None Is Righteous

If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it. Romans 3 is where we are going to be at this morning and I want to go ahead and attach a warning to this message. There will be some of you in here this morning that I am willing to bet will not like this sermon. There may even be some of you in here this morning who will come face to face with a God that you have never met. There may be some of you in here this morning who for the first time in your life, stop and actually take an honest look at yourself. Over the past 2 weeks as we have gone through Paul’s letter to the Romans, we have been confronted with man’s sinfulness and we have been confronted with man’s rebellion and these are not easy things to talk about in the 21st century. Look at some of the most popular churches in the country and look at what they declare from the pulpit. They talk plenty of God’s love but not about His wrath. Some even attempt to say that God was a wrathful God in the Old Testament but by the New Testament He finally got His cup of coffee and wasn’t as grumpy anymore. These churches talk a lot about you and how great you are. You might be a little rough around the edges but for the most part, you’re pretty good. These churches gloss over sin, they gloss over justification, and they declare the message that God loves you just the way you are and you don’t have to change for Him. In fact, not only do you not have to change for Him, God will powerfully use you so that you can make a difference in the world. They preach the message that in some ways, God is simply a secondary character in His own story and that the Bible deep down is really about you and that you can place yourself into any narrative in the Bible, place yourself as any person, and boom there’s your story. I recently heard a “sermon” and I struggle to call it even that because it was an insult to preaching, some of you were even there and I’m not kidding, I felt like I should have apologized to each and every person that attended because you had to hear what this person said from the stage. This was false teaching as clear as day and people ate it up. Why? Because we want to believe that we are all that. When someone is able to say that God broke the law to save us and people cheer, that breaks my heart! This was blasphemy and it shows just how Biblically illiterate so many are. I tell the teenagers this all the time, the Bible is not about you. The Bible, when read as it should be read, shows the greatness of God and the depravity of ourselves. As we have seen in these early chapters of Romans, Paul shows us what our problem is. Paul doesn’t pull his punches. He doesn’t soften his message to make it go down easier. We don’t want to be told what our problems are. We want to be told that God loves us just the way we are now go, eat, drink, and be merry. But if we want to know God, we need to know ourselves. In the first 2 chapters of Romans, Paul shows us that mankind has a problem that they are unable to solve. Though man naturally knows God through His invisible attributes and creation, man has rejected God and God gave mankind up. All have sinned and all stand condemned before a holy and righteous God. All men, Jew and Gentile, God’s never impartial. In the middle of Romans 2 Paul shows us that we all have the law written on our hearts, we all know that there is right and wrong but the law on it’s own is powerless to save and one is not saved simply because they are Jewish. Moving into the beginning of Romans 3, Paul says that there is an advantage to being Jewish because the Jews can say that God entrusted them with His Word. The problem though is that their disobedience nullifies the advantage. This brings us to verse 9 and that is where we will spend our time this morning. We’re going to attempt to answer 3 questions this morning: 1. What is man’s problem? 2. How does a righteous God address that problem? 3. What can we do? Let’s begin in Romans 3:9-20

Romans 3:9–20 ESV

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 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.” 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.

What is Man’s Problem?

What is man’s universal problem? Verse 9 tells us what the problem is, all are under sin. Now it is not that we are unwillingly in this condition but we find ourselves in this position because we love sin. John 3:19 says, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” Mankind is not a car that just needs a new coat of paint. Mankind in order to be right with God needs to be made totally new. The Gospel is not here simply to improve mankind; it is here to transform mankind. We have a righteousness problem. In our sins, we possess no righteousness and the God of the universe is a God of total righteousness. The problem with every man from the time of Genesis 3 onward is that we do not know God and we do not care to know Him. Not a single human being in their sins is righteous, none have sought God, all have turned aside and are worthless. If you were to bring in all of your deeds before the righteous God of all creation, they would amount to nothing but dirty rags. Isaiah 64:6 “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” There is not a single unsanctified soul that does good in the eyes of God. One could find a cure for cancer and give it free to the world but that would not add one drop of merit to their standing before God. Is God unfair in that? No, there is no unfairness before the throne of God. God alone is perfectly just. No one will receive an unfair trial on the day of judgement. All our thoughts, words, and deeds will be brought to the forefront and what will be the verdict on that day? Guilty. Guilty because despite all the good we may have done on earth, we have sinned against God. Man has no fear of God in their eyes. Man has belittled God. Man has blasphemed God. Man has worshipped everything but God. Man has shed blood, man has spoke lies, man has crucified the Son of God and this has not escaped God’s sight. David says in Psalm 51:3-4

Psalm 51:3–4 ESV

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

Against God alone David says that he had sinned. Now David didn’t have a lapse of reason here. He knew that he sinned against Uriah and he knew that he sinned against Bathsheba. Murder and adultery were punishable by death according to the Law of God and yet David said that it was against God alone that he had sinned. What did he mean by that? He knew that sin was no small thing. David had committed cosmic treason against the King of Kings and he laid guilty before Him. What makes sin wrong is that it totally opposes God and His holiness. Man can sin against man all the day long and all he is doing is sinning against another sinner. Yet to sin in the presence of a righteous God is treason, it is total wickedness. When someone wrongs us, we more often than naught let the injustice pass us by but God is too perfect and too just to let sin go by unpunished. We have the tendency to think that God will just let things go but that is not the God of Scripture. Go back to Psalm 50 and we see that Israel’s problem was that they allowed sin to run rampant and they assumed that God was just like them. They assumed that God was a little-g God that talked like them, looked like them, acted like them but look what the Lord says in Psalm 50:19-21

Psalm 50:19–21 ESV

“You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.

Man’s problem is that the God that created them is not like them. God is holy. God is pure. God is truth and man in his sins are none of those things. Man’s problem is that he is a sinner. Man’s problem is that they have rejected God and have rejected His commandments. We have exchanged the truth for lies. We have chosen wickedness over righteousness. We have chosen to follow the king of darkness over the King of Everlasting Light. No matter how much good we may do in this life, it won’t carry us an inch closer to heaven. Romans 3:19-20 is where we need to stop and meditate. These verses need to have us all stop where we are at and cut our hearts.

Romans 3:19–20 ESV

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.

The whole world will be held accountable to God and by no works of the law shall man be justified in God’s sight. If you are not a Christian, the day will come where God will take your case and without a moment of hesitation will declare that you are guilty. You can assemble the greatest team of lawyers in the history of the world but the glove of your sinfulness is still going to fit. Like Lady Macbeth, you can scrub your hands all the day long but that spot of sin will not come off. This brings us to our second question: How does a Righteous God respond to man’s problem?

How Does a Righteous God Respond to Man’s Problem?

What does God do with the sons and daughters of disobedience? He gives them what they have earned and what they deserve. No one will be able to complain about their paycheck on the last day, every cent will be paid in full. In due time, God will do away with all unrighteousness. Sinners will not be able to stand in His presence and God will send them to hell forever. There is so much sin and wickedness in the human heart that creation is in agony, waiting for the day when God will punish it forever. I have heard it said like this that there is so much sin and evil in your heart that if you refuse to come to God for mercy and forgiveness that the very last thing that you will hear as you take your first step into hell is all of creation thanking and praising God that He has rid the earth of you. We should never ask the question, “How bad is one little sin?” The question we must try to answer is, “How much evil is in one sin that it condemns man to hell forever?” Thomas Watson said that there was more evil in a drop of sin than in a sea of affliction. Allow me to tell you a truth that should terrify every unsaved soul in all of creation. The scariest thing that I can tell you is this: God is good. What’s so bad about that? The problem is this: You’re not good. You’re bad and if it were not for God’s common grace at this very moment, you would already be in hell. How bad is man? Look at it this way: Adolf Hitler was not an anomaly. Joseph Stalin was not an anomaly. Osama Bin Laden was not an anomaly. Vladimir Putin is not an anomaly. Kim Jung Un is not an anomaly. Each and every one of us has such a potential to sin that if God were not pouring out his common grace right now, we would make these men look like angels. One of the most dangerous things that we can tell the world is that God hates the sin and loves the sinner. That’s not in the Bible. God hates sin and sinner. We don’t have time to look at it but if you don’t think that sounds right, take a look at Psalm 5 later. Just because you are made in the image of God does not make you a child of God. You can be baptized and not a Christian. You can go to church and not be a Christian. You might have your name in the church directory but not have it in the Lamb’s book of life. It is the sinner that is punished in hell, not sin itself. If you are not right with God, you have no hope in this world. You have nothing to cling to, you have nothing to present to better your case, you have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel and you are hovering over the flames of hell by a fraying string. Jonathan Edwards said, “The sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over the sinners heads, and ‘tis nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy, and God’s mere will, that holds it back.” Something must be done about this. The debt of sin must be paid for yet what we have read in these past 2 chapters and what we will see later on in Romans 4 is that we can’t pay this. This is an impossible debt. I could offer a thousand sacrifices a day for my entire life yet that would not cover the debt that I owe. God could close the books now and He would continue to be perfectly righteous, perfectly just, and no one could charge Him with fault. God does not owe mercy or grace to anyone. God does not owe you or I a single thing. Your sin must be paid in full but how are we to do it? How could we do it? What can we do? Let’s turn to the answer in Romans 3:21-31

Romans 3:21–31 ESV

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of 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 then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

What Can We Do?

Martyn Lloyd-Jones used to say thank God for the buts of the Bible. You could stop Romans 3 at verse 20 and you would come to this conclusion: God is just, God is righteous, and I am held accountable to Him and before me is a debt I can never pay. As I read these verses, I’m struck with gratefulness. I see what I have done, I see what I am doing, I think of the mistakes that I will make and I am simply amazed that I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God but despite that reality, God in His grace has given me His Son. I get to verses 21-26 and all I can think is, Thank you Jesus! Thank you for paying what I could not pay! Thank you for bearing the wrath I could not bear! Thank you for being forsaken so I would never have to! Thank you for paying my impossible debt! Thank you for dying so that I who deserved nothing but death could live! There’s nothing in these verses that I can do besides sin! The only thing I bring to the table of salvation is the sin that requires salvation in the first place! My salvation, my justification, is not my own! It’s been bought at a price and the price was the life of the Son of God! Christ Jesus, whom God put forth, propitiated the wrath that we deserved. To propitiate means that all the wrath that was due to me and my sin has been satisfied by Christ’s perfect once and for all sacrifice. If I have been made new by Christ, it means I don’t owe anything! But I gain everything! Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.” As Christians, whether we live or whether we die, and last I checked those are the only 2 options, whatever may come, it is not God’s wrath! How do we know this? Because Christ absorbed the wrath that was due to us! Everything then from life to death is nothing but a reminder of God’s love and mercy! Even death itself does nothing but bring us to the throne of grace! All of this is to say that unless Jesus Christ stands in your place, unless you cast yourself before Him in faith, the wrath of God will be upon you. But if you fall down before Him, admit your sins, and cry out for salvation, Christ will give you His perfect righteousness in exchange for your unrighteousness. You will be justified and you will be born again. The fact that God has allowed you to live to this moment is a testimony to His patience and the day is coming where the Lord will return to bring His people home and when that day comes, where will you stand? What will you plead? What will the verdict of your life be? What will God say of you on that day? You see, I’ve been called a lot of things in my life. Some good and some bad. For one person, I’m called a husband. For 2 people I’m called a Dad. I’ve been called son and brother. I’ve been called preacher and pastor and minister and a theologian, I’ve even been called a Puritan which I love. I’ve also been called a lot of negative things in my life. I’ve been called things years ago that I still carry with me. Yet all those things can pass away because the title that I take the most honor in is justified. I have been justified by faith apart from works. God has passed over my former sins and I have been made right with Him. Not based on my own works but on Christ’s works. Not because of my life but because of Christ’s life. Salvation is offered to you this day. Now is the time, now is the hour. You don’t need to raise your hand or shake my hand or come up here during the last song, you just need to believe in your heart of hearts that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, raised from the dead and through Him and Him alone comes the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. You may think, “I’ve done too much to be forgiven. You don’t know my life, you don’t know my struggles, I can’t do it.” My friends, God’s desire to forgive is greater than our want of forgiveness. God owes us nothing but His love is greater than our willingness to be loved. God’s willingness to save you is greater than our desire to be saved. If someone like Saul of Tarsus could be saved, someone like you can be saved. Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:15 “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” Why did Jesus come? It was to seek and save the lost. Until you recognize that you are lost, you will never recognize your need to be found. It is the sick that recognize that they need a doctor. This day, each and everyone of us has been reminded that the ground is leveled at the foot of the cross. We all need grace. We all need Christ as He alone can save us from our sins. I hope that we all recognize the sinfulness of sin and that there is a pit in our stomach where we recognize our inability to save ourselves. Yet I also want us to cheerfully recognize that Christ offers to pay our debt in full. That He stands before His Heavenly Father even now mediating on our behalf. Who are we that God would be mindful of us? When God looks at you, what does He see? Does He see someone that is under the dominion of sin and death? Or does He see someone that has been chosen and redeemed by the blood of His Son? This world can look at you in all types of ways but the only thing that matters is how God sees you. Benji and I about 3 weeks ago started reading his first “big boy” chapter book and instead of starting out with something simple like Paddington or Little House on the Prairie, I picked out Tolkien’s The Hobbit. What’s 300+ pages to a 4 year old anyway? As someone who has loved these books and movies for a very long time, I had been looking forward for a while of sharing the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings with my kids but one of the things that is amazing about these books is the theology that is in them. If you haven’t read the Hobbit, there’s this moment towards the beginning of the book where the dwarves all arrive at Bilbo Baggin’s house and they are sharing their plan of how they are going to retrieve the gold and Gandalf introduces Bilbo as the groups burglar. The dwarves have a lot of questions and they start second guessing and verbally assaulting poor Bilbo because they don’t see him as a burglar. Gandalf then says one of my favorite quotes in the entire book: “Let’s have no more argument. I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.” Do you see where I’m going with this? The world and Satan may argue over your soul but if we belong to Christ, God says, “no more argument. I have chosen that man, I have chosen that woman and that ought to be enough. If I say he is justified, justified he is. If I say he is redeemed, redeemed He is. There is a lot more in him than you guess and He which is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” Can God say that about you? If you have not been saved by faith in Jesus Christ, I call on you this day to be saved. Now is the appropriate time, now is the day of salvation. If you are looking for an answer to the man’s problem of sin, it can be found nowhere else than in the free gift of God’s grace that is given through Jesus Christ. Let’s pray.