Good morning and happy humpday. I hope you all are having a great week and that you are making time for God and His Word in your daily schedule. I also pray that God's Word is ever present in your heart wherever your schedule may take you, whether it be work, school, or even just time at home. “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night.” Psalms 1:2.
Today we’re in Romans 3 and it’s a fantastic chapter that marries chapter one and two beautifully. Paul’s approach here is genius and one I can really relate to. You know, I really don’t bother with many things around my house until they break. When things break around the house and they no longer work it can really get our attention! In fact, if my coffee maker were to break I would have it fixed or replaced within 12 hours! You need to know that something is broken first before you’ll be prompted to fix it. I mean its just like the old saying goes, ‘if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.’ This is exactly what Paul is setting up here in the beginning few chapters of Romans. In Chapters 1 and 2 he leaves no question about the spiritual condition of mankind. We are all sinners before God, unrighteous in His sight. But in chapter 3, Paul brings it full loop and tells us of the hope that is in Jesus. The hope that can save.
Paul has one final push into the condition of the soul of man. Romans 3:10-18 is pulled from the Old testament book of Psalms and sums up mankind's sinful appearance before a perfect and Holy God:
Romans 3:10-18
“As it is written: None is righteous, no not one: No one understands; no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
No one does good, not even one
Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive;
The venom of asps is under their lips, their mouth is full of curses and bitterness;
Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery,
And the way of peace they have not known, there is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Well, I think that pretty much sums up the true nature of man. It’s not a pretty picture but I have personally seen all of this in the world we live in today and sad to say, but have personally been guilty of much of this. It’s what we are and who we are; sinners by birth. So again, God’s Word is pretty harsh, yet accurate about the nature of man. So what can we do to appease God? NOTHING. There is nothing that man can do to appease, please or gain the favor of God. It is only through God sending His son that we can truly know God. My, friends if anything, I hope and pray that thus far through Romans you can more accurately than ever see our need for Jesus and his saving grace. Without Jesus as the Way, we as sinful humans are truly lost in our rebellion towards God.
As man tries to understand God on his own I’ve heard many definitions. One is “religion is man's seeking after God.” It sounds good on paper but if you look back at the condition of mankind above in Romans 3:10-18, you will see that this cannot be. Man does not possess the ability to find God. In fact, verse 3:10 starts out with “no one understands; no one seeks God.” When you hear the word NO in God’s Word it means just that. No one has ever understood God and no one can seek God. Man can’t seek God because he is not moving closer to God, he is moving away from God, moving away from God because of the sin nature we have. But because of God’s love and grace, he pursues us. What a beautiful picture.
If you get anything out of the first three chapters of Romans, you need to get this. We are all broken, sinners before a perfect God. There is nothing we can do to appear good enough before God. God cannot accept imperfection and you and I cannot provide perfection. You need to know that you are broken before you will seek to be fixed. This is the problem with mankind and society today. Our sin nature tells us that we’re all pretty good people. It tells us that God is a God of love and that all good people will of course get to go to heaven. My friends, it just doesn’t work that way. None of us are good enough, no not one. Only through the death and resurrection of Christ can we appear as righteous before a Holy God. It’s not popular in society today, but salvation in Jesus Christ is the only way to God and to heaven. John 14:6, Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” God’s Word is crystal clear.
So Paul now gets down to the nuts and bolts of the gospel. How can sinful mankind be united and rectified with God? Listen to this powerhouse verse, “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 propritiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” (Romans 3:23-24)
What a statement. I mean, wow. John Calvin, the leader of the French protestant reformation in the 1500’s says this of these two verses, “it is the very marrow of theology, there is not probably in the whole Bible a passage which states forth more profoundly the righteousness of God in Christ.” It’s all here. The verse is in 5 basic parts, lets break it down and look at each of the 5 parts individually.
1) “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” This is what we’ve been talking about. No man can ever hope to approach God on his own good merits. We just can’t be good enough for God on our own. God cannot accept imperfection and you and I cannot provide perfection.
2) “and are justified by His grace as a gift” Only through God’s grace can we be saved from our lost state of sin. Grace is defined as ‘the unmerited or undeserving favor of God.’ We don’t deserve the favor of God as sinners but because of God’s love for us he offers us His beautiful grace. Notice also it’s a gift. I don’t ask for a gift. I can’t earn a gift. A gift is defined as ‘a thing given willingly to someone without payment.’ We can never earn or deserve God’s grace, it’s a gift.
3) “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” My friends, its all about Jesus. Jesus is what makes salvation possible. Jesus died on the cross and by Him shedding His perfect, sinless, blood He became the perfect sacrifice to cover all sin, past, present and future. When He rose on the third day He conquered the death of sin once and for all so that we can have eternal life. Jesus redeems us. Redeem is defined as ‘to compensate for the faults or bad aspects of something.’ Praise God for the redeeming power that is in Jesus Christ to cover our sin!
4) “whom God put forward to be as a propitiation by his blood” Propitiation is a big church word. It can be defined as ‘to win or regain the favor of God by doing something that pleases Him.’ You see God sent his only son, Jesus here to live a perfect life so that he could be offered as the perfect sacrifice. The perfect sacrifice that mankind needed to be redeemed to God. John 3:16 perfectly sums this up, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” You must see the theme of Jesus here in God’s plan of salvation. God’s Word is all about Jesus. Our salvation is all about Jesus. Jesus is the only way to God.
5) “to be received by faith” You can only get the saving grace of Jesus one way, faith. You have to believe. You can’t wish it, you can’t earn it, you can’t buy it, you can’t learn it from a book. It’s really just that simple. Believe in Jesus. Receive Him by faith.
What a tremendous statement we have here that perfectly sums up the gospel. I praise God that he loves me and you enough to send his only son. He loves us enough to sacrifice His only son in order that we can be redeemed by His blood. He loves us enough that just by believing in His son we can have everlasting life with Him. And its all a gift from God. Absolutely free. Oh, how He loves us.
If you have more questions about God and about faith in Jesus, give me a shout, I will make myself available to you.
I pray today that your 5 minutes in God’s Word is becoming a part of your day and that you hunger to hear God speak into your life on a daily basis.
God’s Grace to you all.
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