Turning Point #2
Romans 3:25-31
Proud young man walked into a room looking for his friend. He passed two blond young women near the door who looked him over then looked at each other and said and the same time ‘NINE’. The prideful young man puffed out his chest and drew a big smile on his face then walked over to his waiting friend. “You won’t believe what happened, when I walked in these two attractive blond women looked me over and rated me a NINE’. His friend replied, ‘I hate to burst your bubble but those two women only speak GERMAN’.
NINE MEANS NO IN GERMAN.
We might carry a high estimation of ourselves and be depending on the wrong information to reinforce that wrong idea. We need to really understand what God is saying. Paul makes it very clear and plain.
• This morning we considered THREE STATEMENTS ABOUT JUSTIFICATION
JUSTIFICATION APART FROM THE LAW JUSTIFICATION THRU FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST
JUSTIFICATION WITHOUT A CAUSE
1) The Law is part of our recognizing our lack of righteousness but cannot participate in making us righteous
2) We are justified by an Act of Faith and not any work
3) God choice to justify us is not because of anything in us.
Thermometer may tell us how hot or cold it is but it cannot produce heat. A tape measure may measure a dress but it cannot sew to fix it. The law tells right and wrong but it cannot make us right.
• There are no degrees of Justification.
1) Justification places us on the same ground before God.
2) Justification is something that God does and not man.
3) Justification does not mean that God MAKES us righteous but that He
DECLARES us righteous. It is a LEGAL MATTER. The Righteousness
of Jesus is placed on our account.
Two men in a lifeboat: One cannot swim but he other won the last Olympics in swimming events. Problem. They are thousands of miles from any shore. Although one may put the other to shame yet neither has a chance without the boat.
JEW might have many religious advantages: religious home & upbringing but cannot get to heaven without the lifeboat of Jesus.
• Tonight we will consider an additional three statements:
(4) JUSTIFICATION COMES THRU GOD’S SON: which is in Christ Jesus (25) Whom God displayed publically as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; (26) for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
• Think of the shame of standing on an auction block and being bid for. Jesus hung on the cross for you and me and took our shame. Displayed publically.
• JESUS became a PROPITIATION:
HOLY OF HOLIES: It is the inner room in the Temple that sits behind a 9-10 thick veil that shields it off. Only one person goes in and that is only one time a year. ROPE/BELLS.
Day of Atonement: two goats brought, one slain with blood drained, other have sins confessed over and sent out into the wilderness with confessed sins upon it(scape goat). East is from West.
ONE SLAIN: blood is taken by High Priest into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement and SPRINKLED on the MERCY SEAT.
Priest represents sinful man, MERCY SEAT is on top of ARK OF COVENANT: Aaron’s rod, jar of Manna, Tablets of Law which represent God’s holiness and standard.
MERCY SEAT DIVIDED THE TWO: Sacrificial blood satisfies God’s holiness. PROPITIATION is the same word as MERCY SEAT(Heb 9:25). Same word.
Not done in private but now in PUBLIC. He was slain for us and our sins were removed from us. ONE MEDIATOR between God and man.
a) In HIS BLOOD: That is why His Shed blood is so important. It is His shed blood that satisfies God Holiness. Jesus’ life was given but His blood met the requirements of the Law.
(1) Heb 9 ‘without the shedding of blood it is impossible to forgive sin’
(2) Heb 10 ‘it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin’
(3) It states that Jesus Christ took HIS OWN BLOOD as our GREAT HIGH PRIEST and provided a satisfactory offering.
b) Demonstrated God’s Righteousness: That this was the only solution shows the seriousness of sin and how God’s holiness cannot be polluted.
c) In the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed. The Jews sin was not forgiven completely when he went to the temple and offered a bull or a goat. God PASSED OVER. Their offering was meant to be an ACT OF FAITH that looked forward to when God’s perfect sinless sacrifice would be provided.
(1) Daniel, David, Moses, none were saved by their sacrificial offering but they were saved as we are saved by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
(2) When we observe the Lord’s Supper it is in remembrance of Jesus’ death and sacrifice: We look backwards at a FACT while they looked forward through FAITH because of God’s promises. We remember the shed blood and they looked forward thru it’s reminder.
d) That He would be the JUST and the JUSTIFIER. God did both. This is what is so amazing about the Gospel.
(1) God remains JUST: His holiness was not sacrificed in our being forgiven of our sin.
WHEN A GUILTY MAN IS SET FREE THE JUDGE IS CONDEMNED.
(2) God also provides for our JUSTIFICATION: His own Son came and met the requirements.
• Faith is only as effective as the value of it’s object. Paul said that the object of our faith is meant to be Jesus. There is no other Name under heaven by which we must be saved. There is one Mediator between God and man. No man comes to the Father but by Me.
(5) JUSTIFIED TO GOD’S GLORY: (27) Where then is boasting?
1) When you understand this then where is the room for bragging?
If I am drowning in the midst of a lake. Someone comes out to save me and drags me into shore. Would I start to brag about myself? I ought to get a pat on my back because I allowed Him to bring me to shore, I rested in His strength, allowed His work to happen on my behalf.
I AM GOING TO BRAG ABOUT THE LIFEGUARD FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Buy him gifts, send him cards, let him know at every opportunity how grateful I am
To brag about how God should love you because you are so special is to steal the credit that should go only to one person: Jesus Christ, left holy heaven for sinful earth, was beaten and killed for us.
LIFESAVING CLASS: Taught to dunk the person if they began to exert their strength while we were trying to bring them to shore. God’s gentle reminders of our failures that we are not such hot stuff.
WILLIAM COWPER: Years ago lost his mother at age 6. Put into a boarding school. Beaten and bullied by bigger kids. Felt in terror all day long. By the age of 25 had twice tried to take his life. At 25 was committed to an asylum and put under the care of a man named DR. COTTON.
Dr. Cotton led William Cowper to faith in Christ. He began to go to the Bible for comfort when he would have his fits of terror.
One day he turned to Romans 3:24-25. It transformed his life when he understood what the blood of Jesus Christ really meant. A brand new person.
Wrote later:
There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins,
and sinners plunge beneath that flood lose all their guilty stain.
The dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day, and there have I though vile as he washed all my sins away.
Ere since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die.
Where then is boasting? IT IS EXCLUDED. By what kind of Law? Of works? NO, but by the law of FAITH.
(6) JUSTIFICATION CLARIFIED: (Summarizing statements) (28) For we maintain that a MAN IS JUSTIFIED by faith apart from the works of the Law.
e) ALL MEN: (29) Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes of the Gentiles also.
f) BY FAITH: (30) since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.
g) DOES NOT DO AWAY WITH THE LAW: (31) Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law. It’s real purpose is realized.
CONCLUSION: When the Law takes it’s proper position in our lives and we respond to what it reveals to us with an attitude of faith then we can find our hope of righteouness through God’s chosen way: Jesus Christ.
POOR PUBLICAN(LK 18:13-God be merciful to me a sinner. Story Shock the average Jew. God is there were only a mercy seat for me. When a Jew became a publican he cut himself off from the temple and from the mercy seat. What hope would he have without the Temple.
There was a hope beyond ritual and the Law. His Name is Jesus. It is all about HIM.
DAVID BRAINARD - I do not go to heaven to be advanced, I go to heaven to give honor to God, it is no matter where I may be stationed in heaven, as to where I have a high or a low seat there, but to live and please and glorify God, my heaven is to please God and to glorify Him.
