back to index2016-02-28 Righteousness of God Apart From The Law
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"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, 00:00:19.000 |
although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, 00:00:23.000 |
the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. 00:00:27.000 |
For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 00:00:31.000 |
and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 00:00:37.000 |
whom God put forward as propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. 00:00:42.000 |
This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, 00:00:47.000 |
he has passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time 00:00:52.000 |
so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." 00:01:01.000 |
Heavenly Father, we ask for your anointing and your blessing and the power of your word 00:01:07.000 |
to go forth with the power of your Holy Spirit. 00:01:11.000 |
Convict us, renew us, refresh us, encourage us 00:01:16.000 |
that we may respond reasonably to your grace. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 00:01:21.000 |
The text that we're looking at this morning begins by the simple words "but now." 00:01:28.000 |
"But now." Now, any time you see the word "but" in the context of the study of the Scripture, 00:01:33.000 |
you know that there is a conclusion that he's making. 00:01:37.000 |
So, what we're headed into from this text is a conclusion or the building 00:01:42.000 |
of what he's been trying to do in the first three chapters. 00:01:46.000 |
In the first three chapters he was taking down pride, any kind of self-will, 00:01:52.000 |
any kind of security that comes from obeying the law. 00:01:55.000 |
And so every single one of these things he's been tearing down for three chapters. 00:01:59.000 |
And he says, "This is not the way. Whatever you were thinking in the past, 00:02:03.000 |
this is not the way that you can receive salvation." 00:02:06.000 |
And then he says, "But now." Now he's going to build upon. 00:02:10.000 |
So he's been trying to prepare the way for the coming of Christ, 00:02:13.000 |
or it's the introduction of the Gospel to bring Christ to them. 00:02:17.000 |
And so now he's switching gear and he says, "But now." 00:02:21.000 |
And then he's going to start building upon the foundation that he built for three chapters. 00:02:24.000 |
Douglas Moo, the leading scholar in the Book of Romans, says, 00:02:28.000 |
"But now," the phrase "but now" marks a shift in Paul's focus from the old era of sin's domination 00:02:36.000 |
"As the wrath of God dominated the old era, so the righteousness of God dominates the new." 00:02:45.000 |
Up to this point he's been destroying the idea that somehow you can earn your way into the Kingdom of God. 00:02:52.000 |
And he's been destroying that argument. He's been shutting that door. 00:02:56.000 |
And any kind of hope that somebody might have that you can somehow enter and be proud in the presence of God, 00:03:02.000 |
he says, "No, no, no." And last week we talked about how he basically says, 00:03:06.000 |
"The goal of it is to cause us to be silent before God." 00:03:14.000 |
Again, if you're a Christian, you've been a Christian for any period of time, 00:03:17.000 |
you already know that salvation is by grace and by faith alone. 00:03:21.000 |
It is not salvation plus works. It is not salvation by works. 00:03:26.000 |
It is salvation by grace, by faith in Christ alone. 00:03:32.000 |
The whole Reformation is based upon this theology. 00:03:37.000 |
Paul himself says in Galatians, "If anybody comes to you and preaches a different gospel, let him be anathema." 00:03:42.000 |
That that perversion of the gospel, that slight tainting of the gospel, 00:03:46.000 |
will pervert the gospel to the point where it is no longer the gospel. 00:03:51.000 |
We know that. We wouldn't be Protestants if we rejected that. 00:03:58.000 |
But the question that you and I need to answer, and to answer logically, reasonably, 00:04:06.000 |
is why would salvation be by work, by faith alone? 00:04:10.000 |
Why wouldn't it be by works? Right? I mean, think about it. 00:04:19.000 |
I remember, some of you guys may remember, like OJ Simpson, 00:04:22.000 |
you know, clearly all the evidence stacked up against him, and at the end of the trial, 00:04:26.000 |
I guess some of you guys don't, looking at me like, "Who's OJ Simpson?" 00:04:29.000 |
All right. I don't have time to explain to you. Google it afterwards. 00:04:33.000 |
He's a famous football star. He was kind of like a superstar in the football. 00:04:36.000 |
And then he retired. He ended up murdering his ex-girlfriend and her supposed boyfriend. 00:04:42.000 |
And it was a huge trial. And they were going through this trial, 00:04:45.000 |
and they had all this evidence stacked up against him. 00:04:49.000 |
But because of the political climate at that time, and this guy was a multimillionaire, 00:04:53.000 |
and he used all this money to hire all these superstar lawyers, 00:05:00.000 |
The outrage that most people in the United States felt when he said he wasn't guilty and he was let go, 00:05:09.000 |
nobody looked at that and said, "Oh, the people were gracious. That's so awesome." 00:05:18.000 |
You know, that jury, "Man, we need to commend these people for being so gracious, 00:05:29.000 |
The judge passed out the sentence, like, "No, no. We know he's guilty. 00:05:32.000 |
We know all this stuff is stacked up against him, but we're going to forgive him." 00:05:43.000 |
Now, why do we think that in our salvation, when we talk about how guilty sinners like you and me 00:05:49.000 |
have been set free simply by the grace of God, just because you believe. 00:05:54.000 |
And we celebrate that, and we don't think twice about it. 00:05:57.000 |
Why we don't ask, "Why would that lead us to salvation?" 00:06:01.000 |
I can understand, because this is something that every parent teaches their children. 00:06:06.000 |
This is something that you've been taught by your parents, and I'm almost certain of it, 00:06:10.000 |
that you've been taught since you were a little kid, and I teach to my children, 00:06:19.000 |
You want to get into the right school? You've got to study. 00:06:21.000 |
You can't just bum around all day, and then all of a sudden wake up thinking, 00:06:24.000 |
"Oh, they're going to let you into the school you want to go to." 00:06:27.000 |
Or, you know, you go to work, and you don't do a good job. 00:06:31.000 |
They give you a 15-minute break, you come back an hour and a half later, 00:06:34.000 |
and it's like, "Ah, I'm looking for a job where they're gracious, just like my God." 00:06:42.000 |
You're supposed to earn everything. You're supposed to. 00:06:45.000 |
If you're a good, reasonable adult, you would expect that it requires you to work hard 00:06:59.000 |
I can see why the Jehovah Witnesses take all their time being yelled at, 00:07:03.000 |
and being persecuted, and going door to door, 00:07:08.000 |
and at the end of the day say, "Yeah, I've got to earn this. 00:07:14.000 |
I can understand even the Catholics for hundreds of years. 00:07:18.000 |
They're saying, "Well, it's by grace, but it's also your work." 00:07:24.000 |
You know, there was a period early on in Christianity, 00:07:27.000 |
when I first became a Christian, I had a hard time reconciling that. 00:07:32.000 |
Because I saw so many people just talking about, "Oh, it's by grace." 00:07:35.000 |
And they just lived and did whatever they wanted. 00:07:41.000 |
So I started reconciling, not because of what I saw in Scripture, 00:07:44.000 |
but just in my own mind, reconciling salvation by grace and by work. 00:07:50.000 |
So I thought that maybe what the Scripture meant is God sent down a rope. 00:07:57.000 |
Jesus Christ died, and He offered, and He sent down a rope. 00:08:00.000 |
But it was my responsibility to find it and catch it, 00:08:05.000 |
And that's what I thought salvation was, because that makes sense to me. 00:08:13.000 |
To me, that's just like telling the kids, "Do whatever you want." 00:08:17.000 |
Because you're not going to be graded by how hard you work. 00:08:20.000 |
You're not going to be graded by if you pass a test or not. 00:08:23.000 |
You all get A's, whether you come to class or not. 00:08:28.000 |
Whether you understand the material or not, you all get A's, 00:08:37.000 |
We would never say that that's a good teacher. 00:08:39.000 |
But when it comes to our salvation, when we talk to God, understand God, 00:08:43.000 |
we say, "Oh, He's so gracious. He's so loving." 00:08:47.000 |
Because we're recipients of this unmerited grace. 00:08:52.000 |
And because we've been saved by this grace, it's like, 00:08:54.000 |
"Oh, He's so good. He's so good. He's so good." 00:08:58.000 |
Why do we reject that kind of thinking in everything else, 00:09:01.000 |
but when it comes to our salvation, we don't think much about it? 00:09:05.000 |
Part of the reason, I think, is because, again, 00:09:14.000 |
And so, "Do I have faith?" It's like, "I think I do." 00:09:17.000 |
And if you do, come down the aisle, raise your hand, and, you know, 00:09:20.000 |
or maybe just, you know, I've been in a situation where 00:09:24.000 |
I've heard gospel presentation at the end of the gospel presentation. 00:09:28.000 |
They said, "If anybody wants to give Jesus a try, 00:09:31.000 |
come out and fill out this form. Give Jesus a try." 00:09:34.000 |
And the presentation was, at the end, that whatever you got to lose, 00:09:37.000 |
if He's not real, if He really didn't die, and heaven and hell is not real, 00:09:44.000 |
You come to church, and, you know, you get to play BBA. 00:09:50.000 |
You have a bunch of friends that you can hang out with. 00:09:52.000 |
I mean, what have you got to--what did you really lose? 00:09:55.000 |
If you really think about it, you say, "Oh, I could have been a millionaire, 00:10:01.000 |
I think I would have invented the next Facebook, but I didn't 00:10:10.000 |
And as a result of that, there's this--not only this superficial life, 00:10:16.000 |
which I think ultimately leads to a superficial life. 00:10:19.000 |
I know I shared this story before, but, you know, years ago, 00:10:25.000 |
We lived in this area, and there was this large church 00:10:29.000 |
in our area, Atlanta, that would send a bus to pick up the local children, 00:10:34.000 |
and then they would take us to church, and then we'd go to our respective classes. 00:10:38.000 |
And every time we went, they would give us something-- 00:10:43.000 |
And so it was a big deal going to church, mainly for that reason. 00:10:47.000 |
So we went, and every day, at the end of this class 00:10:50.000 |
or the beginning of the class, they would pass out here some candy. 00:10:53.000 |
And so that's the main reason we went, right? 00:10:56.000 |
One day in class, the teacher asked, "Did everybody get salvation?" 00:11:03.000 |
I thought salvation was the name of a candy or something. 00:11:06.000 |
So I raised my hand, and she said, "Oh, Peter, you didn't get salvation?" 00:11:14.000 |
but I must have been messing around. I didn't get it. 00:11:16.000 |
And so she made a big deal about missing out. 00:11:18.000 |
I'm like, "Wow, I must have missed out something really good," 00:11:23.000 |
And she said, "Peter, if you want salvation, you have to go downstairs." 00:11:29.000 |
So I went downstairs, and I'm thinking like, you know, VBS. 00:11:33.000 |
I'm thinking balloons and all these children. 00:11:38.000 |
And it's in the basement, and all the lights are turned off 00:11:44.000 |
So they made me sit on this sofa, and said, "Wait a second. 00:11:48.000 |
A pastor's going to come, and he's going to talk to you." 00:11:51.000 |
So something didn't fit. So I'm sitting there. 00:11:53.000 |
It's like, "This is weird." And I'm the only one there. 00:11:57.000 |
Like, I don't remember her telling to get in line. 00:12:00.000 |
So I was sitting there, and finally, you know, after about 10, 15 minutes, 00:12:04.000 |
the pastor comes. And again, there are no children, only adults, 00:12:07.000 |
a few adults that I said, "Come and sit down to me." 00:12:11.000 |
I'm pretty sure he shared the gospel with me. 00:12:13.000 |
And at the end of it, he said, "Do you want to believe? Do you believe?" 00:12:17.000 |
And I said, "Yeah," because I thought that was a requirement 00:12:22.000 |
So I said, "Yeah," and then he prayed with me, and he said, "Great, Peter." 00:12:27.000 |
And the whole time, I'm like, "Where is this? Like, where?" 00:12:32.000 |
And then they dismissed the class, and then I went home. 00:12:36.000 |
Not only did I not get salvation, I didn't get to hang out with my friends. 00:12:41.000 |
I sat in a dark office, talked to an adult that I didn't want to talk to, 00:12:47.000 |
And I never really even thought about that until I became a Christian. 00:12:51.000 |
And then I was thinking back at that, because I was so bitter over that experience 00:12:56.000 |
And then I was looking back at that, and it's like, "Oh, that's what they meant." 00:13:01.000 |
Now, I know it's a funny story, and I was a young kid at that time. 00:13:05.000 |
But how many people come to Christ not really understanding, or even questioning, 00:13:15.000 |
If you want to be a Christian, and you want to go to heaven, 00:13:21.000 |
Instead, three chapters of "You can't. None of that is going to get you to heaven." 00:13:26.000 |
He said, "But now, I'm going to present to you the righteousness of God 00:13:30.000 |
that is apart from your good works, apart from the law." 00:13:40.000 |
Now, we have to first understand what we fell away from. 00:13:46.000 |
See, Romans 3.23, and I know you guys know this passage well, 00:13:49.000 |
it basically says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 00:13:56.000 |
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 00:14:02.000 |
It said, "No one does good, no not one. No one seeks God, no not one," 00:14:08.000 |
But here it says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 00:14:12.000 |
So, he describes our fall from eternal life, our condemnation, 00:14:22.000 |
So, our salvation means that that glory that we have fallen short of 00:14:33.000 |
Now, again, there's all different kinds of ways for us to present that. 00:14:41.000 |
so the only way to receive salvation is to restore that glory of God. 00:14:47.000 |
If we've fallen short of it, and that's why we don't have eternal life, 00:14:57.000 |
and we had a whole weekend of messages on the glory of God. 00:15:04.000 |
And then we had another session about darkness and the glory. 00:15:07.000 |
And at the end of the retreat, I remember so many people coming and asking, 00:15:15.000 |
Well, defining the glory of God is very difficult. 00:15:18.000 |
Defining glory of God is kind of like defining love. 00:15:21.000 |
Now, if I ask you to define love, you can say, "Love is…" 00:15:30.000 |
You're going to describe the effects of love. 00:15:33.000 |
So some of you may say, you know, some of you may be in love right now. 00:15:36.000 |
Right? And you say, if you feel like you get punched in the gut, that's love. 00:15:39.000 |
You know what I mean? You've got these strong emotions. 00:15:41.000 |
You can't sleep, you can't eat, and that's all you can think about. 00:15:46.000 |
That could be a virus, that could be all kinds of stuff. 00:15:52.000 |
We're just talking about, that's just the effects of love. Right? 00:15:56.000 |
It's like, "Oh, super power. You have power." 00:15:59.000 |
You know, like before, I would fall asleep driving 30 minutes, 00:16:02.000 |
and now I can drive 10 hours to see her. Right? 00:16:09.000 |
So the only way to describe love is what it does to you when you are in love. 00:16:13.000 |
So in the same way, when we describe the glory of God, 00:16:17.000 |
glory of God basically is the presentation of God Himself. 00:16:22.000 |
And the only way that we could describe this glory 00:16:25.000 |
is what it does to people when they're in this presence. 00:16:30.000 |
In fact, Ligon Duncan, president of the PCA, Presbyterian Church of America, 00:16:37.000 |
he describes the glory of God in this simple term. 00:16:41.000 |
And the simple term is, "God is, a glory of God is God Himself." 00:16:49.000 |
It may not be satisfying to you, but that's what it means. 00:17:02.000 |
When we talk about glorifying something, right, we mean exaggerating. 00:17:08.000 |
Say, "Ah, that guy's always glorifying his wife. 00:17:14.000 |
And when we say that, we typically mean that you're taking something 00:17:17.000 |
that is probably just normal, and then you're exaggerating to the point 00:17:22.000 |
Only when we are using that of God do we mean that you're presenting Him. 00:17:29.000 |
You're not taking something that is God, and then you're magnifying it 00:17:34.000 |
When we say we're glorifying God, all that means is we're revealing Him. 00:17:43.000 |
In fact, again, Corrie Ten Boone, I remember, was a famous evangelist. 00:17:48.000 |
And again, so those of you who know who she is, she was one time quoting 00:17:52.000 |
about evangelism, and she said that before she used to sell watches 00:17:56.000 |
and how bad she felt because in order to sell, be a good watch salesman, 00:18:07.000 |
So she always has to sell, and she said she always felt bad. 00:18:12.000 |
But as an evangelist, she never has to feel bad because no matter how much 00:18:15.000 |
she talks about God, she can never over-exaggerate who He is. 00:18:19.000 |
And only when we refer to God Himself and we glorify Him, 00:18:24.000 |
we're basically talking about His true essence. 00:18:28.000 |
That we're just kind of uncovering who He is, and we are displaying Him 00:18:35.000 |
In Isaiah chapter 6, remember when Isaiah gets a glimpse of the throne of God? 00:18:41.000 |
And when he sees the glimpse of the throne of God, his response, 00:18:44.000 |
or he sees these creatures saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. 00:18:53.000 |
So when he describes this scene of God as the whole earth being filled 00:18:57.000 |
with His glory, basically he's saying that His essence, 00:19:01.000 |
He is omnipresent, that all of His full glory is filled in this earth. 00:19:08.000 |
God Himself says in Leviticus chapter 10, verse 3, 00:19:11.000 |
"The whole purpose of the Levitical system, of the temple system, 00:19:18.000 |
Remember Nadab and Nebihu, they come with strange fire, 00:19:21.000 |
God is angered, He consumes them, and He says to Aaron 00:19:26.000 |
and to the leaders, the reason why that they were killed, 00:19:32.000 |
and the fire came and consumed them, He says, "To My people, 00:19:35.000 |
I will be shown to be holy, I will be glorified." 00:19:41.000 |
So the scripture describes our fall as falling short of that glory, 00:19:47.000 |
His very essence, we've departed from His glory. 00:19:51.000 |
And He's saying that there is no way for you to restore that glory 00:19:58.000 |
That's why in Romans chapter 8, 2-4, eventually we're going to get to that text, 00:20:01.000 |
that He says, Paul says, "For God has done what the law, 00:20:08.000 |
By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, 00:20:13.000 |
in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us." 00:20:16.000 |
He said the whole, the Gospel is, what you could not do by your own works. 00:20:22.000 |
He said God sent His Son, with power of the Holy Spirit, 00:20:33.000 |
The text that we're looking at basically says, 00:20:36.000 |
you've fallen short because you've fallen short of the glory of God. 00:20:41.000 |
And then it repeats, three, four separate times, 00:20:45.000 |
that the Gospel is the righteousness of God displayed. 00:20:49.000 |
It says in verse 21, "The righteousness of God has been manifest apart from the law." 00:20:56.000 |
Verse 22, "The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." 00:21:01.000 |
Verse 25, "The righteousness of God through propitiation by His blood." 00:21:06.000 |
Verse 26, "The righteousness of God to be displayed by passing over former sins." 00:21:27.000 |
The way that I'm going to show you is the way to restore that glory. 00:21:32.000 |
So what I want to do this morning is I want to jump into 00:21:36.000 |
these three or four things that the Scripture says in this text, 00:21:39.000 |
to go into detail of why salvation can only be by faith, 00:21:51.000 |
"The righteousness of God is revealed, is manifested apart from the law." 00:21:56.000 |
In other words, the law is not going to play any part in your salvation. 00:21:59.000 |
We talked about last week the three different uses of the law. 00:22:02.000 |
Now one of the laws that He said is the purpose of it, 00:22:10.000 |
But the law never had any power to take you to that, or to restore that. 00:22:15.000 |
All the law did was to say, "This is who God is." 00:22:18.000 |
So every part of the Levitical Covenant, every part of His commandments, 00:22:25.000 |
all of it revealed God's holy, holy, holy nature. 00:22:29.000 |
And by revealing His glory, we look upon that and we say, "Wow!" 00:22:34.000 |
And then to recognize that we are far from this. 00:22:38.000 |
Last night, I know a lot of you guys watched basketball, 00:22:42.000 |
you guys were basketball fans, and I know some of you guys are basketball fans 00:22:46.000 |
because you were online and went berserk last night, and I saw it. 00:22:50.000 |
The high school kids in our home, they went up to a retreat, so they weren't there. 00:22:55.000 |
Esther went out and she had some women's fellowship, so she was gone. 00:22:59.000 |
So, Isaiah and I had an opportunity to have a bonding time. 00:23:04.000 |
It happened that they were on ABC at 5.30, and so we were locked in. 00:23:13.000 |
So him and I started watching this game, and initially it was kind of like, 00:23:16.000 |
"Man, it looks like they're going to lose this game through the whole thing." 00:23:20.000 |
And so, to you guys who saw the game, you know what I'm talking about. 00:23:23.000 |
And then Corey decided he's going to play, right? 00:23:26.000 |
It's as simple as that. He just decided, "All right, we're not going to lose today." 00:23:31.000 |
And he was making ridiculous shot after ridiculous shot, 00:23:34.000 |
and then took it to overtime, and then the final shot that he took. 00:23:38.000 |
And Isaiah, you know, he's as patient as he could be for a seven-year-old. 00:23:42.000 |
He sat there, and he was rooting with me, and then when they went to overtime, 00:23:45.000 |
he started losing patience, like, "Is it over? Is it over?" 00:23:48.000 |
And then he'd go out and come back, go out and come back. 00:23:50.000 |
And then obviously, overtime, I was riveted, and he could tell I was riveted. 00:23:53.000 |
And then he doesn't fully understand what's going on, 00:23:56.000 |
but that last shot that he chucked up, you know, that's the kind of shot 00:24:00.000 |
like a player might do once or twice in his career, and say, "Oh, I made that shot." 00:24:08.000 |
Routinely, he eats breakfast, and he shoots half-court shots. 00:24:13.000 |
So he comes up, takes two steps, and he shoots it, 00:24:17.000 |
and, you know, automatically, it's like, "Anybody else take that shot?" 00:24:21.000 |
"What are you doing? You've got four seconds left, you know?" 00:24:24.000 |
Harrison Barnes is, you know, racing down, and he's on the left. 00:24:27.000 |
Give it to him. There's enough time for him to do a layup, but no, he comes up, and it goes in. 00:24:34.000 |
And, of course, I went nuts. I was like, "Whoa!" 00:24:37.000 |
I was trying to high-five somebody. Nobody's in the room. 00:24:43.000 |
I look at Isaiah, and Isaiah knew. Isaiah knew. 00:24:46.000 |
He's like, "Oh, my gosh! This guy's nuts!" You know? 00:24:55.000 |
And so it was so funny because, you know, Esther came home late, and Isaiah went to bed after that, 00:24:59.000 |
and then she told me this morning that Esther came in late at night and kissed him on the forehead, 00:25:04.000 |
and he woke up, and it was so funny because Esther told me this morning, "Did you hear him?" 00:25:08.000 |
I said, "Oh, what did he say?" I heard something, but I didn't hear what he was saying. 00:25:17.000 |
He doesn't even remember. I don't even think he was up. 00:25:20.000 |
He was so affected by what he saw, and probably my reaction, that he's like, 00:25:26.000 |
"Curry was on fire, and he was mumbling this the whole time he went to the bathroom and came back." 00:25:36.000 |
Now, part of the reason why it has that kind of effect, right, 00:25:41.000 |
if it was just a simple, like, "Oh, you play basketball, and you put a layup on," it would still be exciting. 00:25:46.000 |
Right? But we think, we look at that and say, "I could do that." 00:25:49.000 |
Anybody on the team, it was just good planning. It was just, you know. 00:25:53.000 |
But the reason why I'm talking about it, why it's on the internet, 00:25:56.000 |
why all the best basketball players, LeBron James, all these guys are on Twitter or Instagram, 00:26:04.000 |
whatever is on there, Snapchat, whatever, is putting that up there, 00:26:08.000 |
is because even they, even the best basketball players of our generation watch that and say, 00:26:12.000 |
"This guy is nuts! I've never seen anything like it! Never seen anything like it!" 00:26:22.000 |
See, even something as trivial as a basketball shot of another man just like us 00:26:30.000 |
could have that kind of effect, where 70-year-olds in their sleep are mumbling about his skills. Right? 00:26:39.000 |
See, when we talk about the glory of God, the glory of God, think about it. 00:26:43.000 |
If it's that trivial, something that trivial can affect us that deeply, 00:26:47.000 |
the Scripture says that we have fallen short of the glory of God of the universe. 00:26:53.000 |
We have fallen short of the glory of God of the universe. 00:26:57.000 |
We look at Steph Curry and what he did and say, "I can't possibly do that." 00:27:02.000 |
But when we are exposed to the glory of God, how can anybody look upon that and say, 00:27:07.000 |
"I can do my part. That I can somehow add to this. 00:27:13.000 |
That if I worked hard enough, if I did something, if I was willed enough, 00:27:21.000 |
It's because we don't understand what it is that we have fallen short of. 00:27:26.000 |
And that's why he says, "A righteousness of God, apart from the law, has now been revealed in Christ." 00:27:36.000 |
Secondly, he says, in verse 22, "The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." 00:27:43.000 |
Why by faith? Why does it have to be by faith alone? 00:27:48.000 |
And again, I'm going to put this out there before I even get into it. 00:27:53.000 |
Because salvation by faith has been preached so freely. 00:27:57.000 |
And we ought to preach it freely because that is the truth. 00:28:00.000 |
But we presented it to the lowest common denominator. 00:28:04.000 |
And they said, "Well, if it's not by work, meaning hard work, and faith just means how you feel, I'll take that." 00:28:10.000 |
So many people have come to faith saying, "Oh, I believe." 00:28:15.000 |
But the scripture says that genuine faith, even if it is small as a mustard seed, can move mountains. 00:28:24.000 |
So this is not just some warm fuzzing in your heart. 00:28:28.000 |
This is not just kind of like, you know, like, "Oh, okay, I'll try that." 00:28:34.000 |
And if it is genuine, even a speck of that is so powerful that you could even move mountains. 00:28:40.000 |
If it is by faith, it has to be genuine faith. 00:28:47.000 |
You know, when we went out to India this last trip and the trip before, 00:28:52.000 |
we've told you that we land in Bangalore, which is a large city, and then we drive five hours into the countryside, 00:28:59.000 |
So even that drive out to the countryside, we're headed out to the boonies. 00:29:03.000 |
Every morning we wake up, we have to go to the village, and it takes anywhere from an hour, hour and a half, up to two hours. 00:29:09.000 |
Now, we're already in the boonies, so two hours into these villages, I mean, we're in the boonies of boonies. 00:29:15.000 |
And if something happened and all these guys left and we are stranded, we're literally in the remotest part of the world. 00:29:20.000 |
It might just be safe to dig a hole and hide, you know what I mean? 00:29:23.000 |
Because there's no way we're going to find our way out. 00:29:26.000 |
And I remember the whole time thinking, like, you know, every morning we're driving, and every day to a different place, 00:29:30.000 |
and these guys know exactly where to make a left turn, where to make a right turn. 00:29:34.000 |
I could have a GPS and just follow what it says. I would not be able to find these places. 00:29:38.000 |
You know, go straight, you see a white cow, make a left, you're going to see a child peeing on the side of the road, 00:29:45.000 |
make a right there. Like, how are you going to, there's no road signs, there's nothing. 00:29:49.000 |
It's in the middle of nowhere. It's just two hours of this. 00:29:52.000 |
But the reason why we're able to get there every day is because these drivers and these passers are taking us, some of them, to their homes. 00:29:59.000 |
So we don't have to worry about the GPS. We don't have to worry about making a left turn. How do we get there? 00:30:03.000 |
Think about, if we've fallen short of the glory of God, think of it this way. 00:30:08.000 |
If we've fallen short of the glory of God, it's kind of like you've been sitting on a boat and you've been drifting for years, your whole life. 00:30:17.000 |
And you find that you don't know where you are. You may be in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles away from anywhere, 00:30:24.000 |
and you can't tell between, you know, right, left, north, south, you don't know. 00:30:29.000 |
And so you can start paddling, but you can be paddling toward the wrong direction. 00:30:33.000 |
And even if you knew the direction, you don't have any way to get there. 00:30:37.000 |
So even if you stuck your arm out and you started paddling, you may have to paddle until your arm falls off and still not get anywhere near where you need to go. 00:30:45.000 |
See, salvation by works, because we don't understand how far we are from this glory, 00:30:51.000 |
for anybody to think that somehow I'm going to work to get there is no different than a man saying, "No, I'm just going to paddle my way in." 00:30:59.000 |
You may not even be headed toward the right direction. 00:31:02.000 |
So when Christ comes, He says, "Trust Me, follow Me, abide in Me." 00:31:07.000 |
And so unless we allow Jesus to come in and take over our lives, we can't possibly find our way back. 00:31:16.000 |
And He says the only way is to follow Him by believing in Him. 00:31:21.000 |
See, in John chapter 8, 21 through 24, Jesus speaks to the unbelievers. 00:31:25.000 |
And He says to them, "I am going away and you will look for Me and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come." 00:31:33.000 |
Basically because you're not going to be able to find it. 00:31:36.000 |
There's no way you're going to know how to get there. 00:31:39.000 |
And even if you did, you have no power to get there. 00:31:41.000 |
And because of that, where I go, you cannot come. 00:31:44.000 |
This made the Jews ask, "Will He kill Himself? Is that why He says, 'Where I go, you cannot come?'" 00:31:50.000 |
But He continued, "You are from below, I am from above. You are of this world and I am not of this world. 00:31:55.000 |
I told you that you would die in your sins if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be. 00:32:03.000 |
"If you do not believe what I have told you and if you do not trust Me, you will die in your sins. You cannot come." 00:32:10.000 |
John chapter 14, 3 to 6, He's talking to His own disciples and He says to them, 00:32:16.000 |
"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself that where I am, you may also go." 00:32:26.000 |
He says, "The only way that I can show you how to get there is if you come with Me and I take you with Me. 00:32:35.000 |
Thomas said to Him, "Lord, we do not know where You are going. How can we know the way?" 00:32:40.000 |
So in other words, "I don't understand." Like how? You're going to show us? You're going to point us? 00:32:44.000 |
He says, "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'" 00:32:53.000 |
In other words, what Jesus was saying is, "You don't understand just how far you've drifted away from God." 00:32:58.000 |
Falling short of that glory isn't simply you got in a race and one person won and you came second place. 00:33:04.000 |
You've drifted so far away from God that you can't even see His glory. 00:33:09.000 |
And that's exactly what the Scripture says. We're so blinded by our sins that even when we're faced with His glory, you don't even recognize His glory. 00:33:16.000 |
And that's why He said, "Unless you believe in Me, unless I get in the car and confess Me as your Lord and Savior and allow Me to drive this car, you will not be able to find it." 00:33:29.000 |
And that's why He says, "The righteousness of God is manifested apart from the law and that our salvation again is by faith alone." 00:33:37.000 |
And then thirdly, He says, "Righteousness of God can only be done by the propitiation by His blood." 00:33:43.000 |
In verse 25. Now I'm not going to get too technical here because there's a lot of technical things going on here with the word "propitiation." 00:33:50.000 |
But the word "propitiation" is directly linked to the Day of Atonement. 00:33:55.000 |
And again, I'm not going to go too deep into that because there's a bunch of foundational things that I need to say to you before you can maybe even understand that. 00:34:03.000 |
But on the Day of Atonement, this one day that the nation of Israel was to sacrifice, and the high priest, one high priest in the nation of Israel, will go into the Holy of Holies and take the blood of the Lamb and sprinkle the mercy seed. 00:34:16.000 |
And what that symbolized was that the king who rightfully sits on this throne, that his wrath is thwarted because of the blood sacrifice. 00:34:26.000 |
So basically the word "propitiation" means is to appease the wrath of God. 00:34:32.000 |
So the word for "propitiation" is the same word used in the Old Testament for that mercy seat. 00:34:38.000 |
Now that's about as technical as I'm going to get for this morning. 00:34:41.000 |
So when he says that the righteousness of God is revealed through the propitiation, he's saying that God's righteousness is revealed by His blood sacrifice. 00:34:53.000 |
You know, the Jews kept on coming to Jesus and trying to trip Him up. 00:35:00.000 |
We mentioned one last week where they had this adulterous woman brought them to Jesus and said, "We're going to trap this guy. 00:35:10.000 |
And if you say yes, then the Romans are going to come and they're going to take care of you. 00:35:17.000 |
If you say no, you're going to lose a bunch of people who've been obedient to the law." 00:35:22.000 |
And so whatever he says, it's not going to be good for him. 00:35:28.000 |
And then Jesus says, "He who has no sin, let him cast the first stone." 00:35:37.000 |
So they've probably been debating this with each other, like, "What should we do?" 00:35:41.000 |
And all of a sudden they say, "OK, let's take this to Jesus and see what happens." 00:35:45.000 |
And hoping that he'd be trapped. And they're like, "Oh my gosh, we didn't think of that. OK. 00:35:53.000 |
It's like, "Well, what about the temple offering?" 00:35:57.000 |
And they've been debating this back and forth. 00:35:59.000 |
If we pay taxes like Caesar demands, they're using those taxes to force us to bow to Caesar 00:36:05.000 |
and to basically force us to have pagan worship. 00:36:09.000 |
But if we don't give it to them and only give it to the temple, we're going to get in trouble with the Romans. 00:36:13.000 |
So they say, "OK, let's see what Jesus is going to say." 00:36:15.000 |
And put him in a trap. Anything he says is going to trap him. 00:36:18.000 |
And then he's going to have the wrath of the Romans or the wrath of the Jews upon him. 00:36:22.000 |
And Jesus says, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and render to God what is God's." 00:36:32.000 |
They've been debating this probably for years. 00:36:35.000 |
For years they've been debating, "What should we do?" 00:36:39.000 |
And there's things that we debate all the time. 00:36:41.000 |
It's like, "Gray area. Is it right? Is it wrong? Should we do this? What about this? 00:36:51.000 |
But all the tension that the Jews were discussing, 00:36:55.000 |
the greatest of this tension was about the very nature of God. 00:37:02.000 |
Because the Bible clearly says, through the prophets, that God does not tolerate sin. 00:37:14.000 |
And he demonstrated that over and over and over again. 00:37:18.000 |
You know, as parents, and I shared this last time, 00:37:20.000 |
sometimes I don't want to discipline the kids because I'm tired. 00:37:33.000 |
And I'm sitting there thinking, "I don't want to do this again." 00:37:36.000 |
If I pretend like I don't know, and I don't punish them, then no damage done. 00:37:42.000 |
Actually, there's a lot of damage, but it doesn't look bad. Right? 00:37:52.000 |
he will never just sweep sin underneath the rug. 00:37:55.000 |
He's not going to say, "Oh, I didn't see that." 00:37:58.000 |
He said, "Where can I go from your presence?" Right? 00:38:02.000 |
"Where can I go? I can't hide from God no matter what I do." 00:38:08.000 |
In Nahum 1, 2-3, it says, "The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. 00:38:13.000 |
The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries and keeps wrath for His enemies. 00:38:17.000 |
The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. 00:38:20.000 |
And the Lord will by no means clear the guilty." 00:38:25.000 |
By no means, God said. And He didn't just say it. 00:38:28.000 |
He demonstrated over and over again His judgment upon even His own people. 00:38:33.000 |
Even His own people that He called the apple of My eye, He brought judgment upon them. 00:38:37.000 |
And how much more will He bring judgment upon those who He did not choose? 00:38:43.000 |
Deuteronomy 4-24, "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." 00:38:48.000 |
And here's the tension. So they know this about God. 00:38:56.000 |
Even the glory of God shining off of Moses' face caused so much terror, 00:39:01.000 |
they begged Moses to get into a tent to veil himself because it terrified them. 00:39:06.000 |
Because they don't know, if they get too close to God, they might die. 00:39:18.000 |
and all over Scripture, it says, "I am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, 00:39:28.000 |
I mean, that's great that He's merciful. That's great that He's going to forgive sins. 00:39:33.000 |
But He said, "I will not, by no means, clear the guilty." 00:39:37.000 |
And then here He says, "I will not remember your sins." 00:39:42.000 |
"Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression? 00:39:46.000 |
For the remnant of His inheritance, He does not retain His anger forever, 00:39:58.000 |
How does a God who is wrathful and says, "I will not, by no means, let the guilty go free," 00:40:05.000 |
and then on this side He says, "I will not remember their sins." 00:40:09.000 |
And He does not delight in the punishment of the wicked. 00:40:16.000 |
And even in the prophets, it says in 1 Peter 1-10-11, 00:40:22.000 |
they were looking into it, like, "What is this? Who's going to do this?" 1 Peter 1-10. 00:40:26.000 |
"Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, 00:40:31.000 |
searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them 00:40:36.000 |
was indicating when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories." 00:40:41.000 |
Even the ones who are prophesying, how can this be? 00:40:48.000 |
How can a holy God who wipes out mankind and preserves only eight, 00:40:53.000 |
how can a holy God who walks in and says, "I will not tolerate sin," even in His own people, 00:41:06.000 |
He promised it clearly, but yet how is He going to deal with the sin and be gracious at the same time? 00:41:22.000 |
And it is at the cross where His righteousness was not compromised, nor His promise of mercy. 00:41:31.000 |
His nature and His glory was in perfect display. 00:41:36.000 |
If you talk about the essence of God, and you do not understand or highlight the cross, 00:41:46.000 |
Because it is at the cross where the greatest manifestation of His glory was revealed. 00:41:53.000 |
In His righteousness and holiness, in His mercy and His grace. 00:41:57.000 |
That's why when Jesus was going to the cross, He didn't say, "I'm going so that I can pay for the sins of many." 00:42:03.000 |
Which He did, and that's what He accomplished. 00:42:06.000 |
But when He went to the cross, He says, "I am going to glorify the Father." 00:42:14.000 |
And then the Holy Spirit glorified the both of them. 00:42:17.000 |
And so it is at the cross where the greatest presentation of His righteousness, 00:42:23.000 |
the greatest presentation of His glory was manifested. 00:42:27.000 |
And when people come in the presence of His glory, and when we are affected, 00:42:32.000 |
if we are affected by something trivial, as a man thrown up a half-court shot, 00:42:38.000 |
and we're affected, we're talking about it, and the internet is blown up because of that shot, 00:42:43.000 |
how much more when the full glory of God is manifested in this dark world? 00:42:50.000 |
An individual who claims to have the faith of God, have seen the glory of God, 00:42:57.000 |
and is not attracted to His holiness, does not understand who God is. 00:43:04.000 |
The full display of His glory at the cross causes us to run to His holiness, 00:43:14.000 |
It is the vindication of God's glory that is the catalyst for salvation. 00:43:19.000 |
And it is the declaration of God's glory, the goal of salvation. 00:43:26.000 |
It is the vindication of the glory of Christ that is the catalyst for salvation. 00:43:31.000 |
And it is the declaration of God's glory, the goal of salvation. 00:43:37.000 |
We are saved because we beheld the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, 00:43:45.000 |
And now for the rest of our lives, we are called to continue to declare this glory, 00:43:56.000 |
And so now He calls us to manifest this glory. 00:44:01.000 |
And again, Romans 1, 16-17, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, 00:44:05.000 |
for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, 00:44:10.000 |
For in the righteousness of God is revealed for faith, 00:44:13.000 |
as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" 00:44:18.000 |
I'm going to end with this story to kind of give you something to kind of hold on to. 00:44:25.000 |
You know, there was a period when our kids were a little bit smaller, 00:44:33.000 |
and so the impact swells up my knees, and so I started swimming for a period. 00:44:38.000 |
And then after about a year and a half, I stopped swimming. 00:44:40.000 |
And the reason why I stopped swimming is because, you know, 00:44:43.000 |
initially when I was swimming in the pool, you know, I've never been a good swimmer, 00:44:48.000 |
so it was just hard. I'm not paying attention to anything. 00:44:54.000 |
After a while, I started getting comfortable, where I started doing 10 laps, 20 laps, 30 laps, 00:44:57.000 |
and I'd be in there for 40 minutes, and, "Hey, this is pretty good. 00:45:01.000 |
But as soon as I started getting comfortable in the pool, 00:45:07.000 |
You know, it's like, "Is that a Band-Aid? What is that?" 00:45:11.000 |
And I get to, "Oh my gosh, it's a Band-Aid. Somebody put a Band-Aid in here." 00:45:14.000 |
So I'm just trying to ignore it. I'm just not watching it. 00:45:16.000 |
I go, "What is that? Is that a piece of cloth? 00:45:20.000 |
Is that a little piece of blood on that cloth?" 00:45:26.000 |
And then one day, what finally did it for me was, I'm swimming, 00:45:29.000 |
and I see this guy with a thick sweater jumping into the pool. 00:45:32.000 |
And I'm like, "Why is that guy wearing a sweater in a pool?" 00:45:41.000 |
I was like, "Oh my gosh, he's in my lane, and I'm trying very hard to stay away from him." 00:45:46.000 |
And I just couldn't swim in that pool anymore. That was it. 00:45:49.000 |
I know I need to exercise. I cannot swim here anymore. No more. I'm gone. Right? 00:45:55.000 |
And then when my kids were younger, I took the kids to the pool in our neighborhood pool, in our area, 00:46:02.000 |
The kids couldn't swim yet, so they're on one side, and they're all playing, 00:46:07.000 |
So I'm swimming to the deeper end, and I see little white pieces everywhere. 00:46:14.000 |
And I'm thinking, "What is that? Somebody dropped some tissue in here?" 00:46:25.000 |
And I start to, "Oh my gosh, is this what I think it is?" 00:46:30.000 |
And as I'm swimming there, I look down, and there's a diaper floating on the bottom of the pool. 00:46:34.000 |
And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, some kid exploded in here!" 00:46:38.000 |
And I just jumped out of the pool and said, "Everybody get out! Everybody get out!" 00:46:43.000 |
"There's a diaper at the end of the pool. Everybody get out!" 00:46:58.000 |
What if I told you I came out of that pool and I said, "You know what? That pool is dirty. 00:47:02.000 |
Don't worry about it, because there's fresh water coming in here." 00:47:06.000 |
"There's fresh water coming in here? Don't worry about it!" 00:47:09.000 |
"Look at that! The fresh water is coming in here! 00:47:11.000 |
I know there's a dirty diaper in the pool, but there's fresh water coming in here. 00:47:16.000 |
How many of you say, "Oh, okay, that's good!" 00:47:19.000 |
And they're like, "No! The only way to salvage that pool is you've got to drain that pool. 00:47:24.000 |
You've got to clean that thing and put it with fresh water." 00:47:30.000 |
So the Scripture says, "When we have fallen short of the glory of God, 00:47:35.000 |
our whole life, our whole being, our whole essence has been muddied and tainted by sin." 00:47:41.000 |
And for us to think that somehow we're going to work this off is ridiculous. 00:47:51.000 |
that you and I may become the righteousness of God. 00:47:58.000 |
And that's why He said, "Come, follow Me. He who seeks this life will lose it. 00:48:05.000 |
So the beginning of salvation is for us to recognize and to be broken 00:48:11.000 |
and realizing that every day of my life is because of His grace.