HOW PEOPLE GROW . . . RIGHT RELATIONSHIP
ROMANS 3
If you go into any bookshop today you will find a large section on personal growth. It is a big industry. You will find books on popular psychology. Books on how to be successful in every area of your life. Books on being assertive, self-controlled, a leader, a better husband, wife, mother, father etc. Even in Christian publishing the personal growth genre is big business. Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between the Christian books and the non-christian books. So this morning we are going to begin a series of sermons on How People Grow from a biblical standpoint. I think beginning at the beginning is always a good idea. The foundation to personal spiritual growth is a right understanding of God and a right relationship with and to God. We have already spent a number of weeks grounding our understanding of God in the Scriptures and now we turn to our relationship with God. We need not only to know about God we need to know God. I am going to assume this morning that each and everyone of you here want to have a right relationship with God. This morning at the end of this sermon I pray that you will understand what that means and if you do not have that relationship with God then you will know how to put that right.
Turn with me if you would for a moment back to the book of Genesis, chapter 2 and verse 7 – READ. Here we read of the creation of man, of Adam. Look closely at the verse. This is the most intimate act of all creation. We read here that God breathed life into the nostrils of Adam. Of no other creature in creation do you read that God did such a thing for and to. Think about what actually is involved in breathing life into someone’s nostrils. You cannot do that from a distance. You have to get up close and personal to breath into another persons nostrils. In fact you have to kiss them. Genesis literally says God kissed Adam and Adam being a living being. Now some commentators would say that that was the moment Adam received his soul – that may be true but I want to concentrate on the intimacy of it this morning. We read that Adam and Eve are created in the image of God and that in the cool of the evening God, our God, comes walking in the midst of the garden and that man walks with God. Again we get the picture of intimacy. You cannot walk with someone at a distance apart. Walking with someone is different from following someone. But something happened to that intimate relationship. Turn to chapter 3 and verses 8 following. Adam and Eve have disobeyed God and the result is that sin has entered creation and their intimate, and our intimate relationship, with God is broken. Instead of running to meet and walk with God they run and hide from God. We have been doing the same ever since. But I want to tell you this morning that you can once again come running to God and stop hiding from God. This morning you can have that intimate relationship with God your Father, your Creator restored. Turn with me to Romans chapter 3 and verses 19-26.
ROMANS 3.19-26
I am sure you have cause some time to go to the doctor. I want you to imagine that you have gone to the doctor and he does a thorough examination and he says ‘you are in poor health.’ He diagnosis a long list of ailments and says to you ‘thank you for calling, good morning and have a nice day.’ What would be your reaction? You would say ‘have you not forgotten something doctor?’ ‘Are you not going to do something for me?’ It would not take us long to change our doctor. When we go to the doctor we want not only the diagnosis but also the cure. That is why we go in the first place – at least I think that is why most people go to the doctor.
VERSES 19-20 THE PROBLEM DISCOVERED
No one goes to the doctor just for the sake of going, although I am not sure about that in some cases. We usually go because we have discovered there is something wrong with us. We do not feel well or something like that. In verses 19-20 Paul points out to us the means by which our problem has been discovered or revealed. Our problem – SIN. From 1.1-3.20 Paul has been consistently pointing out to the church at Rome that man is dead in his sin. Not only is man dead in his sin, he is powerless to do anything about it. It is a truly hopeless situation. It is like a flower – we cut it and it looks beautiful in the vase, but eventually cut from the source of its life it withers and dies. The problem for us all, Paul says, is that from the moment of birth we are withering and dying due to sin. We are like the flower – sin has cut us off from the source of life and as a result we are dead men walking. In Romans 6.23 Paul says ‘the wages of sin is death.’ Our sin leads not only to physical death but eternal death and we are unable to do anything about it ourselves.
Look at what Paul says in verses 19-20. The Law of God stops us from speaking in our defence and it holds us all to account before God. There are 613 laws in the OT. 613 that we are expected to keep perfectly. Let us reduce it to the 10 commandments – kept them perfectly? Okay let us reduce it to the two which Jesus gave in answer to the teacher’s question: Which is the most important? To love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and to love your neighbour as yourself. Kept them? So you see you are guilty under the Law this morning. So as he says in verse 20 all the Law does for us is to convince us of our sin before God this morning. You know in Revelation 20 when the nations gather before the Lord God at the final judgment they are silent. They may clamour now. They may scream and shout for justice and they may even curse God today but on that day their mouths are shut because they will know their guilt before him and so will you.
I don’t know if you have ‘home remedies’ for certain ailments. I have heard them all from heating brown lemonade, to bread poultices, to goose fat for stiff limbs, to even selling your warts to someone else. Many people try to cure themselves of all sorts of ailments. Paul says that man has even tried to cure himself of sin – by striving to keep the law – but all it did was expose the depth of his sin. Friends there are many of you here this morning and you have been trying for years to cure yourself of sin. How do I know that? Because I did it myself. For years I thought if only I tried harder and lived a better life then God would accept me. Then my guilt would go. God says to us through the Apostle Paul and this letter to the Romans – you are helpless in your sin. You are powerless in your sin. Your sin has the stink of death and the pallor of death. Some of you try to cure this broken relationship with religious observance, with church attendance, with bible reading and prayer – they are all important but they do not restore a broken relationship with God.
Friends listen to me this morning. The Law was given by God to Moses. It was given by God’s hand on Mt Sinai. Yet the Law was unable to restore the broken relationship with God. it only deepened the awareness of the brokenness of the relationship. Observance of the Law and the religious rituals pleased God but it did not restore the relationship. If it had, if it did, Jesus would not needed to have come. In fact listen to what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says – Hebrews 10.3-4 READ. Do you hear that? Impossible to take away sin. A reminder of sin. The Law only deepened the awareness of sin. This morning your sin is exposed before you and I pray you are aware of it.
THE DIAGNOSIS – VERSE 23.
In the movies they always say ‘Well, doctor, give it to me straight. Am I going to live?’ Friends here it is straight – for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Sometimes you seek a second opinion. I mean just in case the first man overlooked something. So let us here what John has to say on this matter – 1 John 1.8 – if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So there you are a second opinion – you’re a sinner. Doctor what does all this mean? Romans 6.23 ‘the wages of sin is death.’ Is there no hope for me then doctor? Romans 6.23 ‘but the gift of God is eternal life.’ Hallelujah. Friends can I say to you all this morning – if you do not think this is applicable to you this morning then you are either one of two things – incredibly stupid or incredibly arrogant. Listen again to the words of Paul here in verse 23 ‘all have sinned . . .’ did you catch that ‘all?’ No one escapes – all means all. This morning you and I, all of us stand before God condemned as sinners. Judgment has been passed and the sentence is eternal death in hell. Yet praise God there is a cure.
THE CURE – VERSES 21-22, 24-6
It is wonderful when after giving you the diagnosis the doctors says to you but this can be cured. Paul says in verse 21 ‘But now…’ Did you catch that? ‘But now…’ Something has been done to change the situation. From 1.1-3.19 the picture is black and bleak ‘but now’ light breaks into this darkness. Hope springs forth into this helpless and hopeless situation. The doctor says there is a cure – and what fool would not want the cure. Yet there are some of you here this morning and you know the disease, you know the diagnosis and you know the certain outcome but you still refuse the cure. Paul says God intervened. When we were dead in our sins God intervened.
Direction of Grace – it is from God to us. God takes the initiative – it his righteousness and not ours. The Law and the Prophets bear witness to our need of a Saviour. God’s righteousness saves us from our sin and his righteousness comes to us by faith in Christ Jesus.
Dilemma of Grace – Genesis 2.17 and Romans 6.23 tells us that judgment is passed – sin leads to death. The dilemma is: How can sin be overcome? How can death be defeated? In 3.24-25 we read that God made Christ sin for us that we might be redeemed through his death on the cross. Paul says God made Jesus our ‘propitiation’ – that means he made him our sacrifice. He took our punishment and he took God’s wrath at sin. This he did by the shedding of his blood on the cross.
Deliverance of Grace – in verse 25 Paul says God therefore justified us through the blood of Christ. We receive the righteousness of Christ by faith in his blood. Paul says that once you were dead in your sin. Once you were helpless and hopeless. But now – God has intervened. He has sent his only begotten Son to die in your place. He takes your sin. He takes your punishment. You – you need only to turn to him in repentance and faith and receive his righteousness through his blood. We are counted righteous – we are not made righteous but counted righteous because of Christ Jesus. Paul says it is because of the blood of Christ that we are redeemed. He here uses the imagery of a slave being ransomed and also of OT sacrifice. As I said before the author of the letter to Hebrews has told us that the blood of bulls and goats cannot cleanse man from sin. As Lady Macbeth says ‘Out, damned spot, out I say…all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.’ As the hymn writer said ‘All the blood of goats on Jewish altars slain, could not atone for one sin.’ Yet the good news is that the blood of Christ can and does atone for you sin, for my sin and the sin of this world and that for all eternity.
Decision of Grace – verse 26. At the beginning of this sermon I read that verse from Genesis 2.7 about God breathing life into the nostrils of man. Friends here in this verse Paul writes of God breathing ‘new life’ into the souls of men by sacrificing His Son. God became both the just and the one who justifies. As one writer puts it ‘self-satisfaction by self-substitution.’ I know I have told you this on many occasions but I am going to tell you it again – Anselm’s conundrum – Man needs to make the perfect sacrifice for sin but cannot, God can make the perfect sacrifice for sin but need not. Man needs to but cannot – God can but need not – the answer is someone who is both God and man = Jesus Christ (Cur Deus Homo?). Friends God substituted you with Christ. He satisfied his anger and wrath at sin by putting the punishment on Christ. He is just – the wages of sin – death were met. He justifies – you deserve death but Christ took your place – the penalty is paid – the guilty go free and the innocent dies. He is justified – the grave cannot hold Christ – he rises so that death is no longer the final victor.
CONCLUSION
This morning you are in the doctors surgery – the problem has been diagnosed – SIN. The consequences certain – DEATH. But we praise God the cure has also been revealed – CHRIST JESUS. When you go to the doctors surgery you can listen, you can agree, you can take your prescription and even go to the chemist and get the medicine. But unless you actually take the course of drugs you will not get better. Some of you know the problem, you know the answer to the problem but you need to actually take the step to receive Christ Jesus and to receive his forgiveness. Some here this morning are still on the self-help, self-cure, DIY path – friends it leads to eternal damnation. Some of you need to hear that this morning because for too long you have believed you are doing okay. Far too many of you I hear say I believe in my own way. I am alright the way I am. You are not – you are lost in your sin and if you died today you would be stepping in to a lost eternity. Some of you this morning need to get back on the path because you have strayed from it and you are wondering why you have stopped growing as a Christian.
This morning I want you to hear God speak – not me but God. Listen now in your soul to his voice. He says ‘from everlasting I have created you for an intimate relationship with me. It is broken by your sin. You are helpless and hopeless in your sin. But now I have sent my beloved Son, Jesus, to die in your place. To take your punishment. To atone for your sin. To pay the penalty. So that you might be free from the burden of your sin. So that you will not have to die eternally but know eternal life. Come to me this morning and allow me to put our relationship back on the right footing. I know your sin. I know it all. I know you are not worthy but I love you unworthy as you are. I loved you when I knit you together in your mother’s womb. I love you even though you are a sinner. I loved you so much I sent my Son to die in your place. Come and receive forgiveness. Wont you come this morning?
AMEN.
