Circumcision is an Inside Job

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Introduction

Illustration: 2012 college football world was shocked at Penn State

DC Jerry Sandusky: convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse over 15 years

Got 30-60 years - but also went after the University

In addition to charges from the state, school president and VP resigned

They also fired the AD and head coaching legend, Joe Paterno

Penn State was fined $73-million to NCAA and Big-Ten

They received scholarship reductions for 4 -years

What was ultimately a 2-year post-season ban

This issue had nothing to do with football games

Penn State was only involved in one incident

A guy said he saw Sandusky with a kid in the shower

Nobody said anything, and that was the problem

So why did the school get such a harsh penalty?

Actually, why do many people think the penalty should have been much worse?

Because we care about more than football

NCAA President Mark Emmert: The punishments at Penn State were "...to make sure the university establishes an athletic culture and daily mindset in which football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing and protecting young people."

Turn on ESPN - what do you see?

As much talk about gun charges, drug possession and sexual assault as you do about games

We expect our sports heroes to not only perform well on the field...

But to perform well in their lives

Likewise, our lives are more than the shiny shell we show on the outside

Our social media feeds don’t make us holy

Our resumes don’t justify us

Our Christmas cards with smiling family pictures don’t make us righteous

God cares about something much deeper inside of us

And we should too

You Version: Circumcision is an Inside Job

We’re in Romans 3:21-31

Looking at the Romans Road

Answering 4 questions:

Why do we need salvation?

How did God provide salvation?

How can we receive salvation?

What are the results of salvation?

Today we will look at that first question:

Why do we need salvation?

But we’re really starting to hone in on the second one:

How did God provide salvation?

And we even touch on the third just a bit

How do we receive salvation?

Let’s get started...

Romans 3:21–22a (ESV)

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22a the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe...

Begins with “But now...”

Should tell us something has changed

For 4 weeks - I’ve told you how rotten you are

I fully believe it, because I am just as rotten

Why do we need salvation? Romans 3:23 and 6:23

We have a huge sin problem, and the repercussion is death for us all...

Then Paul says: “But now...”

“The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law...”

Where did this righteousness come from?

We’re the ones that need it, did we do it?

We have the Law, and living out that law perfectly will make us righteous!

But we know we can’t do it!

So our righteousness was manifested APART from the law

That means, we didn’t do it

It took something APART from us living out the law

However, the law does point us in that direction

The law reveals our sin, it gives a way to prove righteousness, but we can’t pull it off

And yet, that righteousness for us, does exist - why?

1. God has created our righteousness

Illustration: When I was a kid, I could make strawberry Quik

In my head - If I can make that, I can make pancakes

So I got pancake mix and water

Poured it on a cookie sheet

Set it on the stove

And set off the smoke alarm

Then my mom made me pancakes

Sometimes because you can do one thing, doesn’t mean you can do another

And if you can’t do it yourself, you might need someone else who knows how

This is what 1st century Jews struggled with

They thought, “we have a covenant with God - we must be righteous!”

But they were mistaken...

For God’s chosen people to be a nation, He made a “covenant” with Abraham

God promised Abraham 3 things:

He would make a nation of God’s people

He would give land

He would bless those who bless Israel

And curse those who curse Israel

And Israelites had to keep a sign of being God’s chosen people:

Genesis 17:9–11 (ESV)

9 And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.

Israelites who were circumcised then, thought “Hey! I’m one of God’s chosen!”

And they were!

But none of God’s promises to Abraham in this covenant ever mentions mankind’s sin problem

Just because you are an Israelite, doesn’t mean you are saved

Later promises reveal that God will use Israel for redemption

He does, because Jesus was a Jew

But being a Jew doesn’t save you

You might say Israel still needed God to make their pancakes...

Jeremiah 31:31 (ESV)

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah...

What does this new covenant do?

Jump ahead:

Jeremiah 31:34b (ESV)

34b ...For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Sin doesn’t get handled until there is a new covenant

What is this “New Covenant?”

Jesus mentions it right before He goes to the cross

Luke 22:20 (ESV)

20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

It’s the blood of Jesus that handles the sin problem

And why do we need Jesus? Here’s one of our key Romans Road verses:

Romans 3:22b–23 (ESV)

22b ...For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...

It’s that nasty sin problem again...

Our sin is always holding us back!

When God gave us the law, we could have presented ourselves holy

Jews thought they were good enough because they had the law - but they weren’t

Danielle Hilborn wrote an article in the Daily Californian

As a lesbian, she argued that homosexuality cannot be a sin

As part of her argument, she asks this question:

Danielle Hilborn: “What do you do when that sin is a part of who you are?”

It’s actually a good question, but heads in the wrong direction

Her question presupposes that homosexuality is the only sin that defines who you are

When actually, its the culmination of ALL of our sins that make us who we are

We are sinners!

What about the pedophile, the murderer, the thief, the liar, the reality TV star...

To answer the question, “What do you do when that sin is a part of who you are?”

Seek Jesus… because we’re all in that same boat!

In fact, as we learned last week:

2. We have only created sinfulness

We don’t have the ability to follow the law - so we needed something else

And that something else, was Jesus

The author of Hebrews (Paul) put it this way:

Hebrews 8:6–7 (ESV)

6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

Think about it

We are born into sin - separated from God

God gives us the law, but we are not righteous enough to keep it

So he sends His Son Jesus who becomes that righteousness we need

And then what?

Romans 3:24–26 (ESV)

24 ...and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 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. 26 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.

What do we learn here?

1. God creates our righteousness...

2. We create sin...

3. And Jesus offers us a trade

Illustration: Ever seen “The Sandlot?

New kid learns to play baseball and makes friends

They lose the ball so he steals one from his dad

Happens to be signed by Babe Ruth...

He didn’t know and hit a home run, right into the backyard of “The Beast!”

You know, the mythical giant dog that eats people...

Owned by the meanest old man that ever lived...

The whole time their trying to get it back - vacuums, harnesses, machinery...

They finally get the ball back and it’s disgusting

Torn, covered in dirt and dog slobber

But then they meet the dogs owner

Show “The Sandlot” Clip

When we offer God our muddy, slobbery, chewed up work

The results of sin and depravity

He gives us something far more valuable in return

Something we could never afford on our own

You might think, “Why would He do that?”

That’s a good question...

It’s unearned, unending, unstoppable love...

There are some very important words in that text we need to know

GIFT - Jesus is not earned - salvation is not earned

God delivered His righteousness to us because He wanted to

Not because we deserved it

PROPITIATION - It means atonement

That means Jesus made reparations for our sin - He made the payment

How? That word:

BY HIS BLOOD - The only way to pay was by His righteous blood

There is no other way to be taken care of

John 14:6 (ESV)

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Finally, we answer a bit of the third question:

“How can we receive salvation?”

FAITH - Again, not earned.

It comes by faith alone

Because of this, we will be justified

It means we will have a legitimate reason to stand before God

Jesus will make righteous all of those who have faith that His blood with atone for us

A.C. Dixon: “Justification is away beyond anything that a human court of justice ever realizes. It is putting the sinner in the condition before God as if he had never sinned at all. It is giving him a standing in the merit of Jesus Christ of absolute innocency before God.”

So what does that mean for us?

Romans 3:27–28 (ESV)

27 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. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Because of where we stand, the result is simple:

4. We have no reason to brag about ourselves

Paul is still talking directly to Jews

But the principle belongs to us as well...

That doesn’t stop us from doing it!

Illustration: 2015 - Gaioz Nigalidze was stripped of chess grandmaster title

At Dubai open, he kept using restroom at key moments

Someone noticed he kept going into same stall

Officials searched and found hidden electronic devices

One was a cell phone with searches of his chess position

He was cheating, so they stripped him of his title

Why? We shouldn’t call him a grandmaster because he wasn’t one!

Google was the real grandmaster, so he has no reason to boast

In a sense, Jesus has helped us to cheat death

And we have no reason to boast

If you claim that you are actually righteous and holy… you will be stripped of that title

Paul explains this deeper:

Romans 3:29–31 (ESV)

29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Here’s the thing first century Jews got wrong

They thought, “I am a circumcised Jew - one of God’s chosen people”

But as we’ve learned today, it’s not about us!

We have no reason to brag, because Jesus handled it all!

It’s not about praying on your knees

It’s not about reading the right translation of Scripture

It’s not about having the right uniform, birth certificate or nationality

It’s definitely not about cutting of a certain piece of skin

Paul explains it this way:

Romans 2:29 (ESV)

29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

You don’t become part of the people of God outwardly

It’s an inward change that God does in you

There’s one more thing Paul mentions that we shouldn’t forget

5. Jesus did not overthrow the Law, He fulfilled it

Jesus paid the price, let’s trash the law!

Jesus didn’t make the law worthless...

Jesus said this Himself

Matthew 5:17–18 (ESV)

17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Now, we have a covenant with Christ who establishes, continues and completes the law

Remember, the law always pointed to Jesus

So when He came, he proved it to be true

He fulfilled the law by revealing what it was the law was pointing to

He didn’t come to eliminate the sacrificial system

He came to be the sacrifice

He didn’t come to stop the worship of God

He came to be worshipped as God

He didn’t come to eliminate Scripture

He came to communicate Scripture

He didn’t come to nullify the OT prophecies

He came because He is what the prophecies are about

So it’s not that He came in to trash the law

He fulfilled it

Conclusion

Don’t make the mistake the 1st century Jews made

You won’t be made righteous because you go to church

You’re hear to participate in the bride of Christ

You won’t be made righteous by doing good works

We do those because we love God and want to serve Him

You won’t be made righteous by some outward symbol...

It’s not circumcision, communion, baptism or anything else...

The only way you are made righteous, is by accepting God’s righteousness that He delivered...

By His Son living a perfect life, and being slaughtered in your place

And offering you a chance to receive this by believing and surrendering your life to Christ