How We Are Saved - Romans 3:21-31
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Excited to be here in our series in Romans. Our desire is that these Sunday gatherings, say ours in the leadership, Pastor Chris and I, that these Sunday mornings are a good part of your weekly rhythm in life, and that you come here to be a part of your own continuation in being a disciple of Jesus. We have it on our wall here of making disciples in the everyday stuff of life, and that's both for us, and then we wanna be helping others be disciples too, but this Sunday morning is such a good part of us continuing in being disciples of Him. And so we just hope and pray that that is true, that we can grow together and closer to each other, grow closer to God. And I share that just as this church has continued to come out of the fog of COVID, at this heartbeat of this church, Spring Valley, will continue to grow and become louder in our community and that we become more and more alive in our walks with Jesus and bring more people to be a part of what God is doing here at this church. So I know that is your prayer too, and we just wanna acknowledge that everything we do is in light of that. We wanna be a light in this community and be growing closer together into him. So can we just get an amen for that? Amen? Yeah.
Well, we are continuing in our Roman series, part five, chapter three. Don't get confused by that. Just we're in chapter three. I get confused on like part five, this number, then this number. But it's good 'cause we're going verse by verse, just going through the scripture, trying to do our best to understand Paul's argument here, argument for the gospel. I love a good breakdown moment, like be it a book or a movie. I'll take a movie, I'm probably more of a movie person at this point in my life. But whatever it is that you're reading or watching, there's sometimes a scene that epitomizes the whole story, that summarizes the entire reason why you're about to watch you're gonna watch. And it kinda goes back into history to explain how you got to this point, and it's going to help understand everything that you're about to watch. And if it's done really well, it doesn't seem out of place, it just seems like, oh, good, I needed to know this information to understand the story that I'm about to watch. I'm a bit of a Lord of the Rings nerd, so my example would be Lord of the Rings. At the beginning of the movies, this is not a spoiler, And if it is, it's okay. They've been out for like 20 years. (audience laughs) But the beginning of the movies, the very first movie you watch, it doesn't start with the main characters, it goes back in time. And it says like, all this long time ago, this is what happened. The ring was created. And then the bad guy did this, and some of the good people tried to do this. And then over time, and it catches you up to like this point where the story actually begins. So it goes for like 10 minutes of this like history lesson. But because of that, you now know, You're in the story, you know, I get it. I now know why the good guys are going to try to do what they're about to do. And I get why the bad guys are trying to get after them. So it just explains everything. And it's this great breakdown of a story. And as a viewer, like I said, you're caught up on the events, why this situation exists.
And it also brings you to understand what the solution is. These breakdown moments kind of help you understand, in order for good to prevail in the story, this thing needs to happen. And that's what today's passage is in Romans. It's this transition in the story that Paul has been sharing from all the bad, all the evil, all the sin that he's been talking about. And it's this transition to hope. It's this reference that ties all that has happened in the past and it helps make sense of what the future holds for us individually. And in the story that he's telling, what the future is gonna be, what it's gonna be like. So Paul is giving his commentary, playing over history and scripture, and giving an explanation for why things had to happen. And in today's passage, after the previous chapters of Paul stating that everyone will be judged, he's kind of painted a very dark picture, he now brings light to the situation, and because Jesus enters the conversation. Many theologians and scholars consider this paragraph, that we'll cover a couple paragraphs, 21 through 31 as the most important in all of the Bible. Martin Luther thought that this was the center point of Romans and therefore the entire gospel. So it is vital to our understanding of God's word. It's so important because it shows the culmination of God's plan of salvation. And that was in the life of Jesus through his birth life and especially in his death and resurrection. And so this paragraph, these 10 verses, explain how one is saved, and it explains the difference between Christianity and every other religion on earth. It brings hope to our human situation of sin. And whereas other religions say that once you obey or once you do this, once you're good with the law, you're good, you're in, you're gonna be fine. Paul will explain how being a believer, how being a Christian, a true disciple of Jesus, hinges on something totally different than one's own ability to accomplish the law. So let's dive in, and this morning I really just wanna camp on some major ideas and flesh out a bit some of these ideas that Paul brings to the surface and make sure that we're walking away today with some clarity about our salvation and what God has done for us.
So if you turn in your Bibles, Romans 3, you can follow along, I'll read out loud as you guys Read it to yourself, so verse 21 it says this, "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 to be received by faith. "He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, "because in his forbearance he had left the sins "committed beforehand unpunished. "He did it to demonstrate his righteousness "at the present time so as to be just "and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. "Where then is boasting? "It is excluded. "Because of what law? "The law that requires works? "No, because of the law that requires faith. "For we maintain that a person is justified by faith "apart from the works of the law. "Or is God the God of the Jews only? "Is he not the God of Gentiles too? "Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God "who will justify the circumcised by faith "and the uncircumcised through that same faith. "Do we then nullify the law by this faith? "Not at all. "Rather, we uphold the law.”
Would you guys pray with me? God, we come before you this morning eager to hear your word, to hear your truth. And God, we give you credit for the life that we can live in you because it is all from you. Your salvation is a gift. And we're so thankful for what your son has done. I pray that through this text, God, and through the working of your spirit in our hearts, we would come to deeper understanding and appreciation of who you are and what you've done. Give this time to me, pray this in your name, amen.
I wanna walk through verse by verse to understand Paul's explanation here because it is absolutely essential to our faith. And so I'm just gonna start, and this is covering 21 through 31 is the process of salvation. Paul's laying it out. This is how he kinda went through the first Several chapters, you cannot be saved this way. This is how one is saved. So in verse 21, Paul starts off with, but now, which is one of the biggest transitions in all of scripture, because God's way of righteousness has now been revealed. He's talking about salvation. So God's plan all throughout the Old Testament that was there and it hadn't come to fruition yet is now here. In verse 22, Paul talks about how the law only makes us aware of our sin. He's been kind of hinting at this, he's been saying this. It cannot change our hearts. It cannot make us love something that we cannot love. Paul's words here speak of something we'll talk more about later, but the fact that salvation is given to us. It is a gift. Again, Paul is hammering this home every chapter, every other paragraph it seems. is making sure that people understand you cannot earn your salvation. You cannot do it. God's righteousness does not disparage between Jew or Gentile, but is for all, all who believe in Jesus Christ, given through faith. We'll come back to that in a second. Verse 23, Paul now summarizes the previous chapters in one phrase. He says, "All have sinned and fall short "of the glory of God." Again, pointing to the all-encompassing nature of sin. It touches every single person. There's no one on earth that is not affected by sin. All of humanity, none escape it. We are all plagued by sin. And Paul doesn't want anyone to think, believer or non-believer, religious person or non-religious person, that they are somehow exempt from needing Jesus. Every single person needs Jesus, period. Everyone. And then verses 24 through 25, and now we get to the good part here.
What can we do about our sin? Well, we can't do anything on our own. And Paul introduces some big theological words here, but I wanna unpack them and make sure that we understand what this passage is saying, because as I prayed, it leads to a deeper appreciation of who God is, what he's done for us. And that's the point of every Sunday, is to walk away with a deeper appreciation for God. So the first word that Paul gives us is justified. He says, "And all are justified." That phrase, all are, is referring to those who can be, those who are saved. And then justified, this is this term that means to be declared righteous. It's a legal declaration that you are innocent before God. We were previously sinners, we were guilty in the eyes of God because of our sin, and so how are we made innocent? How are we justified? Well God, instead of seeing our sins, now sees Jesus' righteousness. And when Jesus was on the cross, he took on our sin that made us guilty. and his righteousness is then ours. So when we believe that Jesus is the savior and we entrust our lives to him, he takes on our sin and it is paid for on the cross. And what we receive is perfect righteousness, allowing God to see us as innocent.
Jesus' sacrifice justifies us before God. So we get the term justification. It's our first word. The second word we see is redemption. through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Redemption is about bringing something back from destruction, from death, or to buy something back from destruction. We've been going through this series on RightNow Media with J.D. Greer, and he gives a great example, and so I'm just gonna repeat it to you, to help make sense of this process. He asks, what do you call it when you cash in a coupon? You redeem it, right? And when you're shopping at the supermarket, let's say you received a coupon for some ham from a certain manufacturer. So you go to the store to redeem that coupon. You go to the ham section, you pick up that ham, you go to the clerk at the front, and you check out. And that clerk says it's going to be $23. And you say, well, not for me, because I've got a coupon. And you give them that coupon, and you pay nothing. You just got this ham for absolutely free. And what did the manufacturer pay? The manufacturer paid full price. And the pig is the real hero of the story because the pig paid everything. The coupon availed you to their generosity. Yeah, thank you J.D. Greer for making us think of some delicious ham and bacon during our service. But that example helps us understand what Jesus did on the cross and the redemption that we experienced. This is how it worked. God sent his son Christ Jesus. You present faith in Jesus and you receive eternal life. You receive salvation. His sacrifice is yours. The third word that we see is atonement. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement. And this word means that God's wrath has been satisfied. The debt has been paid. Other translations use the word propitiation, which is the turning away of wrath by an offering. So God's wrath was turned away from us and put onto Christ in order that we may be saved. Jesus took our place on the cross, taking the punishment that we deserve, and in doing so, he atones for our sins. He died in our place, he paid our price. And so the sacrifice of atonement is about Jesus taking our place. Now you may be wondering, why was sacrifice even necessary?
Well it comes from the Old Testament, and what God required before Jesus' ultimate sacrifice to cover all of our sins. In the Old Testament, the process of being made innocent involved regular animal sacrifice, something to atone for people's sins. In the Old Testament, there was no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood. Hebrews tells us that, reminds us of that old custom, that in order for a person to be seen as clean in the eyes of God, they had to sacrifice something. So if you were back in the Old Testament, you would go about your day, your week, and you would recognize that I've sinned. I didn't uphold the 10 commandments and all the other laws that God had given at that time. I messed up. Somewhere along the line, multiple times, I need to do something about my sin. I've sinned against God. And now I have to make it right with God. So you gotta atone for your sins. What would you do? You would go to the temple, you would bring an unblemished animal, perfect, meaning just it had the best looking fur, and there were no like defects with that animal, so perfect animal, and you would have to bring it to the priests and they would sacrifice it. And that sacrifice would be pleasing to God. And in that process, God would recognize that you are now clean again. But the, so the basic system is you sin, you sacrifice, and you substitute yourself with an animal, and temporarily you are seen as clean. For a time, you were right with God. Your relationship was temporarily restored. Now it's still a heart issue, 'cause people back in the time, the Bible tells us that people made sacrifices that didn't have a contrite heart, and God said those sacrifices were not pleasing to me. I don't like those sacrifices. Don't just do this because you have to. You need to have a contrite heart, a repentant heart, acknowledging that you did wrong, that you have offended me, God, and you need to make it right. So going to the temple to sacrifice was a regular part of their lives. It was one of the rhythms of life. And this system in the Old Testament foreshadows what Jesus would do on the cross.
Because that Old Testament system is now nullified by Jesus' actions. So Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice. No other sacrifices are needed anymore, thank goodness. This sacrifice covers all the sin. The sin that we have committed, the sin that we will commit, we no longer need an atoning sacrifice because Jesus paid that price. And like we mentioned before, the salvation is free. So our fourth word is grace. It says, "By His grace." This salvation, this being justified, being redeemed, is completely free for us. It is a gift, it's not something that we earn. Someone once explained grace as God's riches at Christ's expense. No other religion in the world revolves around grace like this. a God-given grace, where you don't do anything, and yet God can still give you eternal life. You didn't earn your way, you didn't have to check this off the box, all these laws, obey everything. God's salvation is a gift. So with those four words now, kinda having the definitions fresh in our mind, let me reread part of this verse here. It says, "For all have sinned and fall short "of the glory of God." So that's our status right there. and all are justified, those who believe, 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 to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness. Hopefully that brings a clearer sense of what God has done, who He is, His character, and how He loves us, and what He did out of that love.
Verse 26 continues in saying that on the cross, God did two things. He satisfies the full demand of God's justice. Sin is an offense against God, something has to be done, so Jesus pays that price, and so God's justice is fully, fully met. And at the same time, God saves us. So Jesus on the cross satisfies God's wrath and at the same time gives us salvation. God demonstrates his righteousness, his perfect action towards sin, so he is perfectly just by carrying out his punishment against sin. And at the same time, while he's exercising his justice, he is also saving us. That's amazing. That's incredible. Not only is he being perfectly righteous, but he is sharing his righteousness with us and those who believe. The rest of this chapter 27 through 31, Paul circles back to the law. He's been going on about the law. The law does not save you, and he's offered clarity about what the law does, and so he just wants to capstone that with, again, okay, now that we understand how you are saved, The law is still relevant. The law is still a part of this picture. And its purpose is to offer guidance and direction. It cannot transform anyone's heart, but for the heart that is transformed, it points to God. And even for the heart that isn't transformed, it still points to God. Provides direction, but it cannot make us go in that direction. That's the power of the gospel. That's what Jesus and the Holy Spirit in us does. But without it, we wouldn't know how to be more like God.
So God's law, Pastor Chris said this last week, is like a mirror. It helps, makes us see ourselves with more clarity. It tells us how far away from God we are. So if I know God's word and I'm saved and I look at the law, I look at what I'm supposed to be doing, I can see, man, I'm really far away. Like I'm not living the life that God wants me to live. Or it could be encouraging. You look at the Bible in that mirror and you're saying, man, I am walking with God. I'm doing what God wants me to do. This is great. It tells us how far away or how close we are. It tells us how to be more like him. Again, Paul doesn't want the Jew or the Gentile to forget about his law. He just wants them to have an accurate understanding. And Paul wants the same thing for us today. That's why the Old Testament and the New Testament are so important. It's why it's so vital to be in the word daily. It's why it's helpful to participate in church life, to be a part of this body of believers so that we can be aware of our vicinity to God. How close are we? How far away? How do I, what does God need to work on in my life? The better we understand God's word, the better we understand him. And the better we understand him, the better we understand how we need to grow, those areas of strength, the areas of weakness that we have, the areas of sin that need to be addressed. When we better understand ourselves, we can better partner with the Spirit and the transformative work that he is doing in our life and in the lives of others.
So looking in that mirror, looking at God's word, the law gives us direction, and for those who are saved, because our hearts are transformed through the power of the Spirit, we can start to head in that right direction, closer to Him. So, there is our passage. That's going through all of Paul's words, verse by verse, but I wanna take a moment to kinda take us out of the letter and put it into the story of what Christ did. Paul alludes to it here, but to help us fully understand what we may already know, or to clarify what might be new to you, let me tell you this story, and it's our story. So the story goes, every human that's ever lived, every one of us, is marred with sin. Our hearts are stained with sin. And before we are saved, there's this separation between us and God. Why? Because God hates sin. It's a direct offense against him. To help us kind of understand how real this is, I mean, even in the Old Testament, God used to dwell in the tabernacle or in the temple, and it was the Holy of Holies, which was this inner room inside of a room. And that's where God's presence was. And the only person that can go in there was the high priest. And even then, it was only during a specific time, and you had to go through a process to be made clean, but no one else could go in there. And if they did, they would die automatically because their sin and God's presence, it's like oil and water, it does not mix.
And I share that to help us see just how serious God takes sin. So with that in mind, we are separated from God until God intervenes in our lives, until the Holy Spirit makes us aware of our sinful status, at which point we can put our faith in Him. But in order to save us, in order for us to be able to spend eternity in God's presence, God had to do something about our sin. So God sent his son Jesus to live the life that we could not live, which was a perfect one. Never having needed to make an Old Testament sacrifice, Jesus never needed to do that because he never sinned. And yet despite being perfect, Christ was condemned to die on the cross. a death that sinners deserved, a death that we deserved, because our sin makes us guilty. But Jesus dies on the cross, and as he's hanging on the cross, he doesn't just die a human death, but he fights a spiritual battle, and he takes on all of our sin, all of it. Like, just sit in the weight of that for a second, not just your sin that you've committed so far, but all of your sin, and then multiply that all the sins of this people in this room. And then you think of the entire world and all the sins that happened. Jesus is dying on the cross, bearing the weight of all of our sin. And because of what we know about God and sin, like oil and water, they don't go together, now the picture of what's happening on the cross between God and His Son, Jesus, becomes even clearer. There's no tension there. Christ was the ultimate sacrifice to atone for for our sins and God's wrath against that sin, against those who committed that sin, against us, instead of it being on us, now God's wrath is focused on his own son. And it meant that God had to turn his back on Jesus for that moment because of that sin that Jesus bore. And in that moment, Jesus cries out, Father, why have you forsaken me? I mean, does that hit us? Like, not just in our heads of like, I understand that that relationship was, what was going on, but does that hit us in our hearts? That emotion is palpable. And this really is the darkest moment in history. It's because of our sin. Son of God, perfect, dies on the cross for us. And I say this as our story because He did it for you. He did it for me. through Jesus' death and sacrifice, for you who believe you are saved. Your guilty status now changes in the eyes of God to be innocent. You are justified. You were dead in your sins, believing in Christ. Now your souls have been redeemed. You are brought to life. Your soul and your heart can now be transformed by the Spirit because Jesus has atoned for your sins. And this happens based on nothing that you have done in life. You haven't earned this. This is a complete gift because he loves you. I mean, what a gift. What grace, what sacrifice, and what love from God. And so if this is your story this morning, then I hope you are filled with praise and thankfulness for God. And if this isn't yet your story, It can be.
The most important question that Paul will ask, that we will ask in this series, is have you trusted Christ Jesus with your salvation? Are you looking to anything other than Christ for your salvation? If you're thinking that you're hoping to be good enough in the end, or that you've done enough in your life to get into heaven, the answer is you haven't, you won't, you will never be able to. The only way is through Jesus, through faith in Jesus. And so if you've never received Christ, or even if you have, I wanna take this moment to pray. And I want you guys to pray this prayer with me. So if you could bow your heads, close your eyes, and inside, just silently to yourself, repeat this in your hearts. Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner and need to be saved. I turn from my sin right now, and I acknowledge that you are the Lord and the Lord in my life. I receive you right now as my savior. And right now I am putting my sin on you. You are the sin bearer. You took my sin and died the death that I deserved. Thank you, Jesus, for saving me. God, we come before you fully recognizing as much as we can that you have done amazing things, that your work on the cross through your son Jesus is everything that we need. It's the only thing that we need. And God, I pray that that would, you would help us to feel the weight of that, to feel the weight of our sin on the cross and the gift that it is that we don't have to die that death but you did it for us. God, I pray that your spirit, whether we've been walking with you for years or we are just starting right now to walk with you, I pray that we would be filled with a joy and an appreciation, a thankfulness, and just praises for what you have done. We give you all the glory, God. Amen.