Many of you are familiar with Romans 3:23 which states “for all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God!” Today it seems many either have rejected this truth or have forgotten or misunderstood it. Today there are so many proposed solutions to our personal problems and the problems of society. Since God is the Only One good and glorious, any solution without consulting God through His Word will be wrong!
Sin started with a simple touching of a tree, which we will talk more about next week. But as more and more dependence on human wisdom and emotions rather than God, sin had been multiplying throughout the ages, including not only one murder at a time, but complete annihilation of certain people, including the unborn! Human beings today are inventing new ways to sin! It is so hard to know now a days what is truth; technology has brought us so many fake news and people believe them!
Earth, we have a problem! Sin, not listening and going against God, is our problem!
And so, for the next number of weeks, we will learn not only Romans 3:23 but look at examples of sin in Scriptures and what resulted. Today, let us start with the Letter to the Romans; open your Bibles there…
The Letter to the Romans was spoken by God through the Apostle Paul and written to a Christian Church in Rome, Italy about 2000 years ago. Rome was a metropolis and so the church in Rome had many ethnicities; the church in Rome 2000 years ago had Roman Christians, Jewish Christians, Greek Christians, scholars and uneducated, rich and poor, masters and slaves; slaves likely from Africa!
Here’s a fact we need to note: The Letter to the Romans was written by God to all ethnicities and societal standings! The Letter to the Romans was written by God to ALL PEOPLE! Think of it this way, the Lord Jesus Christ can come to Downtown Milwaukee or any large city today and God will proclaim what He states iin this Letter to the Romans! Let us listen and echo God’s Word to a world looking for solutions!
Romans 1 starts by reminding Christians (Believers and Followers of Jesus Christ) the love of God (a sacrifice of Himself once and for all for ALL PEOPLE’s sins)!
Read along with me Romans 1:17-19…..
God will judge sin (the godlessness, wickedness, and suppression of truth)! But God gave Jesus Christ to bring righteousness to sinners! God’s love? – There is salvation from the wrath of sin by faith by trusting and believing in Jesus Christ!
I trust that you have faith in Jesus Christ; if not, today is the day of salvation for you by trusting and believing in Jesus Christ who is God but became human flesh to die for your sins, rose from the dead, ascended back to heaven but soon will return to earth to judge all people. At any moment, one can die or Jesus Christ can show up, and if a person does not have faith in Jesus Christ, God’s wrath will be upon them along with ungodly satan and all the demons! Believe and trust in Jesus Christ right now if you have never done so and today will be your day of salvation!
Now turn to Romans 2; in this chapter God basically states that no matter what ethnicity, religion, scholarly knowledge, rich or poor, ALL are equal at the foot of the Cross of Christ; therefore, no Christian should think better of themselves compared to others!
Now, read along with me Romans 3:9-12…..
God states that ALL PEOPLE are unrighteous, do not understand God, and do not even seek God! ONLY GOD is Holy and Righteous and Good! How do we know only God is Righteous? – God has revealed Himself through Creation (just look up and look at the universe)! God has revealed Himself through His own words (try to prove the Bible wrong)! God has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit (God’s perfect love and righteousness is revealed in Jesus Christ)! ALL PEOPLE are unrighteous! ONLY GOD is Holy and Righteous and Good!
And so, read along with me now Romans 3:20-26…
God revealed His righteousness through the people of Israel. God revealed what is perfect and good through laws he gave to the Israelites and for the rest of mankind; but God already knew no one can perfectly meet His Laws and His righteousness! And so, because God is love, He provided righteousness for all people not through the Law but through belief in Jesus Christ!
All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God; in other words, there is no person who can ever meet the righteousness of God! ALL PEOPLE are unrighteous before God but God can make everyone righteous by depending on Jesus Christ who took all unrighteousness to the cross and buried all unrighteousness in the grave! All people have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, BUT all people who trust and depend on Jesus Christ are made righteous by God and will live in glory with God forever!
To summarize this passage for today, there are really only 2 types of people living in this world: those who are judged by God because they are sinners and those are claimed righteous by God because of their trust and belief in Jesus Christ, although they have sinned!
Next week we will look at the first sin of humans and what resulted, but we will again emphasize the truths from Romans 3.
And so, how should we apply Romans 3:23 to our lives today?
1. Sin in us and all around us should not surprise us! Sin is part of life; the question is how we need to handle it? Perhaps this analogy may help; Truth is our bodies definitely need food, the question is how are we going to handle it? How often should we eat? What type of food should we eat? We have to choose to handle the necessity for food! In the same way, we must think about this daily: Sin is a part of life (both personal and society), how am I going to handle it? What am I going to choose to deal with the reality of sin?
2. Because sin is against God and sin is in us and all around us, many problems in our lives will happen. Sin is the core of all our problems and frustrations! We need to handle sin!
3. We read in 1 Corinthians 15:56-57 “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Sin is part of life BUT thanks be to God, He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ is the only solution to sin! Total dependence on Jesus Christ is the Only solution to our problems and our society!
ALL people are sinners which causes problems and frustrations in the world; the ONLY solution to people and our world is Jesus Christ! Let us focus, pray, and proclaim this ONLY solution to the world, who is Jesus Christ!
