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Illustration: Subject: Wedding Anniversary
Roger was in trouble. He forgot his wedding anniversary.
Patti was really angry. She told him "Tomorrow morning, I
expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in under 6
seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE".
The next morning Roger got up early and left for work.
When Patti woke up, she looked out the window and sure enough
there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway.
Confused, she put on her robe, ran out to the driveway and brought the box back in the house. She opened it and found a brand new bathroom
scale. Funeral services for Roger have been scheduled for Friday.
I am reading a book right now that was given to me by the Klassen’s, and it is entitled “Brothers we are not professionals,” by John Piper. The book is directed at pastors, and is a plea to them to do radical ministry. Now I am not going to rehash the book for you this morning, but I do want to share with you something that I learned as I have been reading it, because I think it fits in well with what Paul is saying in Romans chapter 3 this morning. Now before I do that I want you to know something about who I am. I am a person who loves to learn new things, and I learned something new as I read this book, and what I learned is this, that the reason that you and I and every other person who has ever lived exists, our primary purpose in life, is to glorify God. Now this may not come as much of a surprise to you, after all the Westminster Confession which came into being in 1647 starts out by answering this question, “What is the chief end of man?” or in other words, why do we exist and what are we here for? And the answer that is given is, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever,” so this is not really all that new a concept. Having said that, I must say that while “glorifying God” may be our purpose in life, most of us struggle in living as if this were so. I think that there are different reasons for this, most of which we are not going to explore this morning, but living our lives this way is as easy as rewording the saying “What would Jesus do?” to “Will this bring Glory to God?” and then asking this question before all that we do in life. Just for fun lets try a few examples, I will ask the question and you give me the answers okay? Here we go. We will start with an easy one,
(1.) Should I wave my fist at the person who just cut me off on the Hart highway? Will this bring glory to God? NO! What would bring glory to God?
(2.) Should I leave the church because someone offended me? Will this bring glory to God? NO! What would bring glory to God?
(3.) Should I use the gifts that God has given me, to help grow His church? Will this bring glory to God? YES!
(4.) Should I grow God’s church at the expense of my family? Will this bring glory to God? NO! What would bring glory to God?
(5.) Should I tithe, or give money to the church, to support its ministries? Will this bring glory to God? YES!
So this is a very simple way to determine what things I should and should not be doing.
Now let me get back to what I learned. Now I already told you that I learned that mankind’s purpose in life is to “glorify God.” But I also learned what God’s purpose in existing is, and I wonder how many of you will be surprised to hear that the reason that God exists is also to “glorify God.” Everything that God does is done to bring glory to Himself. Why? Because He is the One who deserves all the glory. Now this may be hard for some to understand because it sounds as if God must be pretty egotistical. And the reason we think that is because any examples or experiences that we can draw from, show us that this is true. For instance, if I lived my life to bring glory to myself, there are a whole host of people including my wife, my kids, my family here at the church, who would be able to point out reasons why I do not deserve the glory. But God is perfect. He is the embodiment of love, righteousness, holiness, and all that is good, He is faithful, cannot lie, or sin, or act contrary to who He is, like we can, and as a result He deserves all the glory.
We will come back to this a little later, to show how this ties in with the Scripture we are looking at this morning. That being said let’s look at verse 1…
Vs. 1- Now it has been a couple of weeks since we looked at the book of Romans so lets just quickly recap the first two chapters by saying that Paul has, up to this point, been showing first the Gentiles, and then the Jews, why they are guilty and in need of a relationship with God. Beginning now in chapter three, Paul starts to answer some of the objections that his Jewish listeners might have after hearing what he has said. The first objection is simply this, if having and obeying the law was not enough to save the Jews, if being God’s chosen people marked by circumcision, did not provide salvation, and in the end they are no better off than the Gentiles, then what advantage is there in being a Jew in the first place?
Vs. 2- To which Paul replies in verse 2, “Much in every way!” And then he goes on to share just one of the ways in which it was advantageous to be a Jew. He says, “They have been entrusted with the very words of God.” The word that is translated “entrusted” in the NIV really means “faith” or “confidence,” and it implied “confidence” in them on the part of God in intrusting his words to them; this was a confidence which was not misplaced either, for no people ever guarded a sacred trust or deposit with more dependability, than the Jews did the Sacred Scriptures.
To possess these was of course an important privilege, and made them the sole possessors of God’s instructions to the whole world, as they instructed others in their duty, and were their guide in everything that had to do with them in this life and the life to come. They also contained, many precious promises respecting the Messiah and how the Jewish nation would be blessed because He would come in and through their peoples. No higher favor can be given to a people than to be put in possession of the sacred Scriptures. And this fact should excite us, bring gratitude, and cause us to make great efforts to share them with other nations.
Vs. 3- The second objection goes like this, the Jews believed that ultimately they would all be saved regardless of their actions, because of the covenants that God had made with their forefathers. Did not the fact that God chose them as his people, and entered into covenant with them, imply that the Jews would not be lost and would be kept from hell? Paul’s words in the first two chapters seemed to imply that in certain respects they were on level ground with the Gentile nations; and that if they sinned, they would be treated just like the pagan; and consequently, they asked the question, of what value was the promise of God? Had it not become vain and useless? The meaning of the objection is, that if Paul is right , that the Jews could become unfaithful and be lost, this would imply that God had either failed to keep his promises to the nation; or that he had made promises in which the end result showed He was not able to keep.
Vs. 4- Paul’s response to this question is simple and to the point, there is no way that God can be unfaithful, it is impossible for Him to act contrary to who He is, and anyone who believes or thinks otherwise is a liar. Notice the words, “Let God be true” this is Paul saying that sometimes the fact that God cannot act contrary to who He is, works in our favor, and sometimes it doesn’t, but let all happen to God’s glory and not to ours. Finally he backs up this statement with a quote from Psalms 51:4, which in effect says the same thing.
Now while Paul never really explains how God can be faithful despite the fact that there may be Jews who are not saved, the answer is not hard to see. God’s covenants always require that those who He enters into covenant with, act, behave, or live in a certain way, and it is quite apparent that the Jewish nation as a whole did not live up to their side of the agreement.
Vs. 5, 7- The third objection raised is found in verse 5 and it goes like this, if the results of the Jews unrighteousness or sin was that the character of God, as a just Being, was made all the more clear to the world, if His glory resulted from it; and the effect of all was to show that his character was pure; how could he then punish that sin from which His own glory resulted? Wouldn’t God be unjust to bring His wrath on them?
Vs. 6, 8- Paul answers this question in the final three verses by using one of their commonly held beliefs against them. All Jews believed that God would one day judge the world, it is just that they believed that since they were His chosen people, that they would escape this judgment. Paul has just finished telling them in chapters 1 & 2 that this was not the case, they would be judged as well. Not liking this scenario much they try to defend their sin by saying that it allowed God to show how merciful He is, so how could He punish them? Paul then says here in verse 6, if your argument is true, then God cannot judge anyone including the Gentiles, and this went against all that they believed. What a pickle they were in. They wanted God to wipe out the sinful Gentiles but now Paul is telling them that God will judge their sin in the same way.
Aren’t we the same way though. We want God to judge the sinners not realizing that we are one of them. Then when we do realize that we are the same, we want God to have mercy on us, not realizing that God cannot just flip His righteousness on and off. He has to act according to who He is, and that means that ultimately sin will be judged, because God is just. But God is also loving and so in His love He provided a way for us to escape the punishment that we all deserve for the sins we have committed, and that way was to send His one and only sinless Son, Jesus Christ into the world to pay the price for the sins that you and I committed. All that is required is for us to accept the fact that we are sinners, believe that Jesus did in fact die for us, and then spend the rest of our lives on an adventure to see how much glory we can bring to the God who loved us so much. This is where the Jewish nation fell short, they had the knowledge, but they did not accept it, and as a result it could not save them.
Paul closes with a final argument to their last objection, he says, if it is true that God can bring glory to Himself through our sin, then why not do, as others say we do, and sin as much as possible? Live lives as evil as we can, to the glory of God. The fault in this reasoning has to do with what I talked to you about at the beginning. Remember how I said we should ask the question before all that we do, “Will this bring glory to God?” Well to live our lives sinning as much as possible, keeps us from asking that question. Our intentions are to do what is wrong, and sinful, and destructive, not to bring Glory to God, even though God can take what is bad and make something good out of it. In this situation, God is glorified not because of us, but in spite of us. Do you see the difference? It lies in what our intentions are, where our heart is, and that is really the answer to determining what is sin, and what isn’t in all that we do. Paul teaches, us a great fundamental law, “that evil should never be done that good may come.” This is a universal rule. And this should in no case to be departed from. Whatever is evil should not to be done under any circumstance. Any imaginable good which we may think will result from it; any advantage to ourselves or to our cause; or any glory which we may think may come to God, will not endorse or justify the deed. Strict, uncompromising integrity and honesty is to be the rule of our lives; and only in such a life can we hope for success, or for the blessing of God.
