A. One day two men were sitting next to each other on an airplane, and one of them remarked, “Somebody around here’s deodorant isn’t working!”
1. The other man said, “Well, it’s not me, I’m not wearing any deodorant!”
B. One of the realities in life is that some folks are oblivious to their own state of being.
1. That is true in the physical sense, but it is also true in the moral sense.
2. When the Bible talks about sin, many people say, “Well, that’s not me.”
3. And their cluelessness of their moral state is just as unpleasant as their cluelessness of their physical state.
4. In today’s passage from Romans chapter 3, Paul could not be any clearer, he says, “When it comes to sin, we all stink!”
C. Today’s passage is the grand and grim conclusion of the first three chapters of Romans.
1. In chapter 1, Paul focused on the pagan unrighteousness of the Gentile world.
2. Then in the first half of chapter 2, Paul focused on the hypocrisy of hypercritical moralists.
3. Finally, in the last half of chapter 2, Paul aimed at the smug self-righteousness of the Jews.
4. Now he reaches his final verdict: No one is righteous.
5. The whole world is guilty of sin – the Gentiles are guilty, the moralists are guilty and the Jews are guilty – everyone is guilty and is subject to God’s wrath.
D. Now, before you become overcome by despair, keep in mind that the good news is coming.
1. Paul has been focusing on the bad news in order for us to be able to fully appreciate the good news.
2. As dark and disturbing as the bad news is, the mood of Romans does change when Paul points to the good news that is found in Jesus.
3. In the section we will explore next week, Paul lays out the wonder of the gospel.
4. When we get to chapter 5, we will thrill at these amazing truths: For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom. 5:6-8)
5. And then when we get to chapter 8, we will be blessed by truths like:
a. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (8:1)
b. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ…(8:16-17)
c. And: What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Rom. 8:31-32)
E. So, later on we’re going to encounter some of the most uplifting, inspirational, and encouraging passages in all the Bible, but not yet.
1. Before Paul can lift us up and send us soaring to the heights of faith, he must first make us clearly see and understand our lost state.
2. We will never understand, appreciate and seek the good news of salvation until we have first understood and accepted the sinfulness and lost-ness of our sinful state.
F. This is a lesson that our society desperately needs to relearn.
1. About 10 years ago, the USA TODAY newspaper ran a feature article entitled: “Has the Notion of ‘Sin’ Been Lost?”
2. The article quoted a wide variety of pollsters, preachers and pundits, and they all basically agreed that the concept of sin has all but disappeared in our society and even in our churches.
3. For instance, the article pointed out that Joel Osteen, the popular television preacher, never mentions sin in his TV sermons or bestselling books.
4. Osteen is just the latest in a long line of preachers going all the way back to Norman Vincent Peale who have gained popularity and wealth by pandering to our deep-seated desire to feel good about ourselves.
5. Americans have always been a basically optimistic people who believe in self-help, not spiritual helplessness.
6. Back in the 1950’s, Norman Vincent Peale built an empire around “The Power of Positive Thinking” and Joel Osteen is simply following in his footsteps a half century later.
7. Americans are a “can do” people who want to hear that we can make ourselves healthy, wealthy and spiritually successful if we just believe in ourselves and work hard.
G. But that is the antithesis of the gospel.
1. God certainly wants us to be spiritually successful, but the path to salvation leads through self-denial, not shallow self-esteem; and it leads through repentance, not positive thinking.
2. And so, the apostle Paul reminds us here in Romans that we cannot “feel good” about ourselves until we first “feel bad” about ourselves – until we have recognized the sinfulness of our sin, and our helplessness to do anything about it by ourselves.
H. Let’s turn our attention to Paul’s final verdict about the guilt of all people found in Romans 3:9-20.
1. Paul begins in verse 9: What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin…
2. The question and answer format of verse 9 resembles the style of verses 1-8 that we looked at in our last sermon.
3. As I have emphasized numerous times, Paul was clearly communicating the universality of sin.
a. Jews are guilty, Gentiles are guilty, moral people are guilty, and religious people are guilty.
b. Men are guilty and women are guilty; the rich and the poor are guilty; even all of us in the Wetzel Road Church of Christ are guilty.
c. No matter how you describe the human race…all are guilty before God.
4. The key phrase is “are under sin.”
a. People do not just commit sin, but they are “under sin.”
b. This is a military term that means to be under the authority of someone else.
c. It was used of soldiers who were under the authority of a commanding officer.
d. It means to be under the control of someone else or something else.
e. In this case, it means that the human race is under the domination of sin.
f. Any person who is outside of Christ is under the control of sin and is helpless to escape from it.
5. Sin is our number one problem – it is not a symptom, but is the disease itself.
a. It is a problem that doesn’t need a bandaid, but one that needs a cure.
I. After making the charge that everyone is under sin, Paul then lays out the proof of that fact.
1. In the next few verses, Paul lays out an appalling picture of the human race.
2. Paul does so by stringing together a number of Old Testament passages, from Psalms and Isaiah, that substantiate the universality of sin.
3. At first glance the arrangement of the quotations appears to be haphazard, but a closer look uncovers a certain structure.
4. The phrase “there is no” links the quotations in verses 10-12 and establishes the general point of the universality of sin.
5. In verses 13-14, Paul focuses on sins of speech and the different organs involved in speech.
6. Verses 15-17 focus on sins of violence against others.
7. Finally, verse 18 returns to where Paul began, using the phrase “there is no” to point to the basic human disregard for God.
J. Let’s read verse 10 – 12: as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
1. God looks down from heaven and doesn’t see a single righteous person – not even one!
2. You might ask: “But how can this be?” We look around us and see some pretty good folks.
3. But what we must keep in mind is that God judges by a different standard than we do.
4. Most of us grade on a curve – we look at our neighbor and say, “Well, I’m not as bad as he is,” or “She’s better than me.”
5. When we compare ourselves with others, we can always find someone who looks better or someone who looks worse than us.
6. But God doesn’t judge that way – when God looks down from heaven, the standard God uses is His own sinless perfection.
7. God compares us to His own perfect holiness, perfect love, perfect wisdom and justice.
8. When we are compared with God’s own perfection, you can see why there is no one, not even one person, who comes close to being righteous in God’s eyes.
9. That’s the difference between relative goodness and absolute goodness.
K. After declaring the general unrighteousness of everyone, Paul then shows how sin has infected the various parts of the human body, starting with the organs of speech.
1. Paul wrote: “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” (Rom. 3:13-14)
2. Paul used four different words for the various organs of speech – our throats, tongues, lips and mouths.
3. Our sinfulness comes out of our organs of speech leading us to use corrupt words, deceitful words, poisonous words, and blasphemous and bitter words.
4. James warns us in his little letter about how out of control our tongues can be, and Jesus taught how our tongues reveal what is really in our hearts.
5. As you know, we live in a time when the organs of speech are used in such terrible ways – people’s everyday language has become so profane, and many people show no restraint in what they say to others or about others, especially in social media and even among people in the highest places.
6. Our lips often reveal just how unrighteous everyone is.
L. After talking about sin in our speech, Paul moved on to describing sin in our feet: “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” (Rom. 3:15-17)
1. How accurately do these verses describe the world in which we live?
2. Just think about how swift people’s feet are to shed blood:
a. Our streets are filled with violence and the shooting and stabbing victims get younger and younger.
b. Our world is filled with terrorism: so many bombings and shootings, such ruin and misery!
c. And what about the millions of innocent babies who are killed through abortion every year.
d. And add to this the thousands and millions killed by persecution and genocide.
e. The world is a bloody place and the way of peace they have not known.
M. Paul’s final indictment in his litany of body parts has to do with the eyes: “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Rom. 3:18)
1. The Living Bible puts it this way: “They care nothing about God or what he thinks about them.” – that is certainly a description of the sinful state of our culture.
2. When people reject God, they ultimately lose their moorings, their compass, all restraint.
3. When you live as though there is no God, then anything goes and unrighteousness reigns.
N. In the last 2 verses of this section (verses 19-20), Paul gives his conclusion; his final verdict.
1. The charge has been made, the evidence has been presented, and now it is time for the verdict.
2. Paul wrote: Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Rom. 3:19-20)
3. The conclusion that Paul draws is interesting – he says every mouth is silenced and the whole world is held accountable to God.
a. The imagery is judicial – Paul wants us to picture the defendant closing his or her mouth with nothing to say in defense after the prosecuting attorney has finished proving the charges.
b. The defendant recognizes that he or she is at the mercy of the judge (God Himself) who is about the pronounce the sentence.
4. The word “for” that begins verse 20, could be translated “because” or “therefore,” and suggests that verse 20 is a conclusion that should be drawn from verse 19.
a. Paul’s conclusion for both Jew and Gentile, but especially for the Jew is that “no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law.”
b. Then having told us what the law cannot do (bring someone into a saving relationship with God), Paul concludes by telling us what the law can do – through the law we become conscious of sin.
c. By setting before people a detailed record of God’s will, the law makes people vividly aware of how short of God’s requirements all of us fall.
d. J.B. Phillips says, “It is the straightedge of the law that shows us how crooked we are.”
e. The law of God is like a mirror that shows us how dirty we really are.
1. The purpose of the mirror is not to wash our face – you don’t take the mirror off the wall and rub it on your face.
2. Rather, the purpose of the mirror is to direct us to the soap and water.
3. The law is like that – it doesn’t save us, but it is meant to drive us to the only place where we can be saved – the cross of Jesus.
O. As we move toward the conclusion of this sermon, I want us to think about the words of the 18th century theologian named Charles Hodge: To be prepared for the reception of the gospel, we must be convinced of sin, humbled under a sense of it turpitude, silenced under a conviction of its condemning power, and prostrated at the foot-stool of mercy, under a feeling that we cannot satisfy the demands of the law, that if ever saved, it must be by other merit and other power than our own (Romans, p. 87).
1. There are three truths that I want us to focus on and be sure we understand and embrace.
2. The first truth is: All of us are sinners – there is no one righteous – no not one.
a. All of us must be willing to look into the mirror and acknowledge the truth about our condition – we are not just sinners, but we are under sin – it has control of us.
b. Many of us want to argue with the mirror - we don’t like the truth about ourselves.
c. We want to minimize our condition – it’s not so bad, or I’m not as bad as others.
d. The truth is that we are sinners and therefore are subject to God’s wrath.
e. Im comparison to God and His perfect holiness, our righteousness is but filthy rags.
3. The second truth is: None of us can be good enough to save ourselves.
a. The power of sin makes it impossible for any person to do enough good works to win God’s final approval.
b. We must understand that human effort will never put a person in a right relationship with God.
c. No person can be justified before God by what he or she does.
d. All of us are unrighteous, lost sinners who are helpless to do anything about it in and of ourselves.
4. The third truth is: No matter how unrighteous and sinful our lives, there is hope for us.
a. Our only hope is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
b. Our only hope is to receive the righteousness that belongs to Jesus and can be imputed to us.
c. The only truly hopeless case is the person who will not admit the truth about themselves and will not put their faith in Christ and the salvation that comes through Him.
P. Next week, Lord willing, we will examine Paul’s explanation of the gospel of Jesus and how the righteousness of Christ is transferred to us and saves us.
1. But for today, I want to emphasize our unrighteous and helpless state.
2. I want us to understand that sin is a pit into which we have fallen, that it is too deep for us to escape from.
3. Sin is a quicksand into which we have foolishly wandered and from which we cannot extract ourselves.
4. Sin is the death we have entered and from which we cannot restore ourselves to life.
5. In Romans 6:23, Paul wrote: For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
6. Oh, how we need a Savior and the free gift of God that comes through Him!
Q. Daniel Boone explored the great wilderness of Tennessee and Kentucky.
1. It was Boone who marked the wilderness road that brought settlers into the new land.
2. Boone often wandered over vast areas of forest, living off the land and dodging arrows.
3. Boone was once asked if he had ever been lost, and he replied, “No.”
4. Boone then said that he had never been lost, but that he was “a mite confused once for about three or four days.”
5. Perhaps it matters little that Boone’s pride would not allow him to admit that he’d ever been lost.
6. But it matters much if our pride keeps us from admitting that without Christ we are lost.
7. I hope that all of us will swallow our pride and admit the truth about our sinful lost state.
8. I pray that we will stand in humble silence before God, recognizing our sinfulness and our need for Jesus our Savior.
Resources:
Romans: Be Right, The Bible Exposition Commentary, by Warren Wiersbe
Romans, The NIV Application Commentary, by Douglas Moo
Romans, Interpretation – A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Paul Achtemeier
“The Man in the Mirror,” Sermon by Ray Pritchard.
Cathy Lynn Grossman, “Has the Notion of ‘Sin’ Been Lost?”, USA TODAY 3/25/2008.
“Why God Hates Sin,” Sermon by Dan Williams
