God is Just in Rome

Intro

Good morning y’all!

Before we get started I want to do something a little bit different today.

Something that we don’t do in church enough is pray.

And I know that most of y’all have seen this crazy flooding thats happening all over Texas the past few days.

So what I want to do is take a few minutes to pray for all the people who have been affected.

So without getting up and moving or moving any chairs, just stay right where you are and with the 2 or 3 people right next to you, take about 2 minutes to pray for the families who have lost loved ones and houses and cars.

Then in a couple minutes I’m going to pray for us and we’ll get started.

If I haven’t gotten to meet you yet my name is Aaron, and I’m an intern here at the Ridge.

The last time I came up here to teach was back in May and I shared with y’all that I got engaged back in October and I have news.

We finally got married!! It was about a month ago! Right before mountain camp!

Here’s a few of our wedding pictures. It was super dreamy and amazing and we had so much fun getting to party with our friends and family.

So this is my now wife Kaia and you’ll be seeing her around because she hangs with the 6th grade girls.

5 Min

Context

So, today we get to talk about the book of Romans, and I just gotta be honest with y’all. I’m so excited that this is what we’re studying.

Romans is my favorite book in the Bible and no other book has made as big of an impact on my faith.

It’s commonly believed that the book of Romans is actually the CLIMAX of the Bible.

Like hold on pause for a second and think about how cool that is.

God gave us His word in this book, which contains all knowledge, all wisdom, all love, and all our understanding of God. And what we’re about to read today is the very climax, the highest level of all of it. That’s a huge deal.

In fact, the specific passage that we are reading this morning in Romans 3, get this, has been called the most important paragraph ever written.

Not just in Romans not just in the Bible, in all of human history. What we’re reading today is possibly the most important paragraph ever.

So most of you know that the book of Romans was actually a letter written to a group of Christians that lived in the city of Rome, but you might not know much about that city.

So Rome is actually a little bit like Austin in my opinion.

Like you know how we kind of got everything here in Austin?

Like we’ve got a big beautiful super developed city, but we’re also still a little bit country.

And Austin is super diverse too. Like you’ve got some people from Texas, a lot from California, and even people from all over the world live here because of how many huge companies are based here.

Not only that, but we’ve also got some of the smartest people in the world studying over at UT.

You wouldn’t find this smart over in College Station.

Well everything I just said. That’s what Rome is like too. They’ve got people from every country living in Rome. This is the biggest city in the world.

They have the smartest people, the most people. Rome is the center of culture for most of the world.

Think about Los Angeles. Kind of like how almost every celebrity lives in LA and all our movies and TV shows are from Hollywood.

That’s how influential Rome is, but here’s the one thing that sets Rome apart from every other city in the world.

It’s the capital of one of the largest and most influential empires in all of human history.

Those are all of the great really cool things about Rome, but there are some bad things too.

For example, just like we have presidents Rome has Caesars. That’s just what they call their leader and the problem is that the Cesar is seen as a God figure.

So the Roman religion was really complicated because they had a ton of God’s, but they also worshipped their leader, who was not a fan of other religions. He wanted everyone to worship him.

So you can imagine how a bunch of Christians, saying Jesus is their King and Lord, would not go over well in Rome.

So why do I say all that?

Because it’s so important that we know what the Roman Christians are going through and experiencing, so that we can know why Paul writes the things that he does.

These Roman Christians are surrounded by so many other religions that sometimes the truth can seem really unclear.

They might not know what they’re supposed to believe. What’s right and what’s wrong.

Have you ever felt like that? Like you don’t really know what you’re supposed to believe or think?

So let’s read this passage and see what Paul thinks is so important for Christians to know and understand.

10 Min

Read 21

Alright, pause!

You just missed something huge!

Paul says, “the righteousness of God has been manifested or revealed outside of the law.”

Some you are like, “yea I know that’s Bible 101.”

And some of you have no idea what that means or why it matters.

So we need to back up to really understand the significance of this verse.

Look at verse 20.

So here is what’s going on. The Jews were taught for thousands of years that they would be justified, or made righteous, by following the law. They believed whole heartedly that if they followed that law perfectly they would get into Heaven.

And Paul just said, “Hey, you know those laws that you thought were your ticket into Heaven? Yea, well it doesn’t work. In fact, what the law does is show you how broken and sinful you are. It has no power to get rid of your sin.”

Like bro, y’all ever been so confident in a belief and then one person tells you that you’re wrong and you’re mind is so blown and you almost can’t believe it?

That is what is happening here except its not about a small little fact it is an entire way of life.

And some of you are like, “yea that’s great but what does that have to do with me?”

Well, you might not be a Jewish person in the 1st century, but I bet that you’ve had somebody tell you that you get into Heaven by being a good person or by having more good deeds than bad ones.

And I want to tell you this morning that that is not at all true. Not even a little bit.

You have to hear this because it is so important. What Paul is saying here is that there is no amount of good that you can do to get into Heaven.

The standard to get into Heaven is not being a good person! It is not following a set of morals! It is not doing the right things.

All of these things are laws, and Paul says that no human being can be justified through the law.

That does not mean that what you do and how you live doesn’t matter, but you’ve got to understand that your own personal goodness is not near good enough to get you into Heaven.

That’s my first point.

There’s no DELIVERANCE in good DEEDS.

14 Min

If you’re tracking with me still then you can tell that this is bad news for us.

Like if we’re being real Paul kind of just told us that we’re screwed.

So why does He find this so important for Christians to know.

Because He is about to tell us how we are actually justified.

Let’s go back to verse 21.

Now we can understand this verse a little bit better.

Paul is telling us that the righteousness from God that we need to get into Heaven is found outside of the law. We can find salvation somewhere else.

He’s about to tell us where we can find it.

Look at verse 22.

This righteousness is found through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

You might think that Paul is repeating himself here saying through faith in Jesus Christ and for all who believe but I don’t think he is.

I think he’s actually communicating an important truth that too many Christians don’t know.

Firstly, he is saying what most of you already know: righteousness from God come through faith in Jesus.

But the thing he is saying that I think we miss. Is that His righteousness cannot fail.

Think about it like this. Have you ever had a teacher or parent tell you to study real hard and you’ll do good on your test.

A lot of the time they’re right, but sometimes you still fail the test. Maybe you didn’t study hard enough. Maybe you didn’t study the right class material. Or maybe the test was just too hard for you.

In other words, you tried real hard but you fell short.

You’ve gotta know that that’s not how faith works.

There’s not a single person in the world who put their faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins that won’t get into Heaven.

Every single person that believes will get into Heaven, because God’s righteousness does not fail.

I say that because I know some of you have thought before, “I know I believe in Jesus, but is that really enough?”

I want you to know that God’s righteousness does not fail. No matter how broken you are or how many times you mess it up, you cannot undo what God has done.

That’s my second point.

God’s SALVATION is a SURETY.

18 Min

Alright let’s keep reading from the end of verse 22-24.

Now there was a very unique thing that was happening in Rome when Paul wrote this letter to them.

The Roman church had people from 2 completely different backgrounds that were both Christians.

The first group were Jewish Christians. These were people that were raised following the Jewish laws, but believed in Jesus and became Christians. There was also gentiles, which are people from cultures other than Israel.

They usually had another religion that they followed from their culture.

And there was a big debate in this day about whether gentiles were saved in the same way as Jews.

And what Paul says here is that there is no distinction between Jews and gentiles when it comes to sin and salvation.

We’re not really facing the same debate nowadays, but we do face a similar situation.

Because there are Christians that have been in the church their whole life. They know how to follow all the rules and look like a Christian.

And their are Christians who didn’t know Jesus until later in their life.

Well, what Paul tells us is that every person’s reality is the same.

Everyone sinned. Everyone fell short of God’s glory.

And most importantly. Everyone is justified by God’s grace as a gift.

So what does it mean to be justified.

Us Christians we use that word a lot but not everyone knows what it means.

To be justified is to be made right with God.

Think about your parents if you get in a fight with your parents and you’re mad at one of them or they’re mad at you.

You’re not in right relationship with them. Y’all are not vibing.

But if you have a conversation and work through whatever the problem is and y’all are good again. You could say that you’ve been justified with you’re parents.

That’s what happens with all of us and God.

Scripture tells us that even from the time we are babies we are not right with God, but when we place our faith in Jesus to forgive our sins then He justifies us.

And this justification is not something we earn or even deserve. It is something that God gives to us as a gift.

I love what Paul says next.

Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

This is one of my favorite things that I learned when I was studying for this message.

This word ‘redemption’ that Paul uses in the original language is actually a word that was used when a slaves freedom was purchased.

Something I love about Paul’s letters is how much theology he packs into one phrase and even one word.

And I’m so grateful for the truth that he is teaching I mean what a miracle that not only does God justify us so that we can be with Him, but also He frees us from our slavery of sin.

Like take a second and think about that. From birth you have been a slave to sin, obeying your flesh.

You’ve been shackled and imprisoned in your own brokenness, unable to free yourself, but Jesus freed you from that.

Now Paul is going to tell us how Jesus accomplished this redemption.

Look at verse 25.

Propitiation is a big complex word that you’re not going to see anywhere else except for the Bible.

What it means is the satisfaction of God’s wrath.

Earlier in Romans, Paul explained that the wrath of God is poured out against the unrighteousness of people.

Meaning, there is a punishment for every persons sin.

And in order for any person to be made right with God this punishment must be taken.

But there’s a problem. We can’t handle this punishment. It would kill us.

So, Jesus took our punishment for sin on the cross and the price was payed with the blood that He spilt.

Have you ever listened to worship music and heard the song talk about blood and what it did?

It can sound really weird, but it is so important because His blood that was spilt on the cross accomplished righteousness and justification for you and for me.

Now in these final sentences Paul is going to zoom out and give us the big picture of everything that we just learned.

We now know the what, where, how, and the who, but we’re about to learn the why.

Why would Jesus give His life as a propitiation?

Read 25-26

God WAITED so we could be WELCOME

Optimistic: Marriage with Christ