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I have an important message. I thought it was so important that I actually had to take a class. This is the second time I took this class. See, I'm a software engineer by trade, and I really don't do public speaking.
It's not my forte. But I've been inspired. Seeing God's Word and continuing to learn, there are a lot of people around us in our lives, everywhere we look, at work, our friends, our family, there are people that aren't saved.
They need to hear the truth. And they need to hear that truth exposited, explained, in a way that they can understand and they can hear, that really makes sense. I want to preach to you about Romans 3, verses 21 to 25.
Fundamentally, this passage is all about righteousness. It's turned in our Bible. I really think this is a great set of verses because it really inspired me. Romans 3, 21 to 25. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophet bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
For there is no distinction for all who sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His gift, 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.
Today I have two questions. A lot of interesting questions we get asked here, but I really just have two that really struck my mind. My first question is, how can you be right with God? This is really a difficult question when you think about it because throughout all the ages here, man has tried to answer that question.
There are an infinite variety of churches that have tried to answer it, and through human achievement they try to make themselves right by God. A lot of really horrible things happen that way, but they thought they were doing what was required to be right with God.
Sacrificing children, virgins, going up on the volcano and throwing people in, going to a temple, things we can't comprehend, but they thought that's what would satisfy the wrath of God. But it didn't help.
Why do we care? Fundamentally, what happens once we die? We're going to be brought before the judgment seat of God, and then we'll be judged, and then we're going to be sent to one of two places. We're going to either enter into heaven, into God's presence, or we're going to be sentenced to hell.
Eternal separation from God is a really frightening thing, and a lot of people nowadays try not to think about it. They say words like, he passed, and they try to excuse things. They don't really focus on what's important in the eternal perspective because you're going to live forever.
Where is a really good question to ask and to understand what does that mean. 2 Corinthians 5 .10, we can see it. Four, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
Scripture is telling us right up front, God's going to judge. But that begs a kind of different question, doesn't it? How is God going to judge? What's he going to judge on? What's the standard? We already know it.
God's law was given to us throughout the pages of Scripture. There's a funny thing about the law, though. We ourselves can't perfectly uphold the law. We just don't have a way. Our hearts are just wretched.
We can't help it. We start with a heart of sin. We really seek the desire of sin. It's our nature. We want to stay as far as we can from the law because that's our burning desire in our heart. We just can't seek God on our own.
It started back in the Garden of Eden. Man fell right there. He was living in perfect harmony with God. Then, through desire, through deception, he fell. This is a heart condition. We all have it. We're all born with it.
We start with a sin nature. We're already negative in God's view. Then we try to do right, to find right however you want. But our sin nature contaminates everything we touch. We touch it, and our sin just pervades it.
It doesn't matter what we try. Even when we think we're doing good, our definition of good isn't God's definition of good. We're all sinful. Romans 3, verses 10 and 11 clearly state, none is righteous, no, not one.
No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. But it gets even worse. In Matthew 5, Jesus tells us about murder, about lust.
He reminds us that in Scripture you can read, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.
A couple of verses later, you can see, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery in his heart. Have you gotten angry with someone?
Have you looked on someone lustfully? This is a heart condition. Our heart seeks sin. It desires it. We can't stop ourselves from it. We're held ransom to sin, and we just can't pay the price to make ourselves right.
We don't have a way. So what must God, a holy and just God, how should he judge us? He only has one choice. He's going to see us as guilty if we do it on our own. How do we make ourselves right in the sight of God?
We can't. There isn't a way. If it's our responsibility, we can't do it, regardless of what we try. How does God see you righteous in his eyes? Well, that's a completely different kind of question. Let's go back to our verses again.
Romans chapter 3, verses 22 to 25 this time. For there is no distinction for all who sin 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.
There's a lot in that couple of verses there, but there are three words that really fundamentally just jump out and stand up and scream for attention here. Redemption, justification, and propitiation.
Big polysyllabic words that a lot of people have a definition and they think they hold onto them, but I want to drive you on these three words in really simple terms. I want to understand them deeply because it really fundamentally matters.
So how are we saved? We can't do it. If we can't do it, then only God can do it. If God's going to do the saving, that means we truly fundamentally need a redeemer, a savior, redemption. Got to understand that a little bit better.
In our neighborhood, every couple of weeks we do recycling, and in Shrewsbury it's free, it's a really good thing, but it's very interesting. Throughout most of the year, as I walk the dogs in the morning, I see an older Chinese gentleman coming down the street very frequently.
He has a big wheelbarrow. He has a bunch of trash bags with him. A couple of them are really filled with a lot of aluminum cans. And the first time you see that, you go, huh, what's going on? And then you watch him very humbly going from recycle bin to recycle bin throughout the entire neighborhood, and he goes and he finds all the pop soda cans that on them, we see this nice little label that says, pay attention to details, you see, five-cent redemption.
So he's going throughout the entire neighborhood to find all these cans and bottles, package them all up, take them to a redemption center to get back the five cents, because, hey, the bottle or can has gone through this adventure from the store, got bought, you give money.
He's redeeming the bottle back to get money. It's a really simple parallel, but redemption, he happened to do it with these bottles and soda cans. From a Christian term perspective, redemption really means deliverance from some evil by payment of a price.
We can't pay that price. The price for our salvation, to redeem us, is supremely high. Jesus knew what that cost really was. He came, lived a perfect life in obedience to the will of the Father. Jesus had to bear the sins of all who would believe in him.
He lived his life for one purpose, to be the perfect sacrifice, suffering the wrath of God as punishment for sin that he never committed. That's redemption. Justification, that's our next big polysyllabic word.
Verse 24, we saw, and we are justified by his grace as a gift. Justification sounds kind of sophisticated. It's a legal term. Fundamentally, it means to be made right. Here, we really want to see it as to be seen right by God.
How does God justify a sinner? Imagine a criminal in a court here. He committed a crime, clearly guilty, comes before the judge, the judge is going to sentence him. You can imagine someone coming in to try to intervene, trying to come before the judge and say, Judge, I want to take his punishment.
In our courts, highly unlikely to happen. Can't really be done. You might, if you tried really hard, be able to convince the judge, Yes, you too, you over there, you could take the punishment for this guy who did this crime, whatever the crime happens to be.
You might be able to take his punishment. But that criminal, that man, whoever it was, he's still guilty. Even if he was pardoned in our courts, even if the president writes a note and says, You're pardoned, that just forgives the punishment.
The man's still guilty. His guilt wasn't assuaged. It wasn't taken away. It wasn't, he isn't justified in any form. He's still guilty, regardless of who takes the punishment or if the punishment's taken away.
It's an interesting thing. Here, in flesh and blood, we can't justify. Just not possible. But Jesus, by his redemption or justification, did it. Let's take another look at this courtroom and let's look at it a little bit differently now.
Instead of a courtroom in time here, imagine a courtroom that once you die, you stand before God, you're going to be judged. When you're standing there, they're going to present evidence. Satan will come.
What do you do in your life? And all of your sin, all of your life is totally exposed. God knows all of it. The things you did, the things that were public, all of your wretchedness. Me, my wretchedness, I am a wretch.
I am not a good man in any form on my own. I can't be. All the evidence is presented. You know you're going to be judged as guilty. There could be no other judgment. At that point, God is right on the edge.
He says, I will condemn that man. I must, I will, I will punish him. He has no choice. You're guilty. Christ comes in and he puts me aside and he stands in my place and the judge asks, how do you plea?
Christ says, guilty. And he takes my guilt to be his own guilt. When punishment's about to be executed, Christ says, punish me. I have put my righteousness on that man and I have taken that man's sins on me.
Father, punish me and consider that man to have been me. Let him reign in heaven and let me suffer misery. Let me endure his curse and let him receive my blessing. This is justification. My guilt exchanged to Christ.
He took it all. A lot of people will say, the balance of my sin was accredited to Christ. Imputation, there's a lot of other words people will use about it. But it really is my guilt, my sin put completely on Christ.
His righteousness given to me. Meaning, God no longer sees me as guilty. He sees me as perfect and holy in Christ's righteousness. Can't do this here. Not possible. But in heaven, the God of heaven has the right to do as he pleases.
You can imagine the end of this courtroom scene where the father would say, son of my love, you must stand in the sinner's place. You must suffer what he ought to have endured. You must be accounted as guilty, just as he was accounted guilty.
And then I will look upon the sinner in another light. I will look at him as if he were Christ. I will accept him as if he were my only begotten son, full of grace and truth. I will give him a crown in heaven and will take him to my heart forever and ever.
There is no other intercessor. There is no other redemptrix. There is no other way our sins are forgiven. It's only through Christ in his justification, our redemption. Propitiation gets brought up, is our next word.
And it really is a couple of simple things behind it. It's about the mercy seat. This is where Christ takes on the wrath, God's wrath for the sin of the believers. Christ paid the ransom. He paid all of it, all at once.
He didn't pay for our sins over time. There's not any other thing that needs to be done. All of our sin, for all of believers, for all of time, from the beginning of time through now till believers yet to be born, all believers' sins were put totally on Christ in Calvary.
It was a complete payment, not partial, not over time, not to be done again and again and again, once. When Jesus was on a cross and he yelled, It is finished, and died, death died then. Sin had been conquered.
There's nothing else left to be accomplished. Three days later, when Jesus was raised, this confirmed the transaction. God gave additional proof that the ransom had been paid when he took his only begotten son to heaven and he was seated at the right hand of the Father.
Another word that comes up, we see in this set of verses, is to have faith in Christ. Faith is more than just a word where you just say, I believe. Our heart condition changes. It's a complete change of perspective.
Instead of loving the world, loving, lusting after things, chasing after our sin and doing all the things that we really, really used to love, faith in Christ changes our view. It's how we're saved. In Hebrews 11, we read,.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. A good definition is a constant outlook of trust and dependence upon God. Charles Spurgeon had a good story about faith.
How do you define faith well in a way that actually helps understanding? He told a story about a ship captain and his son on the ship. They're in the ocean and the ship is swaying and his son loved to climb.
So he climbed all up the rigging, got to the main mast, and the main mast happens to have a table on the top. And he climbed up on top of this table, but the problem was he couldn't reach any of the ropes underneath this top of the mast, and so he got stuck up there.
And the ship's swaying, and the son just gets scared, so he holds on to this table. It's big enough, he's holding on, but he can't get himself down. And his father, the captain, looks up, sees his son stuck up there, and he asks his son to jump into the waves whenever the ship sways to the side so that he'd be able to safely land in the water and one of the sailors would be able to pull him out.
But the son's scared because he sees the deck, he sees the height, he gets scared, he looks at the ocean and it looks angry and mad at him, and he thinks whatever he does, he's going to perish. So his father then gets out a gun and he yells up to his son again, and this time he yells up, son, when the ship sways to the side, I want you to jump into the ocean so that you'll be safe.
We'll get you out. If you do not jump, I will shoot you. Frightening aspect. But the son knew the captain, his father, would keep his word. So the ship sways to the side, the son leaps into the sea, he's rescued, brought onto the deck by the sailors.
We're like that son in a position of extraordinary danger by nature, which neither you or I can possibly escape for ourselves. Unfortunately, we've got some good works of our own. It's kind of like that mast.
I'm proud, I have done these things, I have been good, I have fill in blank. We cling to these works, the things we've done, the things that we think that can save us, but they never will. Christ knows that unless we give these things up, these works, the things that we believe in, we thought were good, unless we actually put these things down, Christ knows we're going to be dashed to pieces at the last for we have this rotten trust and pride in what we've accomplished.
It's not our accomplishment that saves. Therefore, Christ says, Sinner, let go of your trust and drop into the sea of my love. We look down, we all ask this fundamental question, how can I be saved by trusting in God?
He looks as if he was angry with me and I could not trust him. Will you not hear mercy's tender cry persuading you? He that believes shall be saved. Or must the weapon of destruction be pointed directly at you?
Must you hear the dreadful words, he that does not believe shall be damned? It's with you, just like with this boy that was on the mast. You're in a dangerous place, not believing the Father's advice that makes it only more dangerous for you.
You have to let go. And the only way to let go is to have faith. You have to let Christ reign. You have to completely believe in him. You have to give up all the other things that you thought would save.
I've got a couple of questions in closing. How can you be right with God? We can't do it on our own. We don't have a way. Not possible. How does God see us as righteous? In his eyes, he sees us as righteous only because we receive Christ's righteousness when he took our sins upon himself.
Redemption, justification, propitiation, key words, key concepts. There's no other intercessor. There's no other redeemer. We've all saved. But it begs fundamental, core questions. Do you have faith in Jesus?
Is Jesus your Lord and Savior? Do you believe him? You have to believe in Jesus to be saved. Now, there isn't a better time. Every second on the planet Earth right now, there's an average of two people that die.
So you can think. Two people. Four. Six. Eight. Ten. Twelve. Fourteen. Our lives are vapor. We're very fragile. Death pervades. We don't know when we're going to die. How can you not believe in Christ to save?
You need to believe now. Let's pray. Good morning, Lord. Thanks for the opportunity to bring your words, not mine, your words of truth. We pray for people who hear this message that really fundamentally do not trust in you, people that don't believe you, people that need to know.
They can't do it on their own. They can't get to heaven by anything they do or attempt. Nothing we achieve can ever save. It's only by believing in you, Christ, you change our hearts. You fix this heart condition that we start with, and only you can justify, only you can redeem.
Help them to seek you, Lord. Help them to seek your word, to learn who you are, to walk in your light, Lord. There's none other that saves. There's no other way. So we praise you, Lord. Thanks for our time together.
In Jesus' name.