ROMANS 3:Righteousness Through Jesus

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Read Psalm 36 (FROM NLT)

Sin whispers to the wicked, deep within their hearts. They have no fear of God at all. 2 In their blind conceit, they cannot see how wicked they really are. 3 Everything they say is crooked and deceitful. They refuse to act wisely or do good. 4 They lie awake at night, hatching sinful plots. Their actions are never good. They make no attempt to turn from evil.

5 Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. 6 Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths. You care for people and animals alike, O Lord. 7  How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings. 8 You feed them from the abundance of your own house, letting them drink from your river of delights. 9 For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see.

10 Pour out your unfailing love on those who love you; give justice to those with honest hearts. 11 Don’t let the proud trample me or the wicked push me around. 12 Look! Those who do evil have fallen! They are thrown down, never to rise again.

Pray

SECTION 1: Responding to Objections

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Imagine with me for a minute that you were asked by a trusted friend to carry some valuable jewelry half way round the world.

They didn’t want to entrust it to the ordinary mail, so they asked you if you would take it and deliver it for them. you agreed to do it but then were struck with the though of “what if it got lost on the way?” . Fortunately you and the jewelry made the journey safe and sound and was delivered at the other end.

Now of course you could have claimed that the jewelry had been lost, and secretly kept it for yourself or sold it, inflation ain’t no joke and i could use some extra money. You friend probably would suspicious but you might have gotten away with it. But The fact is that you didn’t do that was because you had been trusted, and were eager to be faithful to that trust.

One of the ways people describe this sort of transaction is to say that you had been entrusted with something. The point about being ‘entrusted’ is that the thing that’s been given to you isn’t actually for you; it’s for the person to whom you are supposed to deliver it.

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-Once you grasp that principle, this passage of Scripture we are going to be starting with today , which some have found very difficult, becomes comparatively easy.

- The Jews were truly called to be the light of the world, to hold in trust God’s message for his entire creation. And they were supposed to deliver the message, to fulfil the trust, to demonstrate to the world that God was God.

-But they had failed. They had kept the message all to themselves, imagining that it was simply a charter of privilege for them as a nation—as though a postman were to regard his bag of mail as a sign of what an important person he was, and therefore to refuse to deliver it.

READ Romans 3:1-4.

The Jewish nation had many advantages.

1) They were entrusted with God's laws ("the very words of God," Exodus 19, 20;

Deuteronomy 4:8).

2) They were the line of people through whom the Messiah came to earth (Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 1:1-17).

3) They were the beneficiaries of covenants with God himself (Genesis 17:1-16; Exodus

19:3-6).

But these privileges did not make them better than anyone else. In fact, because of them the Jews were even more responsible to live up to God's requirements.

READ Romans 3:5-8.

Paul is eager to address all the protests against the gospel that might arise. But he must digress for a bit to handle these matters. The first few verses of chapter 3 do not contribute directly to the case he is building that “all have sinned” (v. 23).

He will return to his main line of reasoning in verse 9. But, for these first eight verses, he attempts to silence his critics by the use of a “diatribe”—a literary device that describes an exchange with a hypothetical heckler in the crowd. Let us look briefly at each of the objections Paul addresses.

Objection #1 (3:1–2): If God judges all persons equally, what advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, one of God’s chosen people (v. 1)?

Response: Paul wrestles with this issue of Israel’s significance in God’s plan of redemption, but he postpones the major discussion of the topic until chapters 9 through 11. For now, he gives a one-sentence reply: the Jews have the unique honor of having received a direct communication of God’s truth.

Objection #2 (3:3–4): If responding to God’s call is essential for coming into a right relationship with Him, then rejecting God’s law (lack of faith) seems to take away God’s sovereign control of salvation. If God made promises to Abraham and his descendants, how can one of those descendants, by his or her actions, nullify what God has promised?

Response: The Apostle Paul does not want to suggest that God backs away from His promises. However, God’s commitment is just in all His dealings. The God who “is not slow in keeping his promise … not wanting anyone to perish” (2 Peter 3:9) is the same God who declares, “The soul who sins is the one who will die” (Ezekiel 18:4b).

-Since God holds humans accountable to His moral standard (an essential component of Paul’s argument), He is bound to be faithful to that standard, “[giving] to each person according to what he has done” (Rom. 2:6).

Objection # 3 (3:5–8): If the disobedience of some Jews proves God’s integrity in holding them accountable, how can He then be angry with those who disobey?

Response: Embarrassed to even pose such a ludicrous objection, Paul interjects, I am using a human argument (v. 5)—literally, “I speak according to man.” Paul wants nothing to do with individuals who attempt to twist human reasoning in order to back God into a corner with some catch-22 argument. His criticism is blunt: their condemnation is deserved (v. 8).

-The Jews of Paul’s day are not the last individuals who have constructed devious excuses for their misconduct. There is still an argument abroad today that suggests God is just too good to punish those who violate His standards.

-“Somehow God’s unconditional love will have to find a way to excuse their sinfulness,” goes this line of reasoning. “God will find a way to turn their rebellious attitude into something worthwhile and thus include them in His redemptive plan.” Although no true believer rejoices in the destruction of the wicked, we must be wary of those who push God’s love into something which absolves us from accountability for our actions.

- some people can get a little to comfortable in their sins and their flawed thinking that well i serve a good, merciful, loving, gracious and forgiving God, so if i do this sin i will be fine because He will give me all of those things as along as i say sorry and ask for forgiveness..This is true to an extent…But you are abusing our God’s grace and mercy and friends a genuine repentant believer should not think this way!

Some may think they don’t have to worry about sin because

1.its Gods job to forgive;

2.God is so loving that He won’t judge us;

3.Sin isn’t so bad—it teaches us valuable lessons, or we need to stay in touch with culture around us.

It is far too easy to take God’s grace for granted. But God cannot overlook sin. Sinners, no matter how many excuses they make will have to answer to God for their sin.

SECTION 2: The Playing Field Has Been Leveled (ALL are guilty)

Read Romans 3:9.

-The playing field has been leveled…We are all in the same boat, all races, all backgrounds, all nationalities…All of us are guilt before the Living God.

-Dr.Tony Evans says “The Jews may have sinned by ignoring the law, but the Gentiles sinned by ignoring their consciousness. They started on different paths, but they ended up in the same hopeless place, just as us today.”

Paul goes in on this even more with the next few verses.

Read Romans 3:10-20.

Verse 10:Paul begins by quoting from the Old Testament, specifically Psalm 14:1-3 and Psalm 53:1-3. These passages emphasize the universality of sin. Paul is making the point that no one is exempt from the condition of sinfulness. Regardless of background, ethnicity, or status, all human beings are subject to sin.

Verse 11:Continuing from the previous verse, Paul emphasizes the depth of human depravity. He asserts that not only are people sinful, but they are also spiritually blind. No one naturally seeks after God or comprehends His ways. This echoes the theme of spiritual blindness found throughout the Bible.

Verse 12: Paul emphasizes the universality of human sinfulness. He states that all have turned away from God and have become morally worthless. This echoes the concept of the fall of humanity, where Adam's disobedience in the Garden of Eden resulted in the corruption of all humanity.

Verses 13-14: Paul illustrates the sinful nature of humanity by describing the words that proceed from their mouths. He uses vivid imagery to depict the deceit, venom, cursing, and bitterness that characterize human speech. This emphasizes not only outward actions but also the inward state of the heart, which Jesus frequently highlighted as crucial.

Verses 15-17: Paul further elaborates on the consequences of human sinfulness, particularly in terms of actions. He describes how humanity's sinful inclinations lead to destructive behavior such as violence and strife. The path of sin is one of ruin and misery, devoid of peace. This reflects the brokenness and chaos that result from living in a fallen world.

Verse 18: Paul concludes by summarizing the root cause of humanity's sinful condition: a lack of fear or reverence for God. When people do not acknowledge God's authority or holiness, they become prone to sin and its consequences. This verse highlights the importance of recognizing and revering God as the foundation of a righteous life.

-Lets talk about Fear Of God/Reverence for a second. This means one has the proper sense of awe, respect and wonder that is inspired and demanded (not that God demands, but should com naturally when faced with the holiness of God) by and encounter or mediation upon the character and activity of the Holy Living God!

-This isn't about being terrified of God, rather a deep balance of love, respect and awe of Him. And when we have reverence for God, our attitudes are changed and it produces within us a respect for others and His creation.

Section 3:Righteousness Through Faith

-Now from this point on in Romans, Paul is going to really talk about how one becomes righteous. Remember in week 1 we talked about how Chapters 1:17-3:20 Paul was putting together a a clear and compelling case/truth that we are all broken, none, Jew or Gentiles have any innate righteousness within then. All are in desperate need of a savior.

Read Romans 3:21-26.

-If “I am not ashamed” (1:16) is the heart of Paul’s personal testimony, the heart of Paul’s message is 3:22: righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

-The good news that Paul proclaims begins with the assumption that the greatest need of human beings is, in the words often used by Billy Graham, “getting right with God.” The theological word used to describe this concept is justification, which in the Greek is a verb form of the words we have already been translating as righteous and righteousness.

-There is some validity in defining being justified by the simple memory device—“just-as-if-I’d” never sinned.

-This right standing with God certainly has much to do with correcting the spiritual problem of unrighteousness which Paul has been describing in his letter to the Romans. But it is a far richer and more complex term.

Justification might be understood in at least four different ways, and the way one selects says much about how that person understands both God and salvation:

Cosmic Harmony—One could assume that the goal of human existence is to get it all together by discovering one’s perfect place in God’s infinite universe. In such a perspective, a strong emphasis is given to God’s unity, both with himself and with His creation.

The widely accepted Christian teaching on the three distinct persons of the Trinity is minimized, and even the distinction between the Creator and the creation is blurred. Much of Eastern religions and the New Age philosophy builds upon this merging of God with the created order.

In such a view, salvation becomes an inward journey to self-discovery. Since God is in creation, getting right with God is discovering the deity in me and in nature, and then bringing all of these elements into harmony with each other.

Sin is viewed more as inner discord than a rejection of God’s standard of holiness. Since this view is totally alien to the biblical understanding of justification, we can pass over it quickly to more biblical understandings.

Spiritual Appeasement—There are those who believe that salvation comes when human beings discover the proper ways to appease the wrath of God and “get on His good side.” The theology of these persons is also flawed, in that they assume that God (or the gods) is essentially hostile toward human beings.

They focus so much on the biblical teaching concerning God’s wrath that they continually live under a cloud of fear. Quite often, their view of sin is exaggerated to the point that, in their eyes, even their existence becomes an affront to God.

People with this view assume that they must make enormous sacrifices, sometimes including self-inflicted punishment.

There are many Christians who still assume that every misfortune of life is an expression of God’s displeasure. They live miserable lives with little awareness of God’s love or grace toward them. Furthermore, they often assume that God demands some extreme sacrificial act on their part (martyrdom, denial of legitimate pleasures, self-imposed poverty) to demonstrate their earnest desire to be saved.

Yes, the Bible speaks of God’s wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. But the recurring theme of the Bible is God’s fatherly love toward His creation and particularly His children, the human race. His instructions to the Israelites concerning sacrifices in the Old Testament were not so much designed to placate His anger as to point to the seriousness of sin and the high price (no less than blood!) that it would take to find redemption for those He loves.

Confronted with the deep sin in his own life, King David realized that a right relationship with God could not be guaranteed by sacrifice alone. “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:16–17).

Legal Acquittal—We move closer to the biblical understanding of justification when we think of salvation in the terms of the courtroom. In such a view, God is the divine lawgiver and the “Judge of all the earth” (Genesis 18:25), who does what is right.

God has revealed His law and expects compliance from those who are subjects of His kingdom. Sin is disobedience of this law; it is a criminal offense against God. Since we are guilty of breaking God’s law, we stand condemned before Him, deserving whatever punishment He declares.

Salvation is accomplished when someone (Jesus Christ) pays the penalty and God, the righteous Judge, declares us pardoned. Justification is that act of God which declares the condemned sinner to be righteous before Him and once more qualified for the rights and benefits of a citizen of heaven.

In giving God all the legal characteristics He rightly deserves, advocates of this view make His authority so supreme, that both His relational characteristics and the significance of faith and love in the plan of salvation are minimized. If God’s Word is absolute and final law, then the human response to His decrees is irrelevant.

Personal Relationship—Using the concepts of human relationships, we might be able to develop a view of justification that combines some of the legal understanding of the third option with the more inter-relational dynamics between God and His human creation.

In this view, sin shifts from being the violation of laws to the breaking of relationships through actions that evidence mistrust and disregard for another. To be sure, there is usually the breaking of some agreement (covenant) between two individuals when relationships go awry. But the break doesn’t focus so much on what was or was not done, but on the violation of the faith/love relationship that held the two parties together.

Marital infidelity does involve breaking the “rules” of marriage, but the deeper problem is the relational offense. The employee who cheats on the boss has probably violated company policy, but the real anger is often expressed in a statement like, “How could you do that to us after we trusted you with so much?”

God created humans from Adam and Eve to Generation Alpha in order to have a loving relationship with them. The disobedience of humans is not so much a breaking of God’s rules as it is a slap at His very character of righteousness and love.

Sin is not merely the disruption of cosmic harmony (although we sense the lack of unity because of sin); nor is it provoking God’s wrath by doing what displeases him. And although God holds us accountable for violating His moral standard, it is not our disobedience of the law that is the core of our problem. Sin is our faithlessness to the relationship.

Justification, then, is God’s marvelous way of bringing us back to a right relationship with Him. The reconciliation that brings estranged humans back to their heavenly Father is made possible by the great sacrifice on God’s part—the gift of His only Son (John 3:16). But neither Jesus’ death nor God’s pardon can force rebellious humans to be restored to a right relationship with Him.

For this reconciliation to become a reality, we must come to ourselves and return to the Father like the prodigal son in Jesus’ well-known parable on forgiveness. We must now discover how these various views merge in Paul’s understanding of the salvation events of Jesus’ life, and learn the essential response to God’s call required of each sinner for a restored relationship.

Read Romans 3:27-30.

Paul says in vs.28 that we are “justified by faith”.

‘justification by faith’ itself. As I emphasized here refers to the fact that, when someone believes in the gospel of Jesus, God declares, in advance of the verdict of the last day, what that verdict is going to be: this person is a member of the covenant family, the people whose sins have been forgiven, the true people of Abraham, the people of the Messiah.

-There are many other things which people have supposed Paul to have meant by ‘justification by faith’, but this is at the heart of it.

-It doesn’t mean God isn’t interested in holiness.

- It doesn’t mean that rules don’t matter, that ‘anything goes’, so long as you have ‘a faith’ of whatever kind. It doesn’t mean that what matters is feelings or emotion rather than belief and behaviour.

-It certainly doesn’t mean that God tried to make people good by giving them moral ‘works’ to do, and, finding that to be too difficult for them, lowered the bar to make things easier.

-It means something clearer, more robust, bracing and indeed shocking. It means that when people believe this particular message, that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead, and trust themselves to the God who has done this, they are assured in the present time that they are part of God’s family.

This is not because there is anything meritorious in that belief, as though it were after all ‘something we do to earn God’s favour’. Rather, it is because this faith is the sure and unfailing sign that the gospel has transformed the heart of the person concerned, so that they now truly belong to the new covenant. Faith, as Paul says later in the letter, comes from hearing, and hearing from the proclaimed word of the Messiah (10:17).

-if this faith is the one and only badge in the present for marking out the new covenant people of God, Jews and Gentiles belong equally and on the same footing. This is why ‘boasting’ is ruled out.

-If God holds all humans accountable for their sins, and yet He has already reconciled humans to himself by the offering of His Son, Jesus, then the only boast (if we could even call it that) would be that an individual believed in God enough to say a sincere “yes” to His gracious gift.

-Paul firmly maintains that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law (v. 28). But that does not negate the function the law has in revealing the righteousness of God and making us conscious of sin. Those who live by faith discover the positive side of the law and use it to strengthen their lives. Followers of Christ uphold the law (v. 31), but they never depend on knowing or keeping it in order to be reconciled to God.

As we close today… Faith is something we are going to be talking about in depth the next few weeks as Paul discusses it in the next few chapters. Faith is not some magical thing we have in our pocket to use whenever we want to get something from God. Faith is simply trusting God, and believing Him for who He says He is and What He has done. And from that faith means we align ourselves with God and His ways.

So where is your faith?

Questions:

1. How does the concept of "fear of God" or reverence contribute to a proper understanding of our relationship with Him?

2. How do you personally define faith, and how does it influence your relationship with God and your actions?

3.What personal experiences or challenges have you faced in understanding and living out faith in your life?