October 29, 2023 – Romans 3:19–28

10/29/2023

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Hope Lutheran Church
Manhattan, Kansas
October 29, 2023
Romans 3:19–28
How can I be right with God?

People have always been trying to answer that question
- Because everyone has this knowledge, this feeling that we’re accountable to someone who’s over and above us. That we’re accountable to God
- And so people since the beginning of time have been trying to answer that question: How can I be right with God?
  - In the ancient world and still today, different religions have said that you need to keep different rules and eventually you’ll get you right with God
  - And even here in America, in place where religion is on the decline, people, whether they realize it or not, are still trying to find ways get right with God. One of the most popular podcasts in the world I was listening to recently summed up what I think is the typical American mindset:

It definitely feels like there’s something more. Whatever it is, there’s an energy, some sort of spirituality in this world. And there’s good energy and there’s negative energy. And the more negative you put out, that ripples. It creates more negative energy, more problems. But if you can find a way to recognize that and shift it, then you can do the opposite. The more positive you put out, then people have more positive experiences. And then it ripples out in a good way. It’s very much you get out what you put in.

It’s unavoidable. People will always want to know how they get right with God

In Romans 3, Paul answers that question. He tells us how we can be right with God. And he does that by…

Showing Us The Deep Problem We All Have
Exposing Our Remedies To Our Problem
Revealing God’s Remedy To Our Problem

1) The Deep Problem We All Have
God makes it clear in his Word that he is holy, perfect, righteous

And God’s demand for us is that we be the same as him. He demands that we be perfect and holy without any sin in our lives. Be perfect as…
For any person to have a right relationship with God that’s the standard

But when I look at my life, it's so evident that I'm not perfect. In fact, I’m totally on the other side of perfect. I sin all the time. I can’t keep myself from sinning

In obvious ways that are clear to everyone else and to me
And in ways that I think are known only to me

And God sees them all

And so when God looks at me standing there on my own, what does he see?
What Paul says it there in v. 23: All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
- And God makes it clear – the wages of my sin is death
  - That’s true for everyone. Young or old, rich or poor. Death comes for all
Each of us knows we have a problem. And so we want to fix it
- We want to be able to answer that question: How can I be right with God?
  - So we come up with our own ideas, our own solutions that we think will take care of this problem and help us be right with God

2) Exposing Our Remedies To Our Problem
In general, there are three ways we try to fix our problem on our own

We tell ourselves that we just need to try harder
- I tell myself that all God cares about is that I keep on trying my best. If I do a little better every day, eventually I'll reach a point where I'm good enough
  - We think of our lives like we’re climbing a ladder. And if we just climb that ladder one rung at a time eventually we’ll reach a place where we’ll finally be right with God
We think of our lives as a balancing act
- We admit that we can't do everything perfectly. But no one can only do good all the time. Everyone has some bad things they've done in their life
  - And so we tell ourselves that what we need to do is make sure the good outweighs the bad. Life is like a scale that I need to balance
We compare ourselves to other people
- We look at the people around us. We look at our neighbors, our co-workers, the people that we go to school with. And then we look at ourselves and we say, “I know I'm not perfect, but I'm at least better than that person over there”
  - And I think God will notice me because of how much better I am than all the other people around me. Then I’ll finally be right with God

Each of those answers we try to come up with to fix our problem of sin, all of them are flawed. They don’t work. They don’t really answer the question

I can try to climb the ladder. But I’ll never know if I’ve climbed high enough
I can try to balance the scales. But even if I’ve done good, the bad is still there
I can try to play the comparison game. But God doesn’t say the measure of comparison is other people. It’s him

Imagine it this way – there’s a distance between us and God

We're on one side of a canyon. And God’s on the other side of the canyon. And this canyon is 100-feet wide
- And if I want to reach God on the other side on my own, I need to jump across that gap and make it clear to the other side
  - I could train as much as I want. I could find the best long jump coach in the world. I could buy all the nicest equipment
  - But I could still never jump across that canyon. It wouldn’t matter if I made it 2, 30, or 90 feet. If I don’t reach the 100-foot mark, I’ll fall short
The core flaw with all of the solutions we try to come up with so that we can be right with God is that no matter which one we pick, they all come up short. By ourselves, we will always fall short of the glory of God
- We fall to the bottom of that canyon

I can try to do it. I can try to keep God’s law perfectly

But the reality is that on my own, by myself, the more I try to do what God demands, the more I’m forced to realize that I can’t do it on my own
- And that means there’s no room for me to boast about myself
- There’s no room for me to point to my own actions and works
  - That’s what Paul was getting at when he said:

Romans 3:19–20 - Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
A little over 500 years ago, there was a monk. His name was Martin Luther

For his whole life, Luther had been told by the church of his day that for him and anyone else to get right with God, they had to do all the right things. They had to jump across the canyon on their own
- And so Luther, he tried. He tried as hard as he could. But the more Luther tried to keep God’s law, the more he realized how far he was from reaching the other side of the gap between himself and God
- It drove him to despair. It drove him to hopelessness
  - But it also drove him to search the Scriptures. It drove him to these verses where he saw God’s answer to mankind's problem of sin. Where he saw the heart of the Christian message, the message of the gospel

Romans 3:21–25a - But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood
3) Revealing God’s Remedy To Our Problem
That right there – that’s the chief article, the foundation on which the church stands. And in those verses, Paul uses three different words that paint three different pictures to show us the depths of God’s love for sinful people. To show us God’s answer to our problem. To show us how God makes us right with him

He takes us to the courtroom with the word…
- Justified. That word means “to be declared not guilty”
- Paul is telling us when we stand in the heavenly court, when we stand before God, we’ll be declared not guilty. Not accountable for our sins
  - But how can God do that? After all, just a little bit ago we said that we’re all sinners who fall short. We confessed it at the start of our worship service. So how can God do that?
- He can do that because he still held someone accountable for our sins. But it wasn’t any one of us. He declared his Son guilty in our place. So that we could be declared not guilty before God
He takes us to the slave market with the word…
- Redemption. That word means “to buy back”
- And I need to be bought back because I was a slave who couldn’t set himself free. I was a slave to sin, to death, to the devil
- And that’s what God has done through his Son. Jesus has purchased us as his own so that we could have freedom in him
  - And that’s a free gift to you and me. There’s nothing we have to pay or do. But while it’s free to us, that doesn’t mean it came without cost. No, it cost God a lot. It cost his Son. This takes us to the third word
He takes us to the Temple and its sacrifices with the word…
- Atonement. That word means “to be at one with God”
- All through the OT, God had shown his people the payment price for sin was blood. Sacrifice after sacrifice was made. They all pointed to THE sacrifice
  - The ultimate sacrifice. The last sacrifice for sin that would ever need to be made was the shedding of the blood of God's own Son
  - And because God sacrificed his Son, it showed that he was just when it came to sin. He paid the price that sin demands
And because God sacrificed his Son that means we're at peace with God. We're bought back. We're not guilty

That’s how God makes us right with him

Because God took all of our sin and he placed it on his Son. He placed it on Jesus and he gave us Jesus’ righteousness in place of our sin
- And now when he looks at us, he sees us exactly as he demands. He sees us as people who are holy, who are blameless, who are righteous without sin. That means we have a life with him forever
- And that means we don’t have to, we’ll never have to, cross that canyon between us and God on our own. We don’t have to come up with our own ways to get to God. Instead, God comes to us. He gives us Jesus who bridges the gap so we can be right with God

How can we know that we’re right with God? How do we answer that question?

Because of God’s answer
Because our God sent his Son, Jesus
- And that's God's promise for you. For each of us
- Put your trust and your confidence, put your faith in Jesus as the one who lived a holy life died and rose so you and I could be right with God

Amen!

Sermons

October 29, 2023 – Romans 3:19–28