Self Righteouss

Text Facing - God's revealed righteousness justifies all by grace through faith alone.

Audience Facing - We need to abandon the notion that we can save ourselves and rest in Christ's sacrifice, which through faith provides righteousness.  

Faith in Christ's sacrifice, not self-righteousness, saves us.  

Gospel Connection - propitiation and forensic justification

God is just in punishing sin, but the justifier who satisfies his wrath through Jesus' blood.

Intro

I Have always liked archery and recently to get our kids into something we got them into The Archery club in rapid View. It has been kind of fun to watch them grow and learn as they are taught how to properly shoot a bow and hit the target. at first they had a bit of trouble pulling the string back on the boy, then they had troubles hitting the target. some arrows went off into the distance, some hiot the wood of the frame and broke, some hit the target. They had a family night one night and I tried shooting their bows. well I thought I knew what I was doing, I thought i could pick up their bow and use the sites I didnt set up. I didnt even ask the kids or the leaders how they set the sites up. Well I shot once, missed. I tried to adjust my aim and took another shot, hot the wood frame of the target and broke and arrow. I stoped then while I wwas somewhat ahead albeit short some money now.

I Romans we see a concept like this, an archer trying to shoot a target and misses. At least that is usually the illustration people give. Like trying to hit a target but constantly alling short, like me trying to hit that target and not being able to.

We treat our live slike this sometimes, like an archery range. We think we can try to hit the target God has set out for us - heaven - on our own and we miss. Sometimes we look at those around us and see they are a little farther off then we are and are thankful that we are a little closer and maybe that will help us.

But deep down, we know we are missing the mark. We are trying to be good enough and we realize that we are not.

This is what Paul is going to address here in the next passage in Romans. He has just spent the last few chapters telling is that we fail on our own, that we are not righteouss and we can not make it on our own. Like that target i missed, we shoot and miss the target that God has set out.

what we need is to be declared as having a right by God, which is what we call the righteousness of God. This is the mark that we miss

what we are going to see here today is that

God is just in punishng sin, because we all miss the mark. but the good news is that God's revealed righteousness justifies all by grace through faith alone.

our righteoussness fails, that has been established by Paul already. We need something else.

What this means for us is today is that:

We need to abandon the notion that we can save ourselves and rest in Christ's sacrifice, which through faith provides righteousness.

Faith in Christ's sacrifice, not self-righteousness, saves us.  

21-22 – The righteousness of God has been revealed

The righteoussness of God is one of the main things we are going to see here today. That it has been revealed and demonstrated and upheld. God’s righteoussness is the answer to the questions we face, the failures we deal with. and we start with how God’s righteoussness has been revealed.

Read verse 21-22

Romans 3:21–22 CSB

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.

Back in 1:16-17 we see that the gospel is the good news of the righteoussness of God, then in the next few chapters we see how we are all guilty and fail at attaining the righteoussness of God. That is having that right standing before God.

If we where to live perfectly then, follow the law to the letter, then we could be attain salvation, but the problem is that we fail to live a perfect life. what this tells us here is that the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from the law from the very beginning.

The revelation of God's righteousness apart from law is foretold in the Old Testament.  It started in the system of sacrifices orignally given to the Israelites. it showed us the need for cleansing apart from the law. right from the very beginning we have seen our need for a sacrificial lamb and that one was going to come that would fulfill that.

We are told and will be told again later that the righteousness of God has always been available, for example to Abraham by faith. But it was foretold of a greater sacrifice coming because we would always fail at upholding the law.

we are told here that the righteoussness that we see apart from the law is through Jesus.

Faith is vital here. to be declared as having a right standing before God and having the moral demands of God satisfied we need faith in Jesus. We need to through belief and faith in the one who took the wrath of God on Himself. It is a universal gift to all we are told.

23-26 – The righteousness of God has been demonstrated

so we see that the righteoussness of God has been revealed since the beginning of time through the law and the prophets. But more then the revelation of the grace of God we see in the Old testament we see that the righteoussness of God was demonstrated to us thropugh Jesus. But the question that comes to mind is why did we need it in the first place. It starts with a verse that you should know well if you have grown up in the church.

Read vs 23

Romans 3:23 CSB

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;

we learned earlier in Romans that what we lack is the glory of God because we have traded it for the false glory of idols and created things.

going back to my archery illustration, think of it like shooting an arrow. you might be able to hit a target close to you. But try joingining the olympics and hitting the target there. Likely you are going to fall short.

Like falling short of that target, so we try on our own to hit the target of the glory and righteousness of God and we are told we fall short. But it is more then just falling short, we lack the glory of God and we have a complete inability to hit the target.

If you think it would be hard to try and hit the target in the olympics with no training, try hitting it without a bow or arrow. That is more what it is like. We lack the means on our own to even get close to achieve righteoussness on our own. but there is the flip side to that.

Read vs 24-25

Romans 3:24–25 ESV

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 is depressing to think that we utterly lack the ability to come close to the glory and righteoussness of God, to think that our own self righteousness is not enough. but there is hope in the fact that we are justified by work of Jesus on the cross. There are a few things 9

God’s grace is a gift - We are told that God showed us His grace. Grace is not getting something that we deserve. We deserve the wrath of God but through the grace of God we recieve eternal life. through the price that was paid by Jesus on the cross. It is a free gift, but one must recieve it by faith and believe in the one who oferred it to us.

God’s grace justifies us. That is through Jesus death and our faith in Him we are seen as having satisfied the requirements of the law. We have not done the work, Jesus has. We have faith in the risen Lord, He Justifies us.

God’s grace redeems us - Redemption is another word that we sometimes lose understanding of. Imagine Having a piece of land that is lost to the government because you never paid taxes on it. But some friendly stranger, maybe a family member pays the taxes on it and gives it back to you, no strings attached.

That is like redemption, it is not something we can earn, it is not something we can work for. But our sin and the punishment for us was paid for by Jesus on the cross.

God sent Jesus as a propitiation -

This is a fancy word that means Paul says God has made belief in Christ’s substitutionary death the necessary means of salvation, so that God’s justice could be understood.

Notice at the end of v.25 Paul says that in forbearance, God passed over the sins previously committed. Forbearance means delaying a response. God delayed His judgment of humanity for their sin, passing over generations without bringing a final judgment upon the world

Read vs 26

Romans 3:26 CSB

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.

God presented Jesus as a sacrifice

to demonstrate His righteoussness - We have the option of being declared as having a right standing before God and having seen as having met the moral standards of God. through the blood of Jesus by faith alone.

to show that God is just and the justifier. That is we have began to understand that God is just in punishing sin but also the justifier that gives the free gift of grace to those who have faith in Jesus,

I want you to think of this concept of the just and the justifier for a second. We stand on one side of that issue.

Application

Have you been justified or will you be on the end of justice

You have seen that we fail to meet the moral stanards of God and we cant do it on our own, we all fall short. If you stay on this side then we have seen that God is just in punishing us for this. But the free gift of God is that we can be justified by the blood of Jesus on the cross.

you cant live up to the standard but our great hope is that Jesus has already done that for us.

27-31 – The righteousness of God has been upheld

This righteousness that we have been talking about is upheld by the law of faith. This salvation faith is not a work but our belief in the one who died for us. and all boasting is exlcuded. we need to get ot the idea that there is nothing we can do to earn it. We would like to boast that maybe we can be good enough, or self righteouss enough but that has been seen to fail.

Read vs 27-29

Romans 3:27–29 CSB

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By one of works? No, on the contrary, by a law of faith. For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too,

We prefer to be captains of our own ships, responsible for our own future And then when we reach our goal, we can take pride in our accomplishment That’s what Paul is referring to when he mentions boasting

But God will not share His glory with anyone, nor will He allow us to perpetuate our self-deception that says we play a part in His plan of redemption.

Boasting is excluded then, but not because we can live up to the law, not because we can somehow be good enough to earn it but because of our faith alone and belief in the one who died for us.

Believing faith is not a work - This type of faith is one that brings us to our knees in complete trust in the one who died for us because we have come to the understanding that there is no way on earth that we can do it on our own.

No matter who you are or what you have done you can be saved by grace through faith in Jesus.

So What?

What we have learned then is that:

God is just in punishing sin, but the justifier who satisfies his wrath through Jesus' blood.

This always points to Jesus as we have seen today. The wrath of God was satisfied through the death of jesus on the cross in all those who by faith give their lives to the Lord.

so what does this mean then For believers.

As believers, we can look down on others because we think we might be better than them, or we can be crushed under the weight of failed temptation and sin. to think to much of ourselves and to little of others, thinking that somehow we had some hand in the salvation we have been given.

or maybe we are so crushed under the weight of our failures, even as children of God that we are not sure what to do anymore and think that we are not worthy anyways.

Whether it is boasting or self-condemnation, we need to remember our standing before God is secured through Jesus alone. In both cases, we need to turn to Him as the justifier. Remember who you are, as a child of God. That is your identity. So you have not earned it and you can find freedom in the blood of Jesus. Either way we need to turn back to what the Lord has done for us.

Non-Believers

You might feel trapped under the weight of life, or think you might be good enough, but the reality is we all fall short on our own. Our own human effort will not outweigh our sin. But salvation is a gift given to all who believe.

If God's righteousness is perfectly as a gift, at the cross, and by faith, what is the final conclusion for us? It means the we know longer need to be snxious, we no longer need to worry. It means you can finally rest in the comfort of being a totally lost sinner who has been totally found and saved by grace. Stop boasting, stop panicking, fix your eyes on Jesus, and let your faith rest on His finished work