fear of God before their eyes.
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Now, verse 19, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
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Let me ask you a question.
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Who's under the law of God? Well, we have to be specific here to talk about mosaic law, which is God's law for Israel that he gave to Moses.
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And then we have to talk about the transcendent moral law of God and the transcendent moral law of God encompasses everyone.
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Just because you're not a member of the nation of Israel doesn't mean that you can lie with impunity.
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Just because you're not a member of the nation of Israel doesn't mean you can murder without consequence, right? The law, the moral law of God is universal, which is why he says here in verse 19 so that the whole world will be held accountable to God.
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And he says every mouth will be stopped.
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Every time I read this, I think about how people try to justify themselves in their sin.
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Think about when we're talking about sin, what do people always do? They try to tell you why they why they had to do it, why they had to justify themselves.
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Right.
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They give an excuse for their sin.
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Well, you just don't understand, Pastor, this is the way things are today.
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You just don't understand this is the way people live today or that you don't understand.
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This is what my family taught me to do.
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Right.
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But you see, when you're confronted with the law, the law shuts the mouth because guess what? If you stood before a judge and you said, Judge, that's what my family taught me how to do.
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He'd say, yeah, but the law is clear.
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And you have nothing to say.
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There is no justification when you're condemned by the law.
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There's no justification when the law has brought your condemnation.
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So that's where we are.
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Everyone stands condemned under the law of God and will be held accountable to God.
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Let me ask you a question and obviously don't answer, but in your mind answer.
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When people face the Lord, by what standard will they be judged? By the law of God.
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You say, well, how? What about the people who don't have the law? Romans chapter two says all men have the law of God written on their heart.
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That's not the law of Moses.
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The law of God written on the heart of man is the eternal moral law of God.
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That's why even in the backwoods tribes in Africa, you don't lie, you don't steal, you don't murder.
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Because even in those situations, there is a universal standard.
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There's a universal moral understanding of law.
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And so when we see this, it tells us that the law condemns us and condemns everyone.
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And then verse 20 follows it up, says, For by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
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Have you ever heard someone say, I'm going to be justified by the law? I have just, I mean, you may not have ever had anybody say it that way.
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But I have had people say to me very specifically, I'm living by the law and I'm going to be justified.
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I'm living by the law and I'm going to be justified.
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This passage very clearly says, by works of law, no human being will be justified.
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Now here's what you might have heard.
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You might not have heard somebody say it like that.
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But I know you've heard someone say, I'm a good person and when I die, God's going to take my good works into account.
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Beloved, that's the same thing.
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They might not have told you, I'm living by the law and the law is how I'm going to be justified.
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But as soon as they say, I'm a good person and when I die, God's going to take my goodness into account.
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What they're saying is, I'm a law keeper and God's going to take that into account.
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But what does this passage say? By works of the law, no human being will be justified.
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And in case you're wondering, in the Greek it says, by works of the law, no human being will be justified.
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There's no trick.
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You will not find your righteousness in the law.
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You will not find your justification in the law.
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In fact, you know what you do find in the law, according to this text? Condemnation.
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Go on and read it with me.
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It says, for by works of the law, no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes what? Knowledge of sin.
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The law doesn't justify you, but you know what it does? It condemns you.
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The law condemns you before God.
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And you know it.
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Because if we sat down together privately, just for a moment, and we began to express in what ways we have broken God's moral law, we probably couldn't get too far before we were both talking over each other.
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In fact, you know what the law does? The law points out our sin.
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You ever been behind a police officer? I'm looking at Adam here.
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You ever been driving and the police officer gets behind you and immediately you become a better driver? Because you're scared to death? Because now the law is on your tail? All right, the law is right behind you and you're worried to go too fast, so you go five mile an hour too slow.
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And the police officer is saying, come on, get out of the way, I'm trying to get home.
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And you're staying between those little yellow lines because you're afraid to veer one left or one right and he's going to think you're drinking.
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And you're going to be walking that line.
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All right, we all know.
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By the law comes a knowledge of sin.
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When the law is present, we get a visual of our errors.
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We see things more clearly than we were seeing them before.
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It doesn't justify us, it condemns us.
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So what do we do? Do we just give up? We can't keep the law, so we just lay down and die? No, verse 21 gives us a solution.
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In fact, verse 21 gives us the blessed answer to the problem of the law.
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The problem of the law is that it condemns everyone.
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The problem of the law is that in your condemnation, you cannot be justified by the law.
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But verse 21 says, but now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.
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Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.
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And this, of course, speaking of the scripture, the law of Moses and the prophets do bear witness to the righteousness of God.
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The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.
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How is that? Because the righteousness of God has been manifested in the person of Jesus Christ.
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The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.
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The law and the prophets bear witness to it, but the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
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I know you've heard me say this, and some of you, you probably wonder, it sounds like I preach the same thing all the time.
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But listen, when I talk about the fact that when you stand before God, the righteousness that you stand in is not your own, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
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I preach that all the time because people forget it.
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It's like Martin Luther said, he said, I preach justification by faith every week because every week my people forget.
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And every week they're trying to find something in themselves to justify themselves.
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Cannot we rather trust in Christ and Him be our justification, Him be our righteousness? And that's what Paul is saying here, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
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Notice it doesn't say for all who deserve it, or all who earned it, or all who work for it.
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It's for all who believe.
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Then he goes on to say, for there is no distinction.
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What does he mean by that? There is no distinction.
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He's talked earlier about Jews and Greeks, but at this point he's saying there's no distinction at all among men because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
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How do you define the word sin? In Greek it's hamartia, which means to miss the mark.
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It means to fall short.
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That's why this is actually a double play on words.
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He says all have fallen short and fallen short.
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That's not what it says, but it says all have sinned.
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And what does it mean to sin? Fall short of the glory of God.
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What is the glory of God? His righteousness.
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And you have not made it.
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Hamartia was an archer's term.
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If an archer shot an arrow and the arrow dropped below the target, it was called hamartia.
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It was dropped.
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It was fallen short.
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And there's the target of righteousness.
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God's standard of righteousness.
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And we haven't even aimed at it.
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The very best we could do falls so short.
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The prophet Isaiah wrote, he said, Our righteousnesses are like dirty, filthy rags.
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Fallen short of the standard.
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For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
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And are justified by his grace as a gift.
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Do you know what the word justified means? You've heard me say it a lot.
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It's justification by faith alone, sola fide.
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That's faith's nickname, by the way.
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Latin for faith is fide.
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So we call our little baby fide.
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Justification.
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To justify.
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Means to declare righteous.
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It is a legal declaration.
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Here's where it differs from Roman Catholic theology.
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Roman Catholics believe that you are made righteous by infusion.
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Meaning that the spirit comes and works within you.
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And creates within you a righteousness.
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A righteous person.
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And thus, you are not justified at the moment you receive the spirit.
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But you have to go through this process of justification.
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Whereby at the end of your life, You will either die and go on to purgatory.
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Where you will continue to be justified throughout purgatory.
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Or you will die having committed a mortal sin and lost the grace of justification.
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Either way, it's not a declaration of righteousness.
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And it's a false view of justification.
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Because the Bible says, Having been justified by faith.
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We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Having been.
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Past tense.
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By the way, that's Romans 5.1.
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Past tense.
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Having been.
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Justified.
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Declared righteous.
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Legal declaration.
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Has been made.
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We have now.
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Present tense.
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Peace.
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Shalom.
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It's the Greek word which derives out of the Hebrew word for Shalom.
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Not a temporary ceasefire.
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But we have a wellness of relationship with our God.
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Peace.
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Where there was enmity, now there is peace.
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Through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Beloved, that's the gospel.
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That's the truth.
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And so Paul here, and I love the fact that in this particular passage, He says, Justified by grace.
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Declared righteous by grace.
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As a gift.
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Last night I was sitting with my kids.
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And family worship in our house sometimes is daddy's excuse to practice a sermon.
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Because I'm getting ready for Sunday.
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So we gather around and I start talking about what I'm going to preach the next day.
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We read the text together and let them ask questions.
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Sometimes they ask good questions.
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I say, well that's good and you put that in the sermon.
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But last night, I kept reading my notes.
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And I kept reading the text.
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And that is what kept jumping out at me.
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Gift.
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Gift.
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Free gift.
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Free gift.
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You ever bought something on television? And they say, well if you act now, We'll throw in a free, you know, waffle maker or whatever.
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I don't know.
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Make onion straws.
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Whatever, you know.
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You act now.
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If you purchase $19.95 worth of stuff, We will throw in for free, This added stuff.
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I always like it when they say, Act now, pay $19.95, And then we'll throw in this extra thing worth $35.
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I say, why didn't you sell the first thing? It's worth more than the thing you're selling.
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Doesn't matter.
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Either way, When you get there, It's not free.
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Because you had to purchase the first thing to get the second thing.
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You understand? That's not free.
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I remember one of my professors in seminary used to, He had a little fun thing that he did.
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He carried an extra pen with him.
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And during class sometimes, He was trying to express the free gift of salvation.
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And he would take his pen, And he would give it to one of the students.
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And he would say, okay, this is a gift.
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And the student would take it.
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And the student would try to give it back.
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Nope, it's yours.
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I've given it to you.
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I'm not taking it back.
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And then later in the class, He would take out his other pen.
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And he would say, okay, I'm going to give this to you, another student.
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He'd say, but before I give it to you, I need you to do something.
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I want you to go turn the lights off.
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And he says, what's the difference between this and the first pen? He said, this is not a gift.
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I'm giving you something because you did something.
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I'm giving this to you on the promise that you're going to do something for me.
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He said, that's not a gift, that's a wage.
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And I just real quickly, And I know we've got a lot of texts here we're not going to get to, But I want to just jump very quick.
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Go to chapter four with me and look at verse four.
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Because Paul, again, we've already read the text.
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We know he goes on to talk about Abraham.
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And by the way, if there's anybody in the world who people would say, Yeah, there's a guy who was a good guy.
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And God gave his salvation because he was a good man.
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It'd be Abraham, right? Abraham's the father of the faithful.
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Abraham is father Abraham.
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He's the great believer.
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And yet, Abraham was justified not by works, But by grace alone through faith alone.
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Look at verse four.
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It says, now to the one who works, His wages are not counted as a gift, But as his what? As his due.
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Let me say this.
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If at the end of the week, And I don't know if you get paid weekly, monthly, whatever.
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But at the end of the week, If you go to your employer, And they hand you a check, And they say, here's your gift.
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Would you think that was wrong? You should.
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Because that's not a gift.
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If you work 40 hours, And they've agreed to pay you $10 an hour for 40 hours, And they hand you a check, For that amount of money, And you look at it, And they say, here's your gift.
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One of two things.
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Either they don't know what a gift is, Or you probably should start looking for another job.
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Because that means you didn't earn that money.
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But you understand.
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When you get that money for what you've done, That's a wage.
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That's not a gift.
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And beloved, This is the point of today's message.
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This is the point of this part of the confession.
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It's not by our works, Lest anyone should boast It is holy and a gift of grace.
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And you say, everybody knows this, Pastor Keith.
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No, they don't.
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People sing Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound That saved a good old boy like me.
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How do we know That we don't think it's a gift? When we look at people who don't have it, And think we deserve it more.
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We look at the person who's lost.
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And we get angry about their lostness.
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And we say, well, if he was just as Spiritually sensitive as me, He would know That he should believe in Jesus.
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Oh, I would never say such a terrible thing.
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Well, maybe you don't say it just that way.
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But how do you deal with the unbeliever? How do you look at the unbeliever? Do you look at yourself as somehow better than that person? Do you look at yourself as somehow more worthy Than that person? Somehow smarter? More spiritually sensitive? More willing to receive God's goodness? No.
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Your willingness.
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Your willingness to believe Was God's work in your heart.
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Even your faith is a gift.
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The Bible says that.
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It says that we should be patient Anytime we deal with any man Because God may Grant them repentance That leads to life.
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You know what that tells us? One day, one time in the past If we're a believer, He had to grant that to us.
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Because guess what? I wasn't always a believer.
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I mean, I didn't get saved until I was 19 years.
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You realize that is 19 times 365 days Of living as an enemy of God.
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But here's the thing.
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Anybody who would have known me Would have said that was a good guy.
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I was a martial arts competitor.
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I was a Captain of the band.
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I was a professional magician In high school.
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And I worked for a funeral home Where I wore a suit to work every day.
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And I never got in trouble in school.
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I got swats once And it was for being late.
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I didn't want to do that no more.
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But you understand And looking at me from the outside But nobody knew my heart Except me and God.
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When I look back at my heart As a 16, 17, 15 year old boy When I look back At the things I thought about And the things I did And the things I wanted to do God would have been just in taking my life Any one of those days.
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But He gave me grace As a gift.
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Not because I earned it.
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And not because I deserved it.
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But because it was His will To give that gift.
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Beloved, if you're saved today You owe every Bit of your salvation To the grace of God.
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You owe every Thank you We're coming up to Thanksgiving in a few weeks You have every reason To thank God For what He has given you in Christ.
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And we know it's none of us But all All of Him.