Sermon Brief
Date Written: February 3, 2012
Date Preached: February 5, 2012
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Series Title: A Series from Romans
Sermon Title: The Blessing of Justification
Sermon Text: Romans 3:21-26; 5:1-11 [ESV]
21But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26It 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..
Introduction:
I want us to focus in on what Paul is saying here in these few verses because I believe many of us either don’t realize the enormity of what God has done, or we have come to take it for granted… either way, we are going to revisit the subject of JUSTIFICATION this morning!
What is justification? Well a popular show on TV now is a show entitled “Justified” featuring a US Marshal who is a bit of a renegade and a penchant for doing things a little outside of regulation… but he always has a way of ‘justifying’ the things he has done! In the show it is not that his way is the ‘right’ way, but he often compares his somewhat questionable tactics to the heinous criminals he is apprehending or killing.
In other words, he has come to the point of justifying his actions because of what he considers a greater good… this is an attitude that many in our culture take today, we know it as “The end justifies the means” In other words, it really doesn’t matter HOW you do something, but THAT it gets done!
The term ‘justification’ is defined as the act of being made right when legally you are in the wrong, such as a US Marshall shooting and killing a criminal in the act of either self defense or in the commission of a crime. Our law would say that US Marshall was justified in his or her actions…
But today we are not here to hear about legal justification or secular justification… today I want to share with you about Theological justification that Paul teaches about in chapters 3-5 of the book of Romans, and in chapter 2 of the book of Galatians.
We just read from Romans 3 where Paul lays out a basic premise for our justification. But we must also know that from 1:18 to 3:20 of this letter, Paul had made the case for human sinfulness and humanities utter failure and inability to be good in the eyes of God, and this leads him to his statement in 3:23, “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God …”
Paul lays out a grim picture for humanity and says that there is basically no hope for humanity when left to our own actions and abilities. We fall short every time, we are sinful to the core and there is NOTHING we can do to remove that sin or shake the stigma of sin in our lives!
In v.21 Paul makes a direction change as he says, “But now…” this indicates that now that he has set the stage he will move on to how this situation can be changed. It is like your auto mechanic telling you ALL that is wrong with your car…leading you down a road of depressing details and bottoming out with the feeling that you are driving an old bucket of bolts…and you may even think, ‘What’s the use?’ Then the mechanic stops and says, ‘but here is what I can do to fix things…’
Paul has painted a grim picture up to this point and now he shifts gears from the grim picture painted to a direction of hope and life. He is basically saying here, “but now… here is how God is going to fix things…”
God’s Plan for Sinful Humanity (v.21)
Show verse 21 here…I will read
21But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—
He tells us that the righteousness of God has been manifest… CLEARLY MADE KNOWN… and that righteousness is NOT the Law, as many of his day believed. BUT what Paul says is that the Law and the Prophets who had come before tell of God’s righteousness…
The righteousness of God has been made known to all is what Paul says, but HOW? Paul moves forward in v.22 as He says:
22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ…
Here is the bottom line… God’s righteousness is wrapped up in a person! This righteousness is made manifest and revealed to the world in the person of Jesus Christ.
Paul said it like this to the Colossian church:
15He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God... 16For by Him [Jesus] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. 17And He [Jesus] is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning…
19For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and thru Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Jesus is preeminent and unsurpassed in greatness, Jesus is God wrapped in flesh come to dwell with His creation. Jesus was willing, in love, to submit to sacrificing Himself for the salvation of His creation. God’s righteousness is wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ! This is why Jesus is so important… this is why we worship Jesus! He is our Lord, He is our God… He is our righteousness!
But how does one come to know this righteousness Christ has revealed? Let’s look again to v.22:
22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe...
Paul is saying that the righteousness of God can be found and received upon our faith and trust in Jesus Christ! If we have faith in Christ we will receive the righteousness of God… if we receive the righteousness of God we receive God’s justification of our soul, and we have eternal life in heaven with Him!
Paul is careful to make sure that he tells those in the Roman church… the righteousness of God comes thru faith in Jesus, and in this statement Paul was referring to the exclusive nature Jesus had to passing on the righteousness of Jesus!
The righteousness of God can ONLY be accessed through faith in Jesus Christ! But what about that faith… who can have that faith? Paul says it is for ALL who believe!
Again this is simply a repeat of what Jesus taught us in John 3:16 when Jesus told Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not die but have everlasting life.”
Paul is simply reaffirming what Jesus had already taught… Paul was fulfilling the Great Commission by teaching those who did NOT know, the things that Jesus had taught to His disciples. God loves us and is revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ, and if we have faith in Him, we can know the righteousness of God!
Is God’s Plan for ANYONE? (v.22b-23)
Show verse 22b-23 here…I will read
I want us to know that EVERYONE CAN know this salvation God has provided! I want us know that EVERYONE can receive it as well! And we find Paul teaching here that we ALL NEED this salvation because there is NOT one person who is out of the reach of sin… not one person of whom sin has not corrupted and perverted. All of us are sinners… Paul says:
For there is no distinction: 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
There is no distinction was Paul’s way of saying, God does not play favorites! God hates sin and those with sin in their lives were OUTSIDE of God’s family, outside of God’s saving grace. Paul wanted both the JEWS and the GENTILES to know that this applied to everyone of them!
So, what does this mean for us today? It means that we must all realize that we ARE ALL sinners! No matter how ‘good’ we may try to live our life, there is NO WAY we are going to be righteous before God on our own merit…in fact what Paul is saying is that God WILL condemn EVERYONE because we are ALL sinful!
But then Paul tells us… even tho’ we have fallen and have NO hope on our own… if we are willing to place faith and trust in Jesus Christ we can receive God’s righteousness! Those are the people who will be justified in God’s eyes! That justification is only available thru Jesus! Paul says in v.24
24and [then they] are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
The redemption Paul speaks about here is the forgiveness of sin within the life of the believer through their faith and trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior. Paul is careful to word this so that NO ONE would misunderstand this ‘gift’ of God… this is because many want to point to their good works and/or good intentions can get God’s attention… but this is NOT what Paul is saying.
What Paul IS saying is that they are justified by the grace of God. God’s grace is His ‘unmerited favor’ and it is not something we can earn! In his letter to the Ephesian church Paul wrote:
8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
It is by the grace of God that we are given the gift of saving faith to believe in Christ! We simply cannot come to a belief on our own… we are drawn by the Holy Spirit and infused with the gift of faith at that moment of confession to believe in Christ as Lord and Savior! Like Paul says… it is a GIFT OF GOD!
How Does God Provide Jusification? (v.25)
Show verse 25 here…I will read
25whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness,
In this verse Paul details HOW God was able to give this wonderful gift of redemption and salvation to us… looking at the first part of v.25 we see that God was the initiator of this action…
God sent Jesus, His Son, to be THE ultimate sacrifice for the sin of humanity. Where humanity could NOT do enough to ever become removed from their sin, God took the action to do so on His own and Christ was sent as the ‘sacrifice of atonement’ for His creation.
I love the word – ATONEMENT! We are told that God took action to atone us from our sinful to be saved! From darkness to light! From death to life! Atone… when we even break down that word we see it is a picture of what God desires… HE desires us to be AT ONE with Him!
God seeks reconciliation within our hearts! We are all helplessly lost in sin, and so God took the active step needed to bring about that reconciliation… to make us no longer SEPARATE from Him but AT ONE with Him… In Christ Jesus on the Cross, God atoned for our sin.
In Christ we are justified! There is the word again… justify… when we look at ‘justify’ from a spiritual perspective is means to be made right before God.
But the key for us to remember here is that WE cannot do this on our own… WE cannot make ourselves right before God, but Scripture says God had to take action to justify us… In Jesus we find justification before God!
God took the necessary steps to make us right or righteous in His eyes… The term ‘justify’ is actually a legal term! When we are ‘justified in Christ’ this becomes a legal standing before God, meaning that we are NO longer held accountable for the sin in our lives! This means that we are forgiven and any condemnation and judgment is removed and we are FREE!
This verse also uses the term ‘propitiation’ for our sins… this word is the Greek word Hilisterion which is somewhat difficult to nail down to a specific definition, but what we can know is that it means 2 specific things… first, it means that the wrath of God is averted from us, and then it means that the sin of our lives is wiped away and cleansed!
But this word is also a picture of the OT sacrificial system where the High Priest would enter into the Holy of Holies once a year for the nation and he would take the blood of the sacrifice and sprinkle it on the ‘mercy seat’ which was the covering of the Ark of the Covenant.
This is said to be where God dwelled and the sins were taken to Him to be pushed forward and not held to account for them… and every year the High Priest had to make this sacrifice to push the sin of the nation forward yet another year…
Here Paul goes on to explain that NOW it was the time where this OT process was ending and in Jesus a New Covenant had been started. No longer would the High Priest have to enter into the Holy of Holies… at the Crucifixion the veil between the Holy of Holies and the rest of the Temple had been ripped in two… God was beginning a new chapter in His kingdom.
Look how Paul describes this new chapter by looking back at what God had been patient about:
because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26It 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..
Here Paul tells the believers that God had been patient during those years of animal sacrifice and the sins that had been pushed forward each year were now able to be TOTALLY forgiven thru the blood of Jesus Christ… for those who have faith in Jesus!
Here God is saying, “I will declare you NOT GUILTY in my eyes… I will remove all penalty of sin from your life!” This IS His plan thru Jesus on the Cross…what glorious news this is for us! AMEN! But the Good news doesn’t end there…
What Happens When We ARE Justified Before God? (Rom 5:1-5)
Show Rom 5:1-5 here…I will read
1Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Paul says that when we are justified in Christ that we will experience the following five (5) benefits…
We are at peace with God, no longer fighting against Him or in the camp of the enemy, but we are allies and at peace for God has declared us righteous & we stand FOREVER blameless in His sight…
We have access through our faith in Christ to the wonderful Grace of God in our lives! Because of this faith… because of this justification from God, we can know and experience the grace of God that delivers us from an eternity of damnation… God’s grace is infused into our lives and we rejoice in it!
We also enter into a life of rejoicing through our faith in Christ… rejoicing in the hope of eternity with God and the hope that Christ brings and gives to all who know Him. Forgiveness of sin and removal of guilt and penalty of that sin… gives us great reason to rejoice!
We also enter into a life where we can rejoice EVEN through the difficulties of life! Even in the sufferings that will ultimately come our way, we can know God’s grace, salvation and justification and in that we can rejoice, even when we are suffering!
Finally, we can know that even with suffering… because of this grace we enjoy, our lives will be built up with endurance, character and hope! And in all things we will NEVER be put to shame because of this justification that God has imputed upon us through His Son Jesus Christ! We enjoy this through the presence of the Holy Spirit within our lives!
So justification from God is being declared NOT GUILTY by God, and even though you ARE a sinner and will always BE a sinner, you stand blameless before Him! You have to understand that this does NOT happen by you cleaning up your act and coming to God, but it happens only because of what Jesus accomplished on the Cross of Calvary!
So because of Jesus Christ… today ANY of you here… can be made right before the God of heaven! Today ANYONE in this room can have their sin wiped away and be hidden from the wrath of God in judgment! But how?
How Can We Know God’s Jusification in our Lives? (Rom 3:22a)
Show Rom 3:22a here…I will read
22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe... TO know this we go back to v.22 and we find that we can know the righteousness of God thru faith in Jesus Christ! But how does this happen?
Well, God sent His Holy Spirit into the world to convict the hearts of humanity about their sin… The Holy Spirit also reveals the truth of who Jesus is… and who WE are…sinners before a holy God!
When that truth is revealed to us, we become broken before God! At that moment of brokenness God offers us the faith to believe in Jesus as Savior to receive forgiveness for our sin and to save us from eternal damnation.
So this morning I want ANYONE in the sound of my voice… ANYONE in this church today… ANYONE listening to this on the internet… ANYONE can be declared righteous in God’s eyes, but it takes faith in Christ as Savior!
“Preacher, I like what you are saying, and I want to believe… I want to have this faith in Christ you are speaking about but I don’t know how?” Well, this faith I’m speaking about is God’s gift… once the humbling truth about our sin is revealed by the Holy Spirit and we are broken… with a broken and repentant heart God is willing to give us the saving faith we need to believe in Jesus!
So BASED on Scripture we can know that there is NO action we can take that will bring us to salvation… So today you may be sitting here and you have come to the realization that you are a sinner… this is not something you came to on your own but it is given to you straight from God thru His Holy Spirit that is convicting you of your sin…
And so, when we see this humbling truth about who we are, and we see ourselves for the sinners we are… and the Holy Spirit reveals the truth about Jesus and the holiness of God… and we become broken before God, it is in that broken spirit that God can and will move in our lives… as He offers us a saving faith in His Son Jesus Christ!
TODAY, the Holy Spirit is moving and convicting the hearts of many in this room… He is revealing the truth of who you are before a holy God. Today you may be sitting there in your pew BROKEN and beaten up because of what God is showing you…
But God loves those with a broken spirit and a repentant heart, and He is willing to offer you a saving faith! This morning God is speaking to your heart, and I want you to respond to Him!
God has revealed to you that you cannot do this on your own! God has promised He will provide the faith you need to believe in Jesus as Savior! This is a faith that you can know, accept and embrace… and God has promised that when you accept that faith in Jesus…
You will be saved!
You will be reconciled!
You will be made right in the eyes of God!
You will be justified!
There are so many people who totally misunderstand what being justified means. Many people think it means that we never sin again! Some people even portray believers as people who think they are perfect and ‘holier than thou’! But let me share this with you…
When we get saved, when we are justified by God… it doesn’t mean we don’t sin anymore! What it means is God has justified us and declared us free from the penalty of our sin…past, present and future! We never again will have to fight the battle of sin because Christ has won the victory!
However, what we can see a lot in the church today is what I would call, “an easy believism”… They say, “Just believe and all will be well!” but I’m here to tell you that saving faith must be followed up with obedient action!
But this grave disease called ‘easy believism’ is spreading and infecting the pews of most of our churches today! It does NOT require people to live a holy life, but allows them to live as they please! This hurts the witness of the church and destroys the witness of the individual for Christ in this world!
But preacher, you just said that we are justified and the penalty of sin has been removed… so why not live like I want? Scripture tells us that even though we are justified, we don’t have a license to sin; Paul says in
Rom 6:1-2 [NLT] 1Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of His wonderful grace? 2Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?
So the answer to that question is a definite NO… we do not have a license to live as we please! In fact, we are called to live FOR Christ and live holy lives set apart from the world!
However, what God’s justification DOES for the believer is it gives us a comfort in knowing that when we DO sin… and we ALL fall to temptation and sin! But when we do, we can know that God will NEVER kick us out of His family; we can know that we are secure in Him in our salvation! And in knowing that, we can serve Him without fear of God condemning us!
You see condemnation is the opposite of justification. To condemn someone means to pronounce them GUILTY of a wrong and it holds them accountable to the punishment and penalty of that wrong…
But when we are justified by God thru faith in Christ and God has declared us to be NOT-GUILTY and the punishment and penalty of our sin has been removed… NEVER to be faced again! All because of what Christ has done!
Remember the illustration I used earlier about your mechanic and your car… What if your mechanic had the ability to come to you and say, “I am hereby declaring your old bucket of bolts to be a 2012 Mercedes Benz, free of all defects and problems!” Wouldn’t that be great? KC thinks so… right KC?
But I want you to know that being justified by God is even better than that… you see the Bible tells us that God’s mercies are NEW every morning, and that when we confess our sin, God is willing to forgive us and wipe away all uncleanliness from our hearts!
In other words, it’s like your mechanic being able to say… not only do I declare your old bucket of bolts a new Mercedes Benz, but it is going to be BRAND NEW every day… it will never grow old… it will never break down… it will never disappoint you… How would that sound to you?
Well that is EXACTLY what happens when we come to faith in Christ Jesus and God justifies us! We become a new creation in Christ and that “NEW” never wears off! We are totally secure in Him! Now do you see why it is called the GOOD NEWS?
Today you have heard the very foundation of Christianity… it has told you that God has done ALL the work! It has told you that God has made a way for anyone to come and know Him! Thru Jesus and His work on the Cross & His resurrection from the grave… salvation is open to any who believes!
God has provided the Holy Spirit to convict our hearts and bring us to the point of brokenness… to the point where we realize we cannot do it on our own… to the point where we realize we are hopeless without God… It is at that point when God will give us the faith to believe in Jesus as our Savior and we can be justified and declared NOT GUILTY by God!
Today if you are here and God’s Holy Spirit is moving in your life… moving in your heart… Bro Ken is coming and he is going lead our Hymn of invitation “Jesus I come…”
I am calling on you TO COME TO Jesus! I know the Holy Spirit is moving here this morning and I pray that you will come with your broken heart… I pray you will come with your broken spirit and that you will allow God to wash over you with His mercy, grace, and forgiveness and implant within you a saving faith in Jesus Christ! Won’t you come?
