“Why Do We Need Jesus?” | Romans 3:21-26

INTRODUCTION

Good morning to all of you, welcome to the first Sunday of Advent. A season of waiting and anticipation the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth. This is a time to reflect on hope, peace and joy. To God be the glory for this tremendous opportunity to be with you. As you know, this is the busiest season of the year; and the most stressful for many people. Many of you are sending out greetings and gifts to your love ones and friends. This is a great time to go above and beyond to meet the need of someone else other then our family.

For all the grandparents here today, your love will be challenged when your grandchildren make their own list of what they anticipate from you. In the middle of this busyness, I want to draw your attention to one of the most fundamental questions of our human existence. "Why Do I / We Need Jesus?" we can't live our lives completely ignorant of God. No matter how hard humanity tries to stay busy living this life, it is just a matter of time before you face the reality of God.

Why do we or I need Jesus? Maybe some of you here have already decided on this question; permit me to serve as a reminder this morning, but if you are here and have not decided, I want to encourage you to pause amid the busyness of buying and selling, eating, and drinking, giving gifts, and receiving. Why do we need Jesus? I want to draw your attention to Romans chapter 3, verses 21 to 26. The apostle Paul wrote to Christians in Rome, addressing the state of humanity and why every person needs Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul states that God designed a search and rescue process to restore humanity from sin-wrecked life to safety and a relationship with God. The text reads:

THE TEXT

“But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.” – Romans 3:21-26

ILLUSTRATION STORY:

While studying this subject matter, I came across an interesting story:

“It took a team effort to rescue one shipwrecked Aussie. Glenn, a 44-year-old Australian man, was lost at sea. What had been a relaxing two weeks of sailing down the coast became a brutal life-and-death ordeal. During a raging storm, a massive wave flipped the yacht and snapped the mast into three pieces. Helpless and adrift 270 nautical miles off the coast, Glenn activated his emergency flare, and then waited. Sheltering below deck on the broken boat, Glenn couldn’t have known that an airplane full of bored Canadians and home-bound Australians were about to be shaken from their mid-flight stupor by the pilot. The plane’s captain, Andrew Robertson, explained that they’d been asked by Australian search and rescue to help locate a distressed yacht. Captain Robertson then brought his plane down to 5,000 ft. and asked crew and passengers to watch for the boat. Robertson admitted that it was like finding “a needle in a haystack.” Robertson said, “I had already made a PA announcement telling passengers what we were doing and as we got into the area, I said: “We’re coming into the search area, please everybody look out to the window and if you see anything let us know.”Several passengers and a flight officer using a passenger’s binoculars almost immediately spotted the yacht. Robertson dropped the plane to less than 4,000 feet and determined it was the right boat. With the location reported, a coast guard rescue was launched. After his rescue, Ey said, “I heard the jet overhead, but I didn’t know it was for me I wasn’t aware of what had transpired until I got back to land. I think what they did is fantastic.” - Barry L. Davis

UNCERTAINTIES

Like Glenn, in this story, we all can relate to how quickly things can turn from moment to moment and that this life is filled with uncertainties. What can go wrong with one perfect day of relaxation on a boat enjoying life? But we see that a storm turned a relaxing day into a life-treating situation with a wrack boat that could no longer meet Glenn’s needs. Everything he put into that boat was a complete loss. He was left at the mercy of the sea and the storm, hoping that someone, somewhere, would come to his refuge and save his life. Who Needs Jesus? To tackle this question, let us first examine the Biblical history of humility; who are we, and how did we get here? The Bible tells us in Genesis chapter three that God created the first human being (Adam) and gave him an assigned task and everything he needed to fulfill his God-given destiny. His life had meaning and purpose and aligned with His creator, God. There is no greater joy in this life than to be in alignment with or in a relationship with God anddo what we are created to do. Humanity was created to be in fellowship and intimacy with God. An example of such closeness between God and Adam is in the second chapter of the Genesis narrative, in which Adam and God worked collaboratively with God the creator, and Adam the identifier. “The LORD God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.” (Gen.2:19-20). This presents a beautiful mind image of the love of God teaching Adam to exercise his knowledge and intelligence to name according to the characteristics of the particular animal in the presence of the greatest and wisest teacher. But we are told that one beautiful day, the storm of sin/disobedience blew through the garden, and like Glenn, the first human being was wrack from his place with God and was evicted from the garden without hope. In our text today, the Apostle Paul put it this way, “For All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”- Romans 3:23. Paul says, there are no exceptions. We are constantly falling short of the glory of God, and there is no way we can get back into a relationship, a place of closeness with God. We were left at sea with a wrack life, trying to survive on our strengths and knowledge of how to make sense of this life.

THE BRIDGE

The reason Jesus is so essential to humanity is pretty similar to the shipwreck story of Glenn. No, he could not save himself, regardless of how hard he tried. He was helplessly lost at sea and adrift miles off the coast. He needed a rescuer to save his life. Humanity was lost and drifted further and further away from the safety of God as the result of the fall. But all praise be to God because Jesus saves. He is the universal access point to God. The Apostle says in our text that today Jesus Christ is our sacrifice of atonement. In other words, He died in the place of humanity for our sins. "God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed.” (v25-26). Paul continues by stating that because of Jesus, God can forgive sinners. Why do we need Jesus? Because of his sacrifice on the cross, He satisfied God's holy law and made it possible that God may look with kindness and grace upon a lost world adrift from its creator.

Conclusion

If you are here and desiring intimacy and fellowship with God, I am here to say you that Jesus is the rescuer who laid down his life to save yours. If you are here and lost and looking for a way to get back in alignment with God, you need the Lord Jesus for forgiveness and restoration through faith. In John chapter fourteen, Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (v6) He is available to you today if you can open your heart he will come in and restore your broken relationship to your heavenly Father who loves you.

Let us pray.