Well, we turn in our Bibles tonight to Romans chapter 3, Romans chapter 3, and we transition tonight into the grace section. Again, we're not in the sanctification section. That's a very important thing to say up front. We have come out of the section on our guilt and sin, and now we move into grace. And I just say up front, grace means grace. That's what we're considering tonight. Romans chapter 3, in your bulletins it says verses 21 through 31. I'm going to read all the way to 31, though the text tonight will be through verse 26. The 21st to the 26th verse of Romans 3. Let's give our attention tonight to the Word of the Lord. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No. But by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since God is One who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. May the Lord bless the hearing of His Word. I recognize tonight the radical importance of this text as we approach it. In fact, as I was preparing the sermon for this particular part of Romans tonight, I felt the weight of it all over again. And I thought to myself, have I really grasped how awful our predicament is before God as a human race? Have I really, really grasped that? In fact, I wondered to myself in all of the concern today that we are to be pastoral and kind and nice. Have we really grasped our situation? There is this insurmountable problem that has been presented to us in the first chapters of Romans. And I was concerned that maybe I didn't quite do my job in making really clear just what was being said. In chapter 1, Paul said, But now the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And he went on, and you remember, he went on to say this is awful. God is angry and He is giving people over in their sins. And you see it in the wholesale abandonment of people right now who have totally seared consciences and can live in it with no conscience. And then he went on in chapter 2 and he summarized what we think are the moral people with moral lives. And the shocking thing about it was that we ended last time with the conclusion, as Paul began that conclusion, that the moral people aren't any better than the Romans 1 people. And so this is an awful, severe indictment of the human race before us with things like last time, remember? My throat is an open tomb, Rot comes out of there. Destruction and misery are our ways. The feet are quick to shed blood. No one's known the fear of God. And this is hard stuff. And I don't like to hear it just as much as the next guy. But you really can't begin to taste the goodness of God until you're burdened by that report. And you've accepted that report. And you see that report in you. And even then, you probably haven't been burdened by it as you should. In fact, this problem is so severe for the human race. The Apostle is really concerned tonight in this passage as we come to it about how careless people would be and how they would treat the justice of God in this whole thing. As if God just kind of overlooked this problem throughout history. That God throughout history just, you know, when He, hey, just like they said in Noah's day, things continue to go on as they always have from the beginning. You know, lighten up a little bit, Pastor. It can't be that bad. We're enjoying the sunshine. We're enjoying the rain. We're enjoying all of these wonderful things. The sun comes up. We have the sun every morning. It rises on the just and the unjust. And you see, Paul is explaining this. Paul is concerned that we would not look too quickly over the justice of God because he says something in verse 26 that really should have the opposite effect, shouldn't it? The insurmountable problem, at least from our standpoint, is how in the world did God pass over the sins that were previously committed? That is a remarkable statement that we don't stop and ponder a lot about. How could a just God do that? We should have been asking the question when we read something like that is, how in the world did you not destroy this wicked world this morning when the sun came up? Because if we understand you to be who you are, Lord, you're just and supremely holy and righteous. This is a huge problem for your justice. Huge problem. And Paul wants us to understand this. The Spirit wants us to understand this. Because the blood of bowls and coats did not bring about pardon of sin. It didn't. Hebrews tells us that. And the problem here in the last chapter was God said everyone's guilty. Everyone's guilty before God. And this was the thing that Job asked the question about. How can man be righteous before God? Or how can He be pure who was born of a woman? He's a maggot, says Job. How can this supremely holy God, how can He forgive sin? And how did it go so long in the history of the world? Why didn't He put an end right at the Garden of Eden when Adam sinned? And you see, Tonight, God answers this for us. He answers all those questions. This is the heart of it all. This is the heart of it. In fact, your life hinges. It hangs on these verses. I submit that what we have before us tonight is the central message, the core message of the Bible and God's good news to this fallen realm. This is it. It doesn't get any better than this. But I really want us to grasp tonight that this would be, that we would hold on to these verses and cling to these verses and look to these verses often because I would suggest that all of the struggles that Christians have today, even in the Christian life, the struggles with doctrine, the struggles of the church being a mess, the struggles with all the things that we see playing out before us can all be traced back to the fact when we see these hardships that this Gospel truth is no longer at the center. And when it's lost, we've lost everything else. When you have this, you're going to see and enjoy this power of God, Romans 1, that not only saves us, It delivers us and rescues us and preserves us. After this long section of indictment, Paul breaks into the heart of everything he's been building to. In verse 21, But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. They always talked about it. They were always telling us about it. I want to begin tonight by focusing on this little phrase apart from the law. Apart from the law. Without the law. At the end of chapter 2, he concluded with, no flesh will be justified by keeping the law. So whatever is being presented to us in verses 21 and following, we'll get there. He wants us out of the gates again to remember this has absolutely nothing to do with you or your works. Absolutely nothing. Nothing. nothing you offer to God, this is nothing in verses 21 and following. We'll get there in chapter 12. But here I want you to see why the view of sin is so important because he says it again right in verse 23 that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory, the glory of God. We could read that tonight and we could think, well, sin means to miss the mark and that's a right way of defining sin. But if we don't keep in mind everything that he said in these first chapters, we'll tend to think that missing the mark simply means being derailed from all that we could be. And that's not what he's saying. Any careful reader of the first chapters of Romans heard God's indictment is not just the problem of being derailed. Sin has brought the problem of total depravity extending to every part of who we are so that no one is the conclusion righteous before Him. I can't stress enough how important the implications are for what we view as our need. If things aren't that bad, the remedy's not that great. The cure is only as radical as the disease, as it goes. What do we think today in Christianity is the answer? I mean, think about it just for a minute. What do we think is the answer for us today in Christianity? How has it been pitched today? We all think, and I've been guilty of this, I've lived this, we all think that Christianity is just about cleaning up life, don't we? That's what we think it is. And learning to work for Jesus. To become a morally better person. That's how we define Christianity today. That's the essence of Christianity, people will say. It's to be a better person. This is what I grew up hearing. This is in many speeches in chapels. Even in the public high school, I remember hearing this from a man who was a Christian. And they would bring in what I call a shock jock, and he would talk about how bad his life was, and he would talk about how he was at one point doing drugs, and he was doing alcohol, and he was into the pornography. And then he would say, but, when I became a Christian, it all changed. That's right. I hope so. But the assumption made is that Christianity for him was Jesus helping him to become a better person. Martin Luther used to warn about this a whole bunch. He called it the glory story. that people think our problem in life is just that we've been derailed and so we've got to get on track again with our good works. And so Christianity and Jesus and the cross is God's great help to us. It's a supplement to us. Luther would talk about the addict. And Luther would say the addict comes under great conviction when he hears the law, right? And the law says, thou shall not be an addict. And Luther would talk about this and he would say, See, what happened in the addict was essentially when he heard the law and he had great conviction in his life that something was out of whack, things actually got worse for him. He was shown his addiction and so he thinks that the answer is that God by His law will help him clean up his life. And in that scheme, Luther said the law became a defense against anything outside of him. And so like the addict, what happens to an addict who's had a period of victory for a while? You grow in your confidence, don't you? You've beat it for a while. You've done well for a while. There's always the risk that when he falls, if that's how he's viewed Christianity, he's in for a disaster. When I was a kid, boys and girls, up on my wall in the room, I was a basketball player and I loved basketball, so I had all sorts of basketball posters up on my wall. But one of my favorite posters, I'll never forget the poster, was a bunch of guys reaching up for the rebound. And they were all reaching as high as they could for the ball. And right under the poster it said, do your best, God will do the rest. I loved that poster. That was my favorite poster growing up. God would help me get the rebound. I believe that's a fair statement. of what people think Christianity is today. And you see, that's why the messages have become just moral helps. And what has essentially happened is that we view justification before God as renewal by the Holy Spirit. And then everything that's been developed here tonight is lost. What do we call putting off sin? What do we call living the Christian life? sanctification that's what we call it chapter 12 you're going to get a whole bunch of that i promise we'll talk about a lot how to live but when our message is that if that's what we're announcing to people it's no wonder they never really receive and this is the point it's no wonder they never really received God's power to deliver them. The Gospel is describing something that takes place outside of us. And that's why Paul is here using the Jews as an example for us. In fact, if you were to flip forward to chapter 10, we're going to get there, but in chapter 10 he says something very remarkable about the Jews, that they have a passion for God. They have a passion for serving God. But he says it's not according to knowledge. And then he says something really interesting. For they being ignorant of the righteousness of God and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God's righteousness. That is a huge verse tonight. The Jews show us the example. The Jews present to us the example of trying to establish their morality before God. Get that? They provide for us the perfect picture of establishing morality before God. The perfect study in providing morality. And Paul says they didn't listen. They wouldn't listen to what God was saying all long. They wouldn't submit to what God was saying about them and about their need and about His righteousness. No one could bring forth a righteousness necessary to justify themselves before this God. What was the Lord announcing? Well, it's beautiful, isn't it's interesting to me that Paul right after that about the Jews says Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes you know that word end there is the same word that Jesus used on the cross for it's finished Christ is the finisher of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes I rehearse all of this tonight because when we come back to verse 21 of chapter 3 and the Apostle Paul says, but now the righteousness of God is revealed. It means this. This has absolutely nothing to do with your working. It's God's righteousness. And you'll notice from the first chapters, He's been showing us two kinds of righteousness. Since chapter 1, He's been developing for us human righteousness in all of its failure, hasn't He? And now for the first time in Romans, He gets to the glorious but now, which is speaking of the revealing of this. The but now, the Gospel comes out of this righteousness that is made known. Now you'll remember from chapter 1 when He said, I'm not ashamed of this Gospel. What did Paul say he wanted to do? I want to come to Rome and I want to preach to you. I want to preach to you. I want to make known to you something. And Paul there connected it with the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God is revealed in the preaching of the Word. That's what he said. And I want to preach this foolish means that He has given to make known His power and to reveal this righteousness. You say, what is that? Let me answer it this way tonight. In Revelation 5, a question was posed. All the heavenly beings are standing around the throne and John is there caught up in the Spirit and John sees this scroll that was sealed, didn't he? And a question comes out that was posed in front of the inhabitants of the heavens. And the question said, who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals? And the first thing that John says is, I wept. I wept a lot. Because there was no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth, talking about mere humans, who was able to loose the scroll and to open its seals. And then somebody made a declaration, didn't they? No, no, no. There's one. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seals. This Lion is worthy, it said. He said. And in Daniel 9, which was the connection to this, this one was worthy to put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness. He's the One. He's the One. No one could bring it, but here was one. What the Lord was announcing to us, but now this righteousness of God is revealed. What the Lord is announcing to us is it is a righteousness of absolute conformity to His law. That's His righteousness. That God has provided for us through the obedience and the death of His Son. And you see, this righteousness revealed in the incarnation of Jesus when He came here. And what was our Lord's great burden from the beginning? Remember in Matthew, Jesus was there and John gets the baptism wrong and thinks that Jesus should be doing it? And Jesus' great burden was when He said this must be so to fulfill all righteousness. And so we see the glorious Son of God come here and put Himself under this law and the whole way He's walking so carefully to keep that law and He doesn't depart to the right or to the left and He preserves that law. He honors that law being under that law. He perfectly fulfills that law and He goes to the cross and He becomes the curse and He removes that curse from us. Paul says, this is not something new, beloved. If you know how to read the Bible the way you should, this is something the Law and the Prophets were telling us all from the beginning. We used to read those stories as just nice moral stories. But those stories all throughout the Old Testament of Moses and the five books of the Law and the Prophets, they were telling us about this righteousness. They were telling us of what the Psalms would constantly say, you know, I will tell of your righteousness and yours only, Psalm 71. All of it was describing what was to come. Made known in the fullness of time in the person and the work of Jesus. And so after Paul describes this righteousness, he moves into telling us how this righteousness is brought to us. That's the great question. How do I get that righteousness? And so in verse 23, he says there's no difference. all have fallen short of that glory. No one's attained to this righteousness themselves. But here's what He's done. And here's the verse to always keep in mind. Here's the verse to always cherish as a Christian. To never lose sight of it because I promise, I promise in all of your attacks on the Christian faith, this will be the verse that you lose sight of the easiest. He has justified us freely by His grace. that is the most wonderful announcement in the whole Bible. He's justified us freely by His grace. There's your pearl. There's your gospel. It's everything we're about. No other religion has ever dreamed up such a truth. If you're ever struggling young people with all these other world religions, no religion has ever said that. A holy God justifies the wicked. And it's shocking. It's a shocking message. Notice how it's said. Justified. It's passive. What that means is it's communicating to you the great truth. This is God's work. And the word means to declare righteous. So the connection is back to verse 21. He made this righteousness known in the preaching of the Gospel. And through the announcement, He takes that righteousness and He reckons it to the count of those who believe. That's what He says. This is received only by faith. So what He's describing is that this righteousness described in verse 21 has nothing to do with us. Nothing at all to do with moral improvement. Nothing at all to do with our working. but it's the perfect righteousness that God has supplied for us in His Son. And the connection between verse 21 and 24 is this. It is brought to us in the heralding of the Gospel and whosoever by faith receives this good news, believing in the Son, God acknowledges them. God covers them. God imputes to them this perfect righteousness of Jesus. Now, I'm not, again, talking about imparting and making you good people. We'll talk about sanctification and the work of the Spirit. He's describing your standing. That whosoever believes, the Lord is saying, I have in My Son. I view you, I see you as standing before me not guilty. Now you've got language all over the Bible to teach us this. You've got all these robes. You've got the colorful robe of Joseph. And you've got the beautiful garments of Zechariah the high priest. And you have all of these things. The son, the prodigal son and the father throwing the robe on him to describe this and to make sure that you understand this. Notice how carefully He's saying it. This righteousness is brought to you. He's going to say that in Romans 10. You don't go pull it down. You don't get it yourself. He brings it to you. And when it's received by faith, it's over. You're covered. You're justified. You're declared not guilty. And there's no going back. Freely by grace. In fact, the word freely means without cost. So he's really loading the statement here. This is without cost. Grace means here that this righteousness provided for you was from the sheer goodness of God who didn't owe you absolutely anything. And He did it. Without cost, completely free, out of His sheer electing love and kindness according to the good pleasure of His own will. He provides a righteousness outside of us, planned and purposed from eternity past. The Lamb slain stood from the foundation of the world that today you might enjoy the declaration there's no condemnation for those who have believed and are trusting in Jesus. I suppose if you could taste a little bit of the wrath of God, we might all be on the ground right now praising God with our hands out, right? Praise the Lord, he would do such a thing. He didn't have to do this. And this emphasis on no cost and free grace, you know how important that is to him? If we say anything different than that, we've really offended him. Because in the next chapter, if you look over to chapter 4, he says something in verse 4. Now to him who works, The wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. That is so important tonight. When you go into work tomorrow, you're going to go into work, you're going to take maybe your time clock, your little card, you're going to stamp it. And it's going to have a time on there. And then when you leave, you're going to stamp it. And do you know what you just did? You obligated by the law your boss to pay you. you put your boss in obligation. When we approach God thinking that our Christianity is about God helping us to help ourselves, or Christianity is, as Rome says, just faith working through love, you know what you've just done? Not only have you offended Him, but you've denied the need for a righteousness totally outside of you. And we've not listened to Him. This is what Paul was saying about the Jews. They wouldn't submit. They wouldn't listen. They were so stubborn about this. And maybe the question that we need to really throw out really clearly is something that Paul says in Romans 11. Asking a question we should never forget. Who is first given to God that it should be repaid to Him? Answer? No one. We don't do that. If we don't submit to this righteousness, you know what we said to God? I don't need a handout. I don't need a handout. I mean, it's kind of in our nature, isn't it? That when someone wants to give us something that we don't just want to receive. I was over here on El Norte the other day and I saw a homeless man. He looked awful. And you know what my first thought was? Get to work! That's my first thought. You know, we have enough of society of people like you who are just draining the system. Can you imagine if God were like me? We're all homeless. And then I started thinking about the Gospel. And I said, you know, that's me walking right there. I stink. I don't smell right. And he got out of his car, if you will, properly speaking. And he walked up to the homeless man and he bandaged him up. And he loved him. And he cared for him. And he cleaned him. And he washed him. And he gave him a home. And he said, I don't want you to work for this. The announcement of the Christian Gospel is that shocking. No other religion says it. This one says, stop working. Working is an abomination to God. Get that? God hates your working. Your eyes have to be turned out to a different righteousness. You live on that one. You rest on that righteousness. you die in that righteousness you stand before the justice throne of God clothed in that righteousness and if you have anything else you face hell and God wants you to know tonight I gave that to you as a free gift of my grace and he says but to him who does not work stop working but believes on him who justifies the ungodly his faith is accounted as righteousness do you remember when you understood that? do you remember the first time you grasped it? Have you grasped it? I do remember the first time I grasped how bad God's assessment of my own life was because I surely didn't see it. And then I understood for the first time, Romans 3.21, you mean that the Lord did something completely outside of me and He takes a giant garment and He clothes me in it and He sees me in that righteousness of Jesus Christ so that I will never face God's judgment. And I said, that is the most amazing, wonderful news that God could have ever declared. And I finally got it. It was like this giant light bulb went on. And I say, let this message get a hold of our young people. I promise you, you'll see what you're after. I promise you. Am I so wrong to say that the greatest need today is to tell people the very thing that Jesus said to Martha. Martha was distracted with much serving. She was working. Got to get out there. What is Mary doing? She's just sitting here. Lord, don't You care that my sister has left me to do all the work? Tell her to help me. Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, You're worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed. And Mary has chosen that good part which will not be taken from her. What was Mary doing? She was doing what you're doing right now. She was sitting. Are you using your hands right now? She was sitting at His feet and listening to His Word. I feel at times that's the greatest application, if we want to talk application today, we need right now. Stop everything else. Stop all the fear. Stop the program. Stop it. And listen. This is my beloved son. Hear him. He's got something wonderful to tell you. You're so distracted. You're all distracted over many things tonight. And the Lord is telling you, I've answered you. Have you considered my righteousness? If you've heard this correctly tonight, maybe it bothers you a little. Maybe it bothers you a little. Because you might be saying, I'm advancing that it doesn't matter how you live. You know Paul in the next verse, in verse 31, anticipated that because he knew someone was going to say that. And Paul says, am I making void the law through faith? Am I throwing out how we live? Oh, far from it. We establish the law. What does he say in verse 31? On the contrary, we uphold it. That's what's going to happen. So maybe instead of always talking about transformation, Maybe we need to talk a whole lot more about God's action of justifying a sinner. And imagine what that discussion in us and our young people might start doing. God has a message for you. Hear Him. And He gives you the final basis. He gives you the ultimate basis. He says there that through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, God set forth His Son as a propitiation by His blood through faith. He's done that to demonstrate His righteousness. That's it. God set forth His Son as the burnt offering you studied about, boys and girls, in Exodus. God set forth His Son as the Lamb that you studied about in the Passover. God set forth His Son on the altar to satisfy His wrath for you. His only begotten Son. And He wants you to know tonight, I've dealt with your sin. I've dealt with it. My beloved Son whom I love, He came here and He stood in your place. And I want you to know tonight, says the Lord, He is your righteousness. He's it. So that all of your debt, all of your awful actions, all the things you continue to do fell upon Him and I collected my righteous justice from that substitute. And I want you to know you're bought back. You're mine. I'm not angry with you as a father. I love you, says the Lord. There's no working for this though. Throw yourself upon my son. Stretch out your hand tonight. receive Him by faith. Stop working. Bow your head with a believing heart and over you I will throw a robe of many colors. A robe that I will always look upon. And I want you to know that's my greatest free gift to you. So do we hear Him tonight? Everything that we're looking for, all of our anxieties about life, our children, heaven, hell, Wondering about how we'll be able to stand was just answered for you tonight. Look to My Son. Look to Him. Take your eyes and look to Him by faith. Seek first that righteousness as we sung about. All that other stuff you're worried about, I'll add it unto you. Amen. O Lord our God, we bow the head in thanksgiving tonight. Your goodness is overwhelming. That news is so radical and so joyful. We receive it by faith. Asking that You would give us all the believing hearts to trust You as our Heavenly Father. That You gave of Your only begotten Son. Declaring that whosoever believes upon Him confessing his sins, recognizing and repenting by your grace as a free gift. That one goes down to his house tonight. Justify. Never to know your wrath. We praise you from the depths of our hearts for such glorious good news. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.