Put Right With God
Romans 3:9-31
In 19990, in Washington, D.C., Padrica Caine Hill, a former bank teller, was a mother and wife. One day she gets up, dresses her three children and makes breakfast for them. Then she smokes some crack cocaine and lets the kids watch cartoons. A little while later when the cocaine explodes in her brain… with a clothesline she strangles eight-year-old Kristine and four-year-old Eric Jr. She tries to strangle two-year-old Jennifer, but leaves the girl still breathing softly on the floor. When the police come, Padrica Hill says she loves her children. Why did she kill them? "I don't know," she answers in apparently genuine bewilderment. "I hadn't planned on it."
Who or what is responsible?
*The woman herself? She did smoke the crack, but presumably the effect she anticipated was a euphoric high, not the death of her children. The drug affected her brain and destroyed the civilized instincts there, including the most powerful of human instincts, her mother love.
*The crack itself?*The dealer who sold the crack?
* The others in the trade -- kingpins and mules who brought the cocaine up from South America encased in condoms that they had swallowed?
* The peasants in Colombia who grew the coca plants in the first place?
The widening stain of responsibility for evil on a constricting planet changes moral contexts. Micro-evil, the murder of an individual child, becomes part of the macro-organism.
So who’s fingers were on the clothesline that kills the children in the middle of morning cartoons?
I relate this story to get us thinking about sin in general. To move us to a place where we can consider and understand the words of Paul in Chapter 3 of Romans.
In verses 9-20 Paul brings to a conclusion, the argument he has been meticulously laying out since 1:1… THAT ALL ARE GUILTY OF SIN AND WITHOUT EXCUSE AND UNDER THE JUDGMENT OF GOD
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
He makes the statement and then lays out the proof…
# 1: The Gentiles are guilty (1:18-32).
# 2: The Moralists are guilty (2:1-16).
# 3: The Jews are guilty (2:17-29).
# 4: No excuses will be accepted (3:1-8).
So here, 3:9 Paul makes his great and sweeping diagnosis that the whole body, every single part (you and me) is utterly diseased and sick.
Then, Paul goes on to prove his point
Verse 10 says… AS TO CHARACTER… NONE GOOD
He is saying that all are sinners and none are good.
That is where we have trouble. Most Christians can admit that we are sinners... but we are not ready to admit that we are not good.
In fact, we believe we are pretty good. Naturally, because we know the good things that we do.
We attend church, pay our taxes, do a good job at work, change our oil every 3000 miles, cut our grass and often even cut the neighbor’s ditch, give money to some philanthropic organizations, are members of community groups, etc
So, we are not ready to let anyone say that we are not good.
We can look around us and see so much evil and bad people, people who don’t do the good things we do, and naturally we think of ourselves as good… gooder than most.
And we say, what about the Mother Theresa’s and the Billy Grahams… they are good.
See, we confuse RELATIVE goodness with ABSOLUTE goodness.
Relative goodness—we see great differences between the Mother Theresa’s and the Sadaam Husein’s of the world.
It is real.. while ALL are sinners… some are horrible animals and other are near saints.
Paul would not deny that distinction. And seen from that elevation (man’s perspective) the difference is drastic and we can feel morally superior… GOOD.
But God sees from a different perspective… ABSOLUTE perfection… where things are not judged in relation to each other but in relation to His absolute perfection and the standard to which we are held.
ILL: Think of the skyline of Chicago. There are some buildings that are only one story tall and others, like the Sears Tower which is 108 Stories tall.
RELATIVE GOODNESS—If you ride out on Lake Michigan in a boat and look back at the skyline of Chicago, this is what it looks like… see how one building looks tall or short when compared with another.
That is how we see goodness… some people are better than others… thus we can feel that there are good people.
ABSOLUTE GOODNESS – if you fly over Chicago at 5000 feet, this is what it looks like. Notice how it is hard to tell a 108 story building from a 10 story building. ((I challenge you to find it)) It is right THERE
God views us like this… from HIS perspective and WE ARE ALL EQUALLY sinful.
SO--- No one is by nature/character good
V. 11 says… AS TO THE MIND… “There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.”
No one who understands what?
No one who understands that they don’t seek God.
You may say you seek God… but you don’t.
O you do sometimes. You do when you need Him. You do in your spiritual times. You do SOME of the time
But the verb Paul used is a verb form that is continuous, unbroken
What he was saying is that no one PERFECTLY seeks God… ALWAYS seeks God.
We have time when we seek God.. but that is the EXCEPTION, NOT THE RULE
The rule is we seek self, pleasure, worldly things, stuff
And since we grade on a curve… we think
MOSTLY good = good enough
So our CHARACTER is NOT GOOD
Our Mind is NOT GOOD
And AS TO THE HEART… ALL turned away
“All have turned away from God; they have all gone wrong;”
Now listen because I am going to give you the Pendleton translation…. Everyone’s “want to” is broken
We have turned away in our heart… our desires… we don’t even DESIRE God and the things of God
We desire other things
And naturally, if the mind and heart are not toward God… our actions will not be
What is on the inside will be seen on the outside
Case in point
Their words are full of deadly deceit;
wicked lies roll off their tongues,
and dangerous threats, like snake's poison, from their lips;
14 their speech is filled with bitter curses.
The first place this NOT GOOD-ness will be seek is in the TONGUE
The words are bad…deceitful, wicked, bitter
Then the NOT GOOD-ness is seen in their ACTIONS
They are quick to hurt and kill;
16 they leave ruin and destruction wherever they go.
Stealing, cheating, murder, rape, fighting, abuse, they all come from the heart and mind which are good… so the actions are not good
The tree is not good at its heart… so the fruit is not good
BUT THERE IS GOOD NEWS
vv. 21-31 We can be PUT RIGHT WITH GOD
You may say… but you just said our character is not good, our heart is not good, our mind is not good… what hope is there?
((v. 21- 22))
The great promise of God is YOU ARE NOT PUT RIGHT THROUGH GOODNESS
Goodness plays no part in your being put right with God… GRACE does.
That is why Paul can paint such a dark and hopeless picture of our heart and mind… that we are totally bereft of GOODNESS… and yet give us the promise of salvation.
((v.23))
If God had to start with our goodness… which is really not good at all
And use it to save us… when He could make us GOOD… we would not be saved
((v.24))
But He does not start with our goodness… He starts with HIS GRACE and JESUS’ GOODNESS
((v.25))
We do not come to God by our goodness… but by the cross on which Jesus died and paid for our sins.
We do not come to salvation by becoming good… but by confessing that we are not good, cannot be good, that we can be pretty good for a short time but just can’t keep it up and will shortly fall back to our not good ways.
We don’t come by professing our goodness but confessing our badness
AND TRUSTING GOD TO FORGIVE US BECAUSE OF JESUS
Changing our mind and heart… and then our actions… that takes a lifetime.
You will fight that battle for the rest of your life.
But being PUT RIGHT WITH GOD…forgiven, sanctified, justified
That can happen in a moment, in just a few words…
It can happen TODAY
ADMIT You are not good… mot perfectly good, not all the time
BELIEVE Jesus died on the cross and God accepts His sacrifice as YOUR payment
COMMIT to receive Jesus as your Savior and to turn from your sins
And you will be
SAVED = PUT RIGHT WITH GOD
