God's Justice

How can a man be made right before God? How can a man be made right before God? This is a question Job asked. This is a question that most people ask. In some form or another, we ask this question, how can we have a right relationship with God? Philosophers, theologians, great minds, leaders have proposed many answers. We can find many different answers to this question. For instance, if we ask an imam what Islam teaches, they would say you need to follow the five pillars. You need to recite a creed, pray five times a day, give alms, fast during Ramadan, and make a pilgrimage to Mecca if you can afford it. The issue there is you can do these things, but you really can't have any confidence that you're actually right before God. Islam offers no confidence. It's just these are the best things you could do with the hope that maybe these things will outweigh your sin. You can ask a Buddhist how to be right before God and, well, if by righteousness you mean suffering, then, well, if you just stop having desires, then you'll enter a state of nirvana, then everything will be right. They lack the personal God to actually answer the question. Catholicism, well, they say your faith needs to be combined with enough obedience so that you might be rewarded. And the key there is the word reward, that maybe your faith and your obedience might be rewarded with righteousness. I fear if you ask a typical Christian, Like I went around UVA asking people, are you a Christian? What does that mean? Well, you know, you believe in Jesus and you do what he said. What did he say? Love your neighbor. Do unto others as you would do unto yourself. That's how you are right before God. Just do what Jesus said. Sadly, I fear this is how many professing Christians would answer the question. As long as my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds, then I'll be right before God. This sadly misses how bad we are and how bad our deeds are. Paul is going to answer this question for us today. This most important pressing question, how can a man be made right before God? Paul will tell us. We're righteous before God because Christ died for our sins. Notice there, it has nothing to do with what we do. We're right before God when we place our faith in what Christ has done. Turn with me to Romans 3. We're on page 941, if you're using a Pew Bible. If you do not have a Bible, please take that with you. It contains the words of life. It contains the answer to this most pressing question. We're picking up in Romans at chapter three, verse 21, where we're hitting a major transition in the book. We're answering the question. The whole book is about the question, is God righteous? How can we be right with God? Romans 3.21 answers this question specifically, and we need to realize where we're at. So let's just flip over to chapter one. Paul's already introduced these concepts. Look at verses 16 through 17. I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. From chapter one, verse 18 to 320, he's going to explain how we're all unrighteous, how we all deserve the wrath of God. Those were heavy chapters if you've been with us. They were very difficult. As Paul walks through, it's the pagan who creates his own image to worship. It's the religious hypocrite who looks at others and says, oh, look how sinful they are. How much better I must be and how much God must be pleased with me because I at least think I'm better than they are. Great declaration that's so clear. There is no one who is righteous. No, not one. Looking at Romans three, beginning in nine through 18. Over and over again, he's made this clear. Look at chapter one, verse 20. Look at the end. So they are without excuse. So they are without excuse. Look at chapter 2, verse 1. Therefore, you have no excuse. He's just transitioned to all those sinners out there. They have no excuse. You who think you're righteous because you have the law, you also are without excuse. And then chapter 1, verse 19. 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 accountable to God. Paul said some very hard things between chapter 118 and 320 so that we could see the true depth of the glory of God's salvation. You see, the things of what Christ has done for us, they're meaningless unless we actually believe chapter 118 through 320. Unless we actually see we need salvation, we need help. We're not going to ask for the help. The description of who we are without grace is frightening. This is just a few high points of those chapters between 117 and 321. We suppress his truth. We do not honor him. We do not give thanks to him. We pursue the lust of our hearts. We do pursue the dishonorable passions. We exchange his glory and his truth for a lie. This leaves us with that pressing question. If that's who we are, how can we be right before God? How could we, who are so unrighteous, ever be right before God? Well, that's why the first word in our text is important, friends. Look, chapter three, verse 21, but. God just interceded and interfered with what we deserve. He changes direction because what should happen after everyone will be held accountable, we're all judged, we're all condemned, the wrath of God destroys us all, we have an eternity to cry out, Lord, you are righteous and I'm unrighteous. But God changes direction. He interferes with our rebellion. Instead of justice, we receive mercy. Instead of wrath, we receive forgiveness. Instead of the verdict guilty, we receive the verdict innocent. Instead of death, we receive life. Today, we're going to be looking at really 21 through 26, it's actually one sentence. It's not the best grammatical sentence ever in Greek. It's one grand declaration that tells us, how can I be right before God? As we look at it, I want you to see a number of things. There are some words repeated. Whenever words are repeated, we need to take notice of them. God is referenced at least 13 times. See, the proper word God, or the pronoun he, referring clearly to God. Something that isn't obvious from our text, the word righteousness and justification or just and justice, that's the same word. To be right is to be just, it's the same concept. We just use different English words depending on the context. That word Paul uses seven times. This text is about the righteousness of God and how we can be right before him. Another repeated word. Faith or belief, same Greek word. Nine times. Nine times. Jesus is used three times. It's not necessarily how often Jesus is used, it's where he is used. It's right in the center. And you'll notice, by faith in Jesus Christ. By faith in Jesus Christ. And then we have some pretty heavy words. Justification, redemption, propitiation. This is a heavy sermon. We're not talking about something light. We're talking about the heavy glory of God. We're talking about the heavy salvation. We're talking about the weight of our sin and what it should do to us, but what God does to it so that we no longer have to suffer under it. Let us hear our text, hear these words repeated, and we'll pray. For context, let me go back to verse 19. 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. 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's 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 the righteousness of God because in His divine forbearance, He 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 a law of faith. Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we not overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you do not leave us wondering about how we might be made right with you. You do not leave us in doubt. You leave us with a word that should bring confidence. You leave us with a great declaration and a truth in which we can place our trust. We thank You that You are the one righteous God that we can trust. We thank You, Father, for sending Your Son down so that we are declared righteous. Lord, I pray that this will be an identifying, changing truth. Lord, help us to trust what You say about us above anything else we hear, above anything else we think or desire. Help us, Lord, to see the power of the gospel to save sinners. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So friends, we're picking up where Paul left off in 1.16 and 17, the thesis of Romans. What He introduced there, He's now going to explain more. And, well, quite frankly, after coming out of the depth of the mud of thinking about our sin, we now get to see the depth of God's glory and His salvation for us. Let's look at verse 1. There is an outline printed. There is not an outline printed. To help us understand this text, I want us to see four things. One, Righteousness promised, that's verse 21. Righteousness promised. Two, righteousness provided. Righteousness provided. That takes us from 22 all the way halfway through 25. That is the heart and soul of our passage. Third, righteousness proven, 25b through 26. And then righteousness received. Righteousness received. So first, as you can tell, our sermon's about righteousness. First, righteousness promised. To begin with, we need to come to terms with the author because it's kind of a daunting word. Righteousness. It tells us two important things. First, it tells us something important about God. He's right. He's right. He's true. He's faithful. He's good. That's important because we're supposed to put our faith in this God. We're supposed to believe in Him above anything and everything else. Is He trustworthy is a question. What Paul's telling us is the righteousness of God, it's been revealed. He is good. He's right. He's kept His promises. He's faithful. This is important because it tells us something else about God and his relationship to us. It tells us we are right before him when he declares us to be right. We don't earn it. The righteousness of God is something you receive by faith. We believe the word declared from God, you are innocent. So the righteousness of God tells us that He is true to His promise. The righteousness of God also tells us this is how you're right with God. It has nothing to do with what you do. It believes what He says. This is a clear principle we saw from Romans 1 through 3 already. Our works deserve God's wrath. By faith, we receive righteousness. Having established this as righteousness, now let's look at our text more. That is the repeated word that is emphasized. I also want you to notice something here that in verse 21, it says the righteousness has been manifested. It also says the law and prophets bear witness to it. If we drop down, we'll see that in verse 25 and 26, it was shown, it was shown. We can't miss something here. When we ask questions as important as how can I be right before God, we can only praise God that He has spoken so that we can know how to be right before Him. It's not a matter of it's clear, it's He's spoken. The issue isn't how clear it is. The question is, are we going to have our faith in what He has said? God has made it clear. He's manifested it. He's shown it. The problem of faith isn't on God's side and what he said, it's on ours and how little we trust him. Now, the rights of God has been manifested apart from the law. I believe here he's speaking of the law of Moses. I wanna just quickly say, the law of Moses that God declared, it's good, it's right because it's God's word. It accomplished what it was meant to accomplish. The law told us who God is, how he saved Israel from Egypt, what he expected of his nation, and how they were supposed to be obedient. That's what God's law was supposed to accomplish, and it accomplished it. The law of Moses was supposed to help Israel see that they were so sinful they could not keep the law, and therefore they had to depend upon a savior. What he's correcting here is the righteousness of God, it's not about keeping the law so that you can say, look what I did, God, I obeyed all your commandments. The law was meant to show us how sinful we are, as we can see in verse 20. Says, through the law comes knowledge of sin. We'll get to more of that in Romans 7. The law was never meant to be a system to be saved by works. God's people have always been saved by faith. What we need to see here is that the Law and the Prophets, they bear witness to this righteousness. As Chris introduced Isaiah 53, that was bearing witness. That truth from of old was bearing witness of the true righteousness that was going to come when God's promised child would destroy our enemies, sin and death. The Law and the Prophets, as Romans 1-2 says, The gospel of God, which he promised beforehand. This is not new. This isn't God's backup plan. This isn't a new plan. It's the plan that he's always had. But now we have the benefit of knowing exactly how he fulfilled it. So let's see what this righteousness is. Righteousness provided. God has always spoken. We can trust his word. We should trust his word. This is what he says about righteousness. the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Notice how it's in Christ Jesus. We can't talk about righteousness without talking about Jesus. It's all about who he is and what he has done. You see, the righteousness of God is proven first and foremost because all those promises that He made in the Old Testament, they're all fulfilled in Jesus. That's how we know He's righteous. He's faithful to fulfill His promises. When Jesus Christ said on the cross, it is finished, He's saying a lot is finished, but the first thing he's saying is finished. All those types, all those shadows, all those things we were waiting on, finished. Because the substance is here. All those lambs that were sacrificed that didn't really take away the sins of the world, the true Lamb of God, it's finished. The curtain's been torn in two, as we just sang about. So at one level, the righteous God is in Jesus Christ because he fulfills all the promises. Secondly, we're only declared righteous in and through the work of Christ. This is why his name is so important. This is why we have to sing songs about Jesus and to Jesus. This is why the words that we use with one another, what we talk about, they must be focused on Jesus. So I asked church, how much are we actually talking about Jesus? It is all about him. Let me ask another question. His name is above every name. How much are we concerned about our actions and how they reflect on his name versus being worried about our own reputation? We think too much about how people think of me, I think of people, people you think of my business, my corporation, my family, my church. The main question is, what am I doing and how is it affecting the name of Christ? What is the reputation of Jesus Christ because of my actions and my words? It's all about Him. Now, verse 23, it dips us back down before we can come up. Verse 23 reminds us of the hard truth that we are sinners. In order to understand righteousness provided, we have to see righteousness needed. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There's a reason we must have the righteousness of God because we've all sinned, we've all fallen short of the glory of God. What does this mean? Well, to sin simply means to miss the mark, right? If there's a bullseye and I've got a bow and arrow and I don't hit it, I sinned. Now, this is important because God has a true, clear, righteous standard and we all miss the mark. Now, something we like to do and something that's just natural or simple tendency is to say, but God, I got close. This is especially important. I got closer than he did. God's impartial. He doesn't grin on a curve. He doesn't try to figure out who did better. He just simply says, you either made it to the mark or you didn't. If you missed the mark, you're guilty of sin. You're guilty of worship. And quite frankly, I think if we really saw what the mark was, we would even begin to think, maybe I could get close. Maybe I've been close. We all suppress the truth. Let me ask you, how much do you honor God? How much do you thank God? Those two questions alone should make us think, I do not make the mark. I grumble and complain more than I ever thank God for anything. I take what He gives and I use it for my own selfishness. We miss the mark. We're sinners. We also, we fall short of God's glory. Remember, in chapter one, we exchange the glory of God for the things that He's made glorious but aren't truly glorious. We exchange the glory of God and worship the things that we prefer. We've all fallen short. We have to see that sin isn't first and foremost about our horizontal relationships. When we think about sin, it's first and foremost our relationship with God. How much are we worshiping Him versus everything else that we worship? We're sinners. We deserve wrath. Now, we need to move on to these three words. Justification, redemption, and propitiation. The wrath of God is against our unrighteousness. We have fallen short of the glory of God. We are sinners. We need help. These three words, quite frankly, they're a little daunting, aren't they? They're heavy words. First, they're not words we use that often. Our culture doesn't really have a place for words like redemption and propitiation and justification. We need to be careful not to be afraid of these words. One, they've been inspired. They've been given to us as simple little summaries. In one word, we're capturing so much of what God has said. These are important, sacred words because God has given them to us, and they capture so much. So let's just look at these very briefly, and then I'll walk through each one. Justification, this is a legal term. So God is taking something out of the legal context and he's giving it to us so that we can understand salvation. This deals with being guilty or innocent. Justification is a legal declaration about being guilty or innocent. Redemption, that comes from slavery. So if we were still in 1860, this would make a lot more sense. Redemption, it comes from the culture of a state that would have slavery because we're either enslaved or we're free. Redemption is freeing us by purchase out of slavery. Propitiation, that comes from the sacrificial system of Israel. And this has to do with wrath and mercy. These three words, they summarize so much and they're important because justification We are guilty of sin. Justification is important because we are guilty of sin, and he declares us innocent. Redemption is important because we are slaves to sin, and Christ purchased us with his precious blood to be free. Propitiation is important because we deserve God's wrath. But that wrath is satisfied when Christ dies for our sin. These three words change our relationship to God. Let's look at justification in more detail. First, read our passage. For all sin and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift. justified by His grace as a gift. Justification goes all the way back to Genesis 15, 6. We'll see this more. Genesis 15, 6 is quoted in Romans 4. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham was the father of God's people. The first man to be so blessed. The first man to be given the promise here of a nation and a people and a seed and salvation of blessing. He was counted righteous. Notice what it doesn't say. It doesn't say he was righteous. He's counted righteous. He's declared righteous. The fact that this is a legal declaration, we have to get. Because I think too often, we as Christians think, I did something to deserve this. See, we come and we stand before the judgment seat of God. We stand before God, the true and impartial just judge. And you may not be convinced that you've fallen short of the glory of God, but when you stand before God, all of the sin that you really committed, there's no excuse. We won't be able to open our mouth and say, but God. We will be seen for all that we've said, all that we've thought, We really are guilty. But when Christ dies for us, and we place our faith in him, instead of God calling us what we are, guilty, he says innocent. with the mighty, powerful Word of God. He changes our identity when we believe in Jesus Christ. This is important. We really are guilty. We really are unrighteous. We really deserve the wrath of God, but God calls us something that we really are not. He says we're innocent. He says we're righteous. He says we're forgiven. Now, what we're going to get to later under proven is, does this make God a liar? To call someone what they are not, does that make Him a liar? This is an important question because God needs to be just and the justifier. We need to be able to trust Him. But I want to focus on what this means for you. God the Father sent His Son to die in your place. See, this legal declaration, this legal counting, our sins were put to his account so that when God crushed him on the cross, our sins are paid for. We are therefore able to be counted as innocent, but it's more than that. We're not just counted as innocent, we're counted as righteousness. Where does the righteousness come from? The righteousness that he earned with his obedience is counted to us. See, when God makes that powerful declaration righteous, He's changing our identity. He's saying something about us that is permanent and perfect. This is why it's so important. It's where we started. Do you trust what God says? There's all kind of evidence I know because you know what kind of sinful thoughts you're thinking right now. You know what kind of simple thoughts you've thought before you got here. You may even know the kind of simple things you said to one another in the car over here. We all know how sinful we are. It's an amazing burden to have to carry how sinful we actually are. In addition to that, everyone likes to tell you how sinful you are. If nothing else, we would love to be critical. Satan loves to accuse you of how sinful you are. The Word of God that spoke everything into existence, the Word of God that can recreate, he said, not guilty. He said, innocent. He said, forgiven. Will you believe that testimony? Does his word transform the way you think about yourself more than your experiences? More than what you know? Does it actually determine how you walk through temptation? Friends, what we're talking about here is your identity as a Christian. Do you think about yourself based upon what God has said about you or do you think about yourself based upon what everybody else says about you? The greatest temptation is to actually believe the The flattery. That's actually the most dangerous temptation. When folks want to flatter, and you start thinking, maybe I'm not that bad, maybe I am that good, maybe everyone should like me, God must like me. No, we're really sinners. But the mighty gift of God is He says something else about you. Now, I want you to see something else. He says justification, it's a grace. It's a gift. By His grace is a gift. When somebody gives you a gift, what do you say? Thank you. Do you know what you never say to God? You're welcome. The only response we have to God is thank you. Something we never say to God is you're welcome. Everything we have that's of any worth, of any good, thank you, God. Something we have to avoid pretending is that we have something to offer to God in which we can say, you're welcome. Now think about that. How many times have you been tempted to say, God, you're welcome? We just took up the offering. Did you say to God, you're welcome? Or did you say, God, this is yours? Because Christ has purchased me, because you've given me such a good gift, I am now cheerfully wanting to give. Will you even trust it to me? Your good deeds, your evangelism, your Bible study, God, that time in prayer, you're welcome. I'm sure you enjoyed that. This is the arrogance of the heart, that we have something to give to God that he didn't already give to us. Christian. We're supposed to be a thankful people. That identity that God has done everything for us by declaring to us, we're supposed to be thankful. We say, thank you. We don't say you're welcome. The second big word, we've been justified, we've been declared innocent when we really are guilty by the grace by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. Now, again, these actually aren't new words for this congregation, most likely. Genesis 15, Abraham was declared righteous. Here, redemption, that comes from the Exodus language. Israel was enslaved to Egypt. The words deliverance, redemption, ransom, all these words are all captured in that great story. God took a people that he loved out of slavery and freed them to be his people. Listen to Deuteronomy 7, 8. We see redemption is an act of love to claim our love. Redemption is an act of love that God does for us to claim our love. Now church, our enemy's much, much more powerful than the nation of Egypt. Our adversary is much more cunning and deceptive and wicked than Pharaoh. See, we have three basic enemies in Scripture, and they're all tied together. In Genesis 3, we see them all connected. There's Satan who lies. There's sin that overwhelms us and overcomes us and overpowers us. And there's death that is our end because we have been deceived by Satan and chosen to sin. These three things are our enemies. They are greater than us. They are more powerful than us. We need help. That's why Jesus Christ came, to save sinners, to redeem us. Just as all three of those enemies, sin, Satan, and death, we see them all together in Genesis 3, we also see them all together in the, well, the solution. All three enemies are defeated on the cross. Just as in justification, God declares us righteous in Christ on the cross. We look to the cross and we see all three enemies are crushed. Satan's head is crushed as God promised in Genesis 3.15. His power over us is crushed when Jesus Christ dies. Sin is washed away and its chains are broken. We'll discuss this more in Romans 6. Death is dead in the death of Christ. When he dies for us, we no longer have to fear death because we know we have his eternal life. This is the good news, friends. The creator of life conquered death. The king of righteousness destroyed sin. The God of light overcame the darkness of Satan's deception. That's redemption. I want you to notice something in the text that follows. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood. When you redeem somebody, you pay a costly price to get them out. Jesus paid our debt with his blood. The blood of God had to be poured out to free us from slavery, to sin and death and Satan. It tells us two things. One, we're in all kinds of trouble apart from the grace of God. Our sin is powerful and dangerous. This was a high price, the most powerful currency. The blood of God had to be used to save us. Secondly, it should give us great danger in the power of sin and the lies of Satan. It gives us confidence before God. He did not spare his own son. The word of God, the blood of Christ, that's what you get to put your faith in. what He has said and what He has done. God is righteous. We can trust Him. Third, and now to the big one, propitiation. Let's all say that together just for fun. Propitiation. Let's not be afraid of this word. This really gets to the heart of the gospel. I want to make three basic observations about propitiation just from the text. First, it takes place when God's wrath is satisfied. Propitiation is essential to the righteousness of God. We have to observe that it requires faith to take place and blood is central. Blood is central to propitiation. God puts forth His Son to be this propitiation by His blood. God puts forth His Son. So we go back to Romans 1, 18. The wrath of God is against our unrighteousness. God's wrath is righteous. He has wrath because He is righteous. Whenever He looks at our sin, it is wrath that is necessary because He's righteous. Now, this is the dilemma. God's merciful. God is rich in love. He's steadfast in loving kindness. We have to ask ourselves, how can God be wrathful against our unrighteousness, but yet the Bible is clear, He's rich in mercy. If we look to the Old Testament, we see that every year this word propitiation comes with the sacrifices. Every year an animal would have to die. It was meant to be a sin offering. The sin being put upon that lamb or the ram or the goat. Every year it was done to symbolize that sin would be taken off of us and be put on someone that died. It shows how dangerous and costly sin is. Most of all, it shows that the wrath of God is true against our sin. And that something has to happen to remove that wrath. When we get to Romans 8, we'll see this more, but God says he did not spare his own son. In Genesis 22, Abraham was told, he was commanded, take your son, your beloved son, and sacrifice him on the mountain. And whenever Abraham was ready to do it, God saw his faith and he provided a substitute. When God sent his own son, his beloved son, he did not spare him. But instead he sent his own son, God sent his own son, it was a proactive plan so that that son would be crushed. The wrath of God against our unrighteousness is poured out upon him because God's wrath must be satisfied. That's what propitiation means. God's wrath is satisfied. Now, if you're not a Christian this morning, God's wrath will be satisfied. If you do not believe in Jesus Christ and you die, you will stand before God, his wrath will be satisfied. You will stand before God with your sin, without any grace, and the holiness and the righteousness of God will consume you forever. His wrath will be satisfied. This is how He shows us His mercy. For those who believe in Jesus, His wrath isn't satisfied when He acts towards us with His wrath, but instead His wrath is satisfied when He punishes His Son for deeds He did not do, for an unrighteousness that wasn't His own, but is ours. See, it's important, God is just and justifier. He judges every single sin. He either judges us for the sin, or He judges Christ for that sin. If we believe in Jesus, we will not answer for our sin, because He has already answered it. Let's quickly look to these two last passages, verses. Last step of verse 25, righteousness proven. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. In the Old Testament, you were not saved by works. I can't emphasize that enough. They were saved the same way we're saved, by believing in the one Savior that God had promised. The difference is we get to know who that promise is. They were waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. They were saved by placing their faith in that promise. You see, every little sacrifice that they made, God saw their faith in what that sacrifice was pointing to, and He forgave them. That sacrifice functioned a little bit like an IOU. God didn't owe them anything because they deserve it. God owed them a true sacrifice that would take away their sin because he promised it. And he's true to his promise. God said, I will send a perfect lamb who will take away the sins. That's not it, and that's not it, and that's not it. And you know that because you keep having to do it. So a Christ sacrifice is so unique. It's once and for all. See, he's demonstrating. He's a just God. He judges every sin equal. He's a God who justifies because He tells us our sin is judged in Christ if we believe in Him and not in us. Now, this is the important part. Righteousness received. Righteousness received. Look at verse 20, well, let's begin at verse 22 again. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there's 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. We can go through verse 27 to 31, and what he's saying here is you have nothing to boast of. We boast of Christ and what He's done. So that's why where Christ is mentioned in the text, it's in the central part, because He's our justification, He's our redemption, He's our propitiation. We simply say, I trust you. See, faith isn't just intellectual acknowledgement. Yeah, I'll believe that. Faith is saying there's nothing else that could possibly ever save me apart from God Himself sending His Son. There's one God. He justifies everybody the same by faith in Christ. If you're not a Christian this morning, I want to assure you of something. There is no sin you've committed that God cannot forgive. Your sin is not more powerful than God. When He declares you righteous, He actually washes away your entire account of guilt. God has saved murderers, rapists. He saved the worst kind of sinners that we can think of. Quite frankly, He saved the worst kind of sinner, which is all of us, and that is an idolater, refusing to worship God. If you're not a Christian this morning, do not think this isn't for me. They don't know how bad I am. No, you don't know how powerful God is to save. Jesus Christ died on the cross. He rose again. If you believe that He wiped away your sin, if you believe He can declare you innocent, He will. You simply have to place your trust in Him. Christian, are we constantly seeking to hear what God has to say? This is the point of the passage. God is righteous, he's revealed it, do we believe it? God is righteous and he's manifested it, he's shown it, do we believe it? It's really easy for Christians to develop what the Bible calls itching ears. Is there something else out there that'd be a little easier, a little less demanding, a little less deep theologically, you know, something a little better that I like more? You're not trusting God. God has spoken. This is His Word. All our confidence has to be here. Stop trying to find something else out there We don't trust what He says enough. Secondly, Christian, do we truly trust this forgiveness? Do we really let this forgiveness define who we are? Let's get back to that identity question. Do you consider yourself someone who's truly been forgiven? Do you see yourself when you're tempted? I've been redeemed from the power of sin. I don't have to obey that. See, we're either ruled by our passions and lust and lies, or we're ruled by Christ. He purchased us. He declared us His. Is that really what defines us? A very difficult text that we discussed in the early summer. Matthew 6, 14. If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses. It's a difficult text. It tells us that real faith in the forgiveness of God actually makes us a forgiving people. That legal declaration, it doesn't just kind of sit there as a legal declaration so we can keep on sinning. No, it changes us. How can someone who understands how much they've been forgiven not forgive? So I asked Christian, are you forgiving? This is what's supposed to mark us out as a people. We confess sin, we repent of sin, we forgive sin. That is what makes a Christian different than everybody else. We still sin. We're just simply declared innocent of that sin. We confess sin, repent of sin, we forgive sin. When it comes to appreciation, we have to realize it's not our obligation to make sure somebody else pays for their sin. It's a lack of trust in God. to try to take it on us, ourselves, to make sure somebody else pays for their sin. That's God's job. We're not God. That's the heart of the problem. See, one of the greatest dangers in Christianity is that we easily, we start out as the younger brother in the prodigal story. No, we rejoice when we come home. We want the celebration when we come home, but after we've been there a while, we become the older brother. We think, wait a second, God's gonna bring that guy in the house? We quickly become the older brother who stands out in the garden, and when the celebration is taking place, we keep holding on to what we think we've earned, and when God comes to us, we say, that son of yours. See, we quickly build up our self-righteousness. and we quickly stop forgiving and clinging to the truth of grace. Christian, God has set us free. Are we truly enjoying that? Are we rejoicing in the freedom Christ purchased for us on the cross? One of the most awkward things that we can, one of the most awkward moments for me is whenever I have a good friend, you know, there's been a little bit of a disagreement. Maybe there's been a rift and, well, you get together and you kind of, you're supposed to be in the same room where you used to go and, you know, shake hands or give a hug or, you know, depending on your background, maybe a holy kiss. You know, when there's a rift, you stand off. Because you don't know that person's thinking about you. You don't know if that person is still holding a grudge. You don't know how that person is still feeling about you. So you don't have confidence in the relationship. You don't know how to approach them in the relationship. There's confusion. Christian, God does not intend for you to have any confusion in your relationship with Him. He wants you to have absolute confidence. His Son was sent to spill His blood to forgive you. His only Son was sent to die in our place. We have confidence that we're forgiven. We have confidence He loves us. If we merely look to his word and say, God, what you say, I'm going to trust. It is that clear. We can have that kind of confidence. God intends us to know him and to love him. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise you and we thank you for your word that you speak. We thank you, Father, that you have not left us wondering about a relationship with you. You've given us Your Word so that we can have confidence. And Lord, let us have confidence in Christ and Him alone. Help us to see it's not looking down deep to find that kind of faith that will give us that relationship, but it's looking to Christ and what He's done. Help our unbelief, Lord. Help our unbelief to hear what You say, to trust what You say, and to rejoice in what You say. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.