Find Romans 3 in your Bible. Every year we've been here, I've
contemplated on days like this what it must be like to get up
early before the sun comes up, under the cover of darkness,
to meet someone at an at a previously decided but undisclosed location
to the general public. She could be picked up and taken
several miles to another place where you get out and you walk
another distance so that you can meet another person who didn't
know who they were going to meet and that you would get in with
them and they would take a few more people to a different location
and then they would get into a different automobile or boat,
carriage, And they would ride to a different part of the city,
and they'd be escorted into one building, to the roof of another,
across another one, down to the outside, into the woods, and
through a shack. And after five hours of assembling
in this manner, there would be a congregation there. And people would do that day
in and day out, and they do that today, day in and day out, to
hear the Word of God. In most of the countries of the
world, that's the sake of the church. That's what we that's
what we dream about when we learn history or we look at missions
or we think of martyrs, we we think about those things we envisioned
and we go, that's sort of cool. You know, these third world nations. And yet we live in a day and
age, friends, when the church has become a place of play. We must have air conditioning
or people won't come. We must be close or people won't
come. Well, we've proven both of those
to be wrong. We haven't proven anything. God
has proven anything. Just as Brother Bill prayed the
Word and all that is done today would fall on fertile soil, we
understand that the fertile soil that comes is just because God
has created justified beings before him. We live in an era
of entertainment. We live in an era of prosperity.
Even the poorest among us are prosperous in comparison to the
richest of those in other places. We complain because our 401Ks
are depleted or because, you know, our Internet is cut off,
even though we may be dependent upon it. Maybe my shoes are worn out.
I need a new pair. That's last season's blouse. That's yesterday's
coat. And you think about it, it will
depress you. When most of the peoples of the world who have
a fertile heart for the word of God would do anything but
kill their own families to hear it. Countless videos of missionaries
going to other places such as China, you know, that third world
nation. There's sarcasm there. And people
weeping on the ground as they take their Bible out of the box.
In Kabul, Afghanistan, where people under the cover of darkness
and under the consequence of death and dismemberment, crucifixion, smuggle Bibles so that people
can hear the Word of God and people are willing to die for
it. And yet we in America, we have this thing that we must
have in order for us to feel like we worship. There's this
experience we must embark upon in order to feel like we've actually
served God. There's this testimony that we're
looking for in order to feel like we've been a part of God's
movement. And all the while, we fail to
see that the people of God have a dire hunger. to be with God's
people and to learn God's Word so that they are empowered to
live together in spite of what the world may think. We don't
need affinity in the world to have a unity in the gospel. That's
one of the most damnable heresies that's ever been perpetrated
by the enemy through pulpits. We're here in week two of the
Devil in the Pulpit series. And last week, we looked at how
the enemy communicates always through and from the Word of
God and most certainly always through the preaching of the
Word of God, whether it be preaching of your own mind to yourself
or the sharing of spiritual things to one another. Or God help us
for someone who is ordained standing in the pulpit saying, Thus saith
the Lord. He doesn't move in any other way, doesn't preach
in any other way, doesn't teach in any other way, doesn't tempt in any
other way. The enemy tempts in the way he's always done and
he tries to take those people who hear the word of God and
he tries to make it sound like what you want to hear. And there
are, my list is forever growing and I realize that it can very
much concern us that sermonizing can become polemic. That's not
my intention. As I said last week, I'm not
here to say this and that about every other place and every other
person, because there are people right now in this city and in
cities around us that are saying the very same thing about me
by name. And by your presence here, as
a member of this church specifically, most of you would actually say,
OK, I know the heat that's been happening, not just in the building,
but from without. And some people would argue that
there's no room for this type of stuff in the church. But I
would tell you this, that all through the New Testament epistles,
all of them, the reason they were written to the people is
to counter false teaching. The Corinthians were dealing
with incest and sexual morality that had been told was OK. They
were dealing with cultural ideals of no marriage. When Paul said,
whether you're married or not before the stage or married before
the Lord is that you stay as a believer. And I might have to come down
there and whip on you. You're really rough. Paul had
a rough time in Corinth. If it weren't for the Philippians,
he would have starved. And Paul wrote to the Ephesians, who were
dealing with this false teaching. The Thessalonians, who were dealing
with the false teaching of the Gnostics, saying the resurrection
had already taken place. And some of them saying they
didn't believe in it, because the Gnostics didn't believe in the physical matter.
The eschatologists of the day of Paul were saying that the
Lord had already returned, the full preterist of that day. Paul
wrote to the letters of the Ephesians so that they would be at peace
about things. I mean, the letter of the Thessalonians, so they'd
be at peace about that, about the judgment, about death, about
the resurrection, about the second coming of the Lord, the parousia,
as we call it. Paul wrote the Titus because
it was false teaching among the ranks of elders in the city,
people who were self-proclaimed pastors who were saying, this
is what I believe, and it violated the apostles' teaching. So Paul
wrote the Titus and said, I want you to appoint elders in every
city as I've directed you. That's why I left you there.
It's because the elders will take and put what remains into order
and give oversight to the right teaching of the Word. You see the false teaching that takes
place throughout all Scripture. The Galatians, who were taking
a little dose of gospel, or a good dose of gospel and taking a little
dose of the flesh. No pun intended in that statement,
but they were really hoodwinked. Paul said, you have been bewitched. Who has bewitched you? A foolish
Galatians. And he wrote that letter because they had begun
to believe the Judaizers, who had come to profess Christ, but
then said, but you've got to follow these things that we have
always done as Jews, specifically circumcision. It's good. You
should do it. And Paul says, why stop with
circumcision? Cut it all off. That's what he
says. The Bible's not always G-rated.
He says, emasculate yourselves. You want to circumcise? Become
a eunuch. Don't play games. You want to be right before God?
Do it right. Because if you're going to do it right, you're
going to do it all right. Or you're going to stand to judgment. We see that the other situation
that's happening with the New Testament epistles is that the
pastoral epistles, a lot of some of them are written like Peter,
not necessarily for false teaching, but the outcome of false teaching,
the outcome of people who were who were hating Jews who had
come to the faith. Paul writes about in Romans 8,
9 and 10, as he deals with the argument that the Romans would
say, well, we're not Israel, so we're not Jews, so we're not
like y'all. We're different. And Paul says
there's no difference between you. It's not those who are born
of Abraham who are in the flesh, who are the sons of God, but those
who are in Christ. That's what we're set for. And then also
later, And when we and when we look
at the New Testament and we see that one of the main reasons
the letters were written is to overcome false teaching, to infuse
right doctrine that accords with right living. Then why is it
so strange that we should address things that are false? Well,
I think it's because the manner in which it's done. Sometimes we can teach
so negatively on the negative that we only do negative things.
Sometimes we misunderstand what it means to stand for truth by
being a loud mouth for the negative. It's not godly. It violates everything,
the fruits of the Spirit. It's not godly. The fruit of
the Spirit is not loudmouth. The fruit of the Spirit is not
negative. The fruit of the Spirit is not defeated. The fruit of the
Spirit is not aggravated. The fruit of the Spirit is not
fearful. It's kindness and humility and gentleness and patience and
love. We don't do it that way. And
even when we do, we do it in accordance with the tone of the
apostles we preach. When Paul says, just cut it all
off, and then he moves on to justification. If you want to
act legalist, be legalist. If you want to act like a Judaism,
be a Judaism. It's wrong. It's not right. This
is right. And you are right, for you are
in Christ. You see, that's how it's taught to us in Scripture.
Have this mind among you, which is yours in Christ Jesus, Paul
told the Philippians, who were trying to do good mission work.
They're trying to send him money. And he was in prison. He was
broke. He was hungry. He was cold. He was sick. And they want
to send him money. And Paul said, I don't want your
money. I don't need you. But you've already given me all
the money I'm going to take from you. And I have had lots. And I have
had nothing. And I prefer nothing. Because
when I have nothing, Christ is enough. And I can do all things
in Christ. Who gives me strength? That's what that text means.
Nothing else. It's not about football. It's
not about cancer. It's not about marriage problems, not about
anything, but turn it away. Free money when you need it most.
Because Christ is enough. It's the attitude of what the
gospel does in the hearts of the people of God. It's the outcome
of the fruit of God. You know what? You know why that's
not there holistically among the professing Christians of
America? Because they're not being taught truth. They're being
taught error. And so my list is big. I've got
a list that I don't know what to do. And I'm thinking, God,
don't bring me to Romans 3. I preach that too much, but I
don't know that I've ever preached it to you. It's one of my go-to
texts, John 3, Romans 3, John 6, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. It's one of my go-to texts, Hebrews
chapter 1, Colossians 1, Philippians 1. I like the firsts of the letters. Romans 3 is one I go to when
people try to start talking about how awesome they are and how
good they are and how loving they are and how amazing they
are and God just can't help but love them. It's where I go when people come
to me and say, well, I'm doing good and I'm trying and I'm pressing
and I'm holding and, you know, God understands my sin and it's
OK because I'm just doing all I can do. You see, there's a
problem with that. Because if we do all we can do
and even accomplish everything he's commanded of us, we're still
guilty before it and we're still condemned because of it. So what I've chosen to bring
to your attention today is Romans 3, chapter 21, I mean, chapter
3, verse 21. You should have paid attention.
There's this new revelation coming. Through the end, verse 26. And here's the problem. Paul has opened this letter to
the Romans with the very hard. Punch in the gut, not in a defensive
way, but in an offensive way, we get your attention. And when they're breathing to
recover, what they do is they come up and they go, now what?
And that's where that's where Romans three comes in. Now, what
this is what? Because Paul says everybody is guilty before God.
There's no one with an excuse. God's made himself known to you.
He's revealed himself to you. His divine power has been revealed
to you. No one is without excuse. You may have all your gods, you
little Romans, and you may have history, millennia of wicked,
paganist, adulterated A devil worship, and you may have many
gods, and I know you feel convicted of that, and I know you feel
constricted in that, but I'm here to tell you that God, not
only on people like you, but on all wickedness and unrighteousness
of men, God will pour his wrath upon it all. And no one will
stand before God with their mouth open and say, but, but, but,
but, can I get a minute? Can I say something? Can I argue
my case? There is no case, you guilty.
Case closed. And that's hard for them to swallow.
And then Paul begins, after chapter 3, to talk about how Abram was
in the same boat as they were. Abram worshipped the moon. He
was a pagan, adulterous worshipper of a false god, and he got up
on the ziggurat every day and he bowed down to the moon. And
it was during that worship of the moon that God said, that
is my beloved. He's guilty of not loving me. He's guilty of not holding my
commandments. He doesn't even know them, but I've written them
on his heart. But because of his unbelief and unrighteousness,
he suppressed the truth and he cannot see. And he looks to heaven
every day and worships that which I have made. And he still can't
see me in it. But I will reach into his heart
and I will tell him to go and leave all that he has. And I
won't tell him where or how. And he will go as I put inside
him a new heart, a fertile heart. So when Paul brings Abram into
the Roman picture, it's a real good comparison. Because the
Jews were pagans taken out of the pagan world and set apart to point to what? The cross, to the new covenant. Well, we know that. God's going to bring judgment.
God's judgment is righteous. In chapter three, he says that
the righteous God is upheld. No one will escape it. You can't
speak to God. You can't look at God. No one's
seeking after God. Even Israel didn't seek after
God, did they? Especially in today's Paul, Paul
being a Pharisee of the Sanhedrin, tribal Benjamin, that's some
pretty good, some pretty good bloodlines. Benjamin. He says, nothing, it's garbage,
it's all for nothing, it's crud, it's just stuff to be thrown
away and distorted. All that I know, all that I accomplished,
all that I saw, all of it, I had zeal for God, I had zeal for
the law, and I'm blameless before it, but it is worthless to me.
In comparison to the countless gain of knowing Christ, my Savior.
And see, Paul can say that because Paul was saved out of that. Now,
I'm going to disclose to you today, as we move on, that most
of American Christians, or let's say most professing Christians
in America, are held to a standard of gravity. They're being savaged
by wrong teaching. And one of the most abused and
disruptive false teachings is in the area of the doctrine of
justification. It is that doctrine that launched
the Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church and the papacy.
It is the understanding of what Romans 3.24 says and Romans 1.17
says, that the righteous are justified by faith and that the
righteousness of God is given as a gift to be received by faith. And when people like Augustine
saw that, and then Augustine's writing influenced a man named
Martin Luther, a monk who was just eat up with the guilt of
his sin. And at the time, the church taught
the world and the people of the church that sin was just what
you committed. Sin was what you thought about
and what you wanted to do, and you went after it. Just to think the deeds and the
words and the thoughts and the things of that nature. And as
Martin Luther read the Bible, the word of God came alive and
he stopped being an Augustine follower and started seeing Pauline
theology. Paul's writing. And it took time
to formulate. Just like us, it takes time to
see this. But why is it so dead? The word
justification. Why is it for so many a new word? The New Testament is replete
with the word. Why is the word propitiation so new? Why is the
word repentance so weird? Why is the word glorification
and sanctification such misunderstood terms? Because the Scripture
is not being taught. Pastors and pulpits are full
of good sermons that give you something to work on, an action
to follow, or an attitude to change, or a rule to behave,
or a spirit to have. When there's no such teaching
in the entire New Testament, none whatsoever, is there ever
a place where the Christian is bound to following the precepts
of any command except the command to believe on Christ and that
Christ is the one who has done all that there is to do and that
the good works that we walk in have been created beforehand
for us to walk in. And those things are done by
the power of grace. And we don't ignore the striving.
We don't ignore the forgiving. We don't ignore the practice
of our faith. We're not we're not so hyper
in our grace that we just ignore the attitudes of repentance,
which I believe it's an attitude. But it starts with justification,
look at Romans 321. But now the righteousness of
God has been manifested apart from the law. Now, listen, two
things you need to know about the righteousness of God, the
righteousness of God and the justice of God interchangeable.
So if God is just and delivers justice, it's because it was
righteousness, so righteousness and justice work hand in hand.
So the righteousness of God can also be understood, if you will,
if you bear with me, the justice of God has been manifested apart
from the law. What does that mean? That means that God is
not upholding the law as the means through which you and I
would stand just before him. Righteous before him, you can't
work your way in the grace of God, even after faith, you can't
work your way into the pleasures of the father. He either loves
you or he does not. You are either his, bought by
the blood of Jesus, or you are just like the rest of humanity
and a son of disobedience and a vessel of destruction, as we
see throughout the New Testament. But now the righteousness of
God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law
and the prophets bear witness to it, they point to it. They
reveal it. the righteousness of God through
faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. And we can be fun
and do our whosoever's there for whosoever believes. Whoever
so believes in Christ by faith is justified in the righteousness
of God. For there's no distinction. All
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Now, here's
where we have to ask ourselves, what does he mean? And all are
justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. You see that, verse 24. Now,
there's one of two things that are going to happen here. You're
either going to read it incorrectly or you're going to read it incorrectly. And some of us would read it
incorrectly. And we'd say all are justified by his grace. So,
all have sinned, and if all have sinned, then all are justified.
Isn't that what it says? But didn't we see what it said
first? The righteousness of the law, the righteousness of God
through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Who are
we talking about in the sentence? Who is the subject? When someone
says all now, who are we talking about? All who believe. For there
is no distinction. For all who believe have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God. And all who believe are
justified by his grace as a gift. But it also does mean that all
have fallen short of the glory of God. Because if you go back,
or go forward a little bit, in verse 9, I mean back a little
bit in verse 9, it says, No one is righteous, no not one, no
one understands, no one seeks for God, all have turned aside,
together they have all become worthless, no one does good,
not even one. So what do we do there? Well
now, that's the condition, that's the problem. And now Romans 3
verse 21 is the solution. for all who believe, not for
every human being, just those who believe by faith. Because
if we all believe that faith is a prerequisite for justification,
then why are we preaching? Why do we call for the evangelism?
Why do we share the gospel? Why do we call for people to
repent and believe the gospel? Because if they do not believe
by faith, they do not have eternal life. But I've gotten ahead of
myself. Let's keep reading. For all have
sinned in falsehood, O Lord God, and are justified by His grace
as a gift." How? Through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. You see that? Jesus has bought
a people who believe. And only those who believe. Whom
God, not the Jews, not the Romans, whom God put forward as a propitiation. And that means that God is satisfied
in His judgment against sinners who believe by His blood to be received by
faith. This was to show God's righteousness,
because in His divine forbearance, He passed over former sins. It
was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He
might be the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Now, I want to tell you something,
church. I'm going to say some things in this sermon out of
this text that some of you are well familiar with. And I'm going
to say some things in this text that some of you have never heard
before. And I'm going to tell you right now that you do not
need to take my word for it, but you need to take the Scripture's
word for it. And if I hear that you've gone on YouTube or Google
or everywhere else and tried to find something, nine out of
ten dentists that agree with you, I am not going to be happy.
Use the Bible. Study, pray, and use the text
in which you are studying to prove itself. I can take, if
you want to tell me that aliens are real and want me to prove
that to you, I can prove it to you. By taking piece by piece,
word by word, phrase by phrase, but I can't prove that to you
if I take a letter. Just like you see in the news
today. What do you see? You see all
these racist remarks that's been going on? And you hear him, you
go, Howard, what fool would say that on television? It's bad
enough. But then you look at the whole
transcript and you go, oh, it was in context. Still shouldn't have
been said, but it's not as heinous as it sounded by itself. Or if you hear a quotation from
someone, you know, I always like to go to the original source
and I like to read everything. So if I see a quote, I'm going
to find where it went, I'm going to read it all. Don't do that
to me. I want to know exactly what the context is. The context of justification
is found within the letters of the apostles. But first, let's
ask ourselves, what is justification? Well, there's an easy, oversimplified,
baby definition of it. It means that it has been decreed
by a court or a judge that it is just as if I've never sinned. Justified. It's just as if I've
never sinned. And that's weak, weak, weak,
weak. But what it doesn't have anything
to do with is us. Justification has nothing
to do with the sinner, what he does, what he believes, what
he thinks at all. It is received by faith and we'll get to that.
But justification is that legal declaration that the holy judge
of the universe has stood before the world and said, you are just
before me. Justification is not making one
righteous, it's declaring him so when he's not. It is so important that it is
the foundation. If you go on over to Romans chapter
8, you see that golden chain that I love. I heard somebody
preach this the other day out of Atlanta, and I thought I was
going to throw up in my mouth. It was one of the most horrific
abuses of this Romans 8, 38, 28 through 30. It was most of the most horrific
abuses of this text as a pretext that I've ever heard by somebody
that ought to know better. But what does it say there? We know that for those who love
God, all things work together for their good, for those who
are called according to his purpose, for those whom he foreknew. He also predestined to be conformed
to the image of his Son. What does that mean? What's the
image of Jesus? Righteous. So all that God foreknew, He
predestined, He predetermined that they would stand in the
image of Christ, which is righteous. So when we are justified, we
are put in the image of Christ fully, forever, never to lose
that position. And it's not just position. It's
a legal absolution. It is a legal, sincere decree
that the King has said is. So we, though we are sinners,
are righteous before God by decree. to be conformed to the image
of the Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
And those whom he predestined, he called, and those whom he
called, he also justified. Do you see that? And those whom
he justified, he also glorified. So justification is salvation. Justification is redemption. Justification is the root of
sanctification. Justification is the means through
which God has saved the people. He said, you're innocent, though
you're guilty, I declare you just. You see, in the court of
man, unless there's enough evidence, someone who's guilty can might,
may be justified by a judge. The jury goes, we don't see any
evidence against this guy because the man's sneaky. And the witnesses
lied. And stuff was thrown out. And so we go and we see that
happening all over the world today. Guilty men know they're
guilty and they stand there and they're, well, how do you plead?
Not guilty. I couldn't be a judge. You're a comedian. Now, how do
you plead? Your mama doesn't say you did it. Your grandma
and all them says you did it. You did it. But how do you—I'm
not guilty, Your Honor. Okay, we'll go to trial. And
you get another evidence. Well, the one gung-ho Barney
Five goes in, kicks the door in in a fit of anger, and gets
the only evidence they had. And he says, here's the evidence!
And he gets thrown out. Due process. We have rights as American citizens
for a good reason. Let's don't let those things
fly out the window, if we can. And the evidence is clear. The
jury sees it. And then the judge goes, I'm sorry, jury, you have
to disregard that evidence because it was illegally obtained and
therefore it cannot be used. So I have to go on everything
that's no evidence that he's acquitted. He's justified. He
did not do the crime. And everybody goes, you've got
to be kidding me. That's what it's like for us. We know we're
guilty. And God knows we're guilty, even
when we hide it from each other. He knows our hearts. And we're
guilty not just on what we've done or think, but we're guilty
on who we are, the sons of Adam. We're guilty by our Adamic nature. We're guilty by an imputed sinfulness. I like to call it the DNA. It's
sinful. It's prone to rebel. We're not
sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners.
We do what we do. So let's look at this text. Let
me break it down in the context of being justified. Listen to
this. The righteousness of God has
been manifested apart from the law. See, God is the holy one. God is the giver of the law. So God is the one who is is the
one who judges who is and who is not a breaker of the law.
God is the one who looks into the heart of man and says, guilty,
because His holiness is the measuring stick through which He measures
us. And we've all not just been found wanting, but fall short
of the glory of God. He's the standard, we're the
measure, we're the sample, and we're not even close. So God,
because he's holy, our guilt concerns his character. Our guiltiness
concerns his name and concerns his holiness. And he has all
authority over the judgment of sinfulness. And he is right and
righteous and just in all of his judgment. He is the Almighty
Creator who has not just been sinned against, but He's the
One who created it all for His namesake and for His glory. And
we have rebelled against Him. He sustains us, even in wickedness. And He is the One to whom we
will all answer. That's what Paul's saying to
these. He's already said it there. Chapters 1 and 2. Do you hear that? Because God is
the one who's the giver of the law, he's the sustainer and the
creator, he is the judge of all things, he is the one to whom
we will all give an account. Judgment is due because we fall
short of his glory, because we are sinners. God is the just
judge and we haven't sinned against each other, though we do. We've
sinned against God. By our existence, we've sinned
against God. This isn't a very popular teaching. Because everybody likes to fall
into what we know is a Pelagian theology. He was a heretic. Pelagius
was a heretic and he believed that men were intrinsically good.
And until they chose to sin, they were righteous. And you
know what's crazy? That's the natural thing that
we think. I thought that as a kid growing up. It blew my mind. I used to believe, which I knew
I wasn't right, I knew I'd sin, but I used to believe that if
you could walk through life without ever sinning, you could be justified
before God. You cannot. Because if you could, you'd be
God. You would say to God, I have obtained your holy standard,
God. I have become like you. Who said
that? Lucifer. I'm going to stand next to you
in my glory and I'm going to bask as you share mine. Judgment is due God because of
sin. He is due to give judgment. God is the just judge and we've
sinned against him. He's the one who has the authority to
pass judgment. God has called all men to give an account to
him. They will stand before God and every time the word of God
is taught. Here's the beauty. It's a reckoning, it's a summons
to stand before God. It's a summons to believe the
gospel. Only when God justifies a man does he have a good heart,
and only when he has a good heart will he hear and respond to the
call of God in the gospel. God alone can pardon sin. Man
cannot. So therefore, God alone can provide
the means and the method of that pardon. Man is utterly guilty
before God for all of sin. There is no distinction. All
of sin and fall are short of the glory of God. Man is guilty.
In Romans 3, 10, I just read, no one is righteous. No, not
one. No one understands. No one seeks
after God. All have turned aside together.
They have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. Wait a minute. I know a lot of
good people. You know a lot of people who do good things that
are good people by our standards. But those acts of righteousness
do not afford justification before God. They don't stand before
God perfect. They don't stand before God sinless, even though they do a lot of
good things. Because we cannot stand anything but guilty before
Him, God is utterly just in judgment. And a born again man sees that
he's utterly guilty before God and that God is utterly just
in the judgment against him. Man is guilty and he does not
plead his case, but he pleads his guilt. I'm guilty. One who's
been brought to the light of understanding the gospel stands
before God and says, Oh, have mercy on me. Oh, God, a sinner. And the beautiful thing that
we see here, what Paul is teaching. Is that God is just in judgment.
Against man. Man is guilty. But the God-man,
Jesus Christ, the Son, has stood in our place. We have an Advocate for the Father
who is our propitiation. Justified. What does it really
look like? What does it really mean? Well,
there's a few things I want you to understand about justification.
And you may think, well, what are the bad things? Anything
you hear that's not what I say today is wrong. And you need
to study the Bible to see if I'm right. If you hear somebody
tell you that justification has anything to do with you, they're
wrong, according to what I see Scripture teaching in its context.
Why does it matter? Because if you think you can
come before God in any way, in any portion, in any inch, one
millionth of a millionth of a centimeter, and in some sense have anything
to do with your justification, you aren't justified. So it's
a big deal. The Scripture says, not by works
would a man stand before God, but only by the works of Christ
to be received by faith. What is this justification? First,
it's imputed. It's imputed, it's God's law,
it's His holiness, it's His justification, it's His righteousness. God,
the Son, then becomes the Redeemer by choice. He becomes propitiation that
satisfies the judgment of God against us. So it's imputed. We're not earning this. It's
not of worth, as Paul would say in Ephesians 2. But it's just
a gift to be received. How? The righteousness of God. The righteousness of God through
faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Faith. Grace, it's a gift. They're justified, verse 24,
by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. That's really the only text I'm
preaching right now. This justification is imputed.
That means it's not given to us to make us righteous. Listen
to me. Justification is not making us
righteous. It's declaring us righteous.
It's the righteousness of Christ put on us. Imputation. It's not a work of
merit. It's not an achievement of eagerness. It's not about man's earnestness.
It's given from another. And it still is the others to
give. It's the righteousness of Christ,
which means He's the righteousness of God. Because of that, God
justifies alone, because it's God's righteousness to give.
It's Christ's righteousness to impute. It is not ours to go
get. It is not ours to try to wear
as though we've done something. It's God's gift of grace. God
justifies no one else. No man, no priest, no prayer,
no desire. Nothing but God justifies a sinner. We do not meet God anywhere.
We do not work toward God. And we do not work to have affection
for God. And we do not work for the effect
of justification from God. It is God's decree, despite the
truth of our nature. God has declared us just before
him. Friends, do not be deceived. This is not a path for wickedness.
Because the one who trusts in Christ is the one in whom Christ
is revealed. So grace is free. It's unmerited,
it's undeserved, and it's unsought. Something else I want you to
understand about justification is that Christ has purchased
it. Christ has paid for it. We have
a debt of sin and judgment that belongs to be paid to God. And Jesus Christ, the righteous,
has come to this earth and shed his blood, redeeming all who
believe as a gift of grace to be received by faith. And the
blood of Jesus does not spill to ill effect. What does that
mean? It's specific. The blood of Jesus was spilled
to purchase the redemption of all who believe, period. Do you believe? We need to be very careful with
this church. This is where I butt not only heads, but if I had
my way and not God's way. Oh God, not to blaspheme the
Lord's prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, but if you could
give me about a 20 minute reprieve. Not my will, but yours be done,
Lord. If I could have my way, and this
is what gets me in trouble, I'd love to go to blows. For everything
you disprove, everything you Propose as the truth that you
cannot prove through context. I get to punch you in the face.
Then we have fight church. Have y'all seen that one? Wouldn't that be cool? Sort of
like paper, rock, scissors. When we played it, it wasn't
just for fun. When you lost, you got slapped on the wrist.
After about 30 rounds, you both had bloody red wrists. And you
were like, oh, please don't hit me again. Why do we do that? Because boys are stupid. And the simplest of things has
to be a competition, and if there's no pain, no fun. No gain in it,
just no fun. And so us pastors will be the
same way. If you want to argue against Christ's imputed righteousness
and the justification of God alone to all who believe, if
you want to argue for a universal salvation and think everybody's
going to go to heaven or that Jesus just died so that every
human being may go to heaven, that he hopes to go to heaven,
What kind of God is that? Can you prove that to me through
a context? Let's take Romans, and every time you don't prove
it, I punch you in the face, and every time I don't prove
it, you punch me in the face. Maybe they'll do it, because just sitting
down to have a casual conversation in private is not happening.
The people are lost. If people are scared, if people
are burdened, if people are getting up every day going, oh, God,
please, I'm doing the best I can. I hope to God you'll save me.
I hope I'm OK. But I know, wait a minute, I
said the sinner's prayer, I'm OK. And they know they're lying
to themselves. They're not OK. They don't feel
at peace in their heart. They don't have hope in them.
They're putting their hope in their actions, they're putting
their hope in their prayers, they're putting their hope in their preachers.
And that's why so many churches are so full of people doing so
much stuff six days a week. And they're working and giving
and giving and working and they're compelled out of out of out of
horror and guilt to continue to help please God. I got to
please God. I got to work for God. I got
to live for God. I got to do this. I got to do that. And they're
burdened beyond beyond understanding. It's not the gospel. It's wicked. obeyed the law of commandments. He obeyed the Ten Commandments
perfectly. He obeyed the holy requirements
of the law perfectly. He lived as a man, though he
was God. He was fully man, and he was
fully God. He created a young woman named
Mary, and all through the history from Adam to her, he purposed
to come out of the womb that he created. to be incarnate,
the God-man, the Son of the living God, the Christ, the holy, anointed
One of God, who by the word of His power held the world up as
He was being born into it. And He obeyed the holy requirements
of the law, and then He suffered the penalty of violating the
law that He never violated. That's what Jesus did. As if He were the guilty party.
who was sinless, sinful. And all the sin of all who believe
or ever will believe were placed on Christ and God the Father
is satisfied. There's no more debt. You see
that? See why justification is so important? Because God cannot
declare someone just if their sins are not satisfied, if their
debt has not been paid, if their punishment has not been given.
So here's something else you need
to know about justification. We're not changed when we're justified. We're not made righteous in reality. We're declared righteous. And
then sanctification. Don't confuse the two. They're
different. Sanctification is the means to which God does grow
us some, a little teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny bit while we're
in this life. Teeny, tiny. I'll let y'all sign that. Pass
it around. Just a little bitty, tiny way
in comparison to the chasm of His righteousness and glory. Sanctification. And then when
we see Christ, we will be as He is. But until then, we're
declared as he is, though we aren't. We're not changed in
redemption. We're declared to. Jesus gives
us his righteousness. 1 Corinthians 1 30. And because of him, you are in
Christ Jesus, who became to us all of this wisdom from God,
righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it
is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. How do I stand
before God justified? Because Christ the righteous
paid my sin before him. Christ, the righteous, took my
guilt before the Father. Christ, the righteous, took my
death before the Father. Christ, the righteous, bore my
sins on the cross before the Father. Christ, the righteous,
raised from the dead, stands at the side of the Father, and
the accuser makes a charge against me, the elect of God. Jesus says,
see my hands, see my side, see my stripes. I have bore his sins
in my body, and he is justified. Romans 4, verse 5, now the one
who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as due.
So you think, well, why? What is it? How do I not work
for that? How do I not come get that? What have I must do? You
can't. You can't come get it. You can't
come get a declaration. How does that work? Just like
a husband and wife in this country cannot just go to the local brothel
house and sit there and go, we're married, instead of to declare
ourselves and then go change their names and get legal documents
changed. They can't do it. Got to have a certificate of
marriage in almost every state in the union. And somebody has
to declare that that's been done and sign off on it. Some states
it's clergy, some states it's homeless man by the mailbox.
It doesn't matter as long as there's a witness and vows were
exchanged. Yep, yep. I declare it. Somebody has to declare it. You
can't self-declare yourself something. You can if you're crazy. I do
declare it as the king of all the world. All right, I'll visit
you next Saturday, Daddy. I mean, you know, hug yourself
again. There you go. You got it. Don't
declare yourself righteous because this is worse than crazy. It's
damning. Don't declare that we have come to God. The one who
works, his wages are counted not as a gift, but as his due.
If you work, you are owed your pay. Whatever it is you're owed,
you work, you get paid. Not in righteousness, not in
justification. Romans 4, 5 says, unto the one
who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly,
his faith is counted as righteousness. What in the world? Just as David
also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness
apart from worse. Verse 7, blessed are those whose
lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed
is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Justification. Jesus, not only did he take the
debt of sin, he took it voluntarily. In theological language, we call
it the passive obedience of Christ. Passive, in other words, he didn't
kill himself, he submitted himself to be killed. Voluntarily. Jesus wasn't on
a mission to not get crucified, he came to die. It's important. Christ became the Lamb. as an
offering in place of the simple. And this gospel, this good news
is preached to all humanity. So that they would be compelled
to come. So we don't like those words in reform churches. What
do you mean, Aaron? Are we going to do just as I
am now? No, we're not. The scripture calls you to come
to Christ, come out. of the darkness come out of the
world. And you know what? Have you ever watched Charlie
Brown? For people without the Spirit of God in their heart,
that wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. That's how I believe
my children hear my voice sometimes. That's what an unregenerate heart
hears when the Spirit is not working in them. They don't hear. But we're not God. We preach
to everything. to everyone. We must compel men
and women and children to come and hear and believe the gospel
of Jesus, lest they perish under the mighty hand of a vengeful
God. Faith. What do I do then? What do I do? Oh, wretched man
that I am, what do I do? Paul says that over in Romans
7. Christ will save me. Christ has saved me. It is Christ
alone. How do I know this? How do I
get this? By faith. Jesus is the Redeemer. You and I and anyone who believes,
anyone who believes, anyone who believes, whosoever believes,
But whosoever does not believe, you see, that's the text in John
3, 16 through 18 is condemned already. But whosoever believes
has eternal life. Are you a believer? Do you believe? And that belief is faith. Faith
alone is how one finds effective justification. Faith alone is
how one is found as just. justified by His grace as a gift
to the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward
as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. By nature, we are in Adam. By
birth, we are in Adam. By rebirth, we are in Christ. By new nature, we are in Christ. The old is gone, the new has
come. The dead is gone, the new is
alive. We, once who were dead in our
trespasses, have been made alive in Christ. This is the reality
of what faith brings into the hearts, minds, lives, future,
and eternity of those who believe. But there again, as I'll preach
in a few weeks, faith is so misunderstood. It's so misaligned. It's become
a word. instead of a rest. It's become
a battle instead of a beautiful gift of God. It's become this
thing that we must have more of when Jesus says you don't
need but a speck. You don't just, you don't even
have a speck. You have a speck. That's all you need. Any. At
all. Just any. Just like that. All you need
is that many. I can give you more than that. And we'll give you more than
that. I'll give you so much faith, you'll see me. I'll give you
so much faith, you'll respond in faith and you'll do it forever.
You'll always believe. And even when you doubt, you'll
come back. Even John the Baptist. Hey, you need to go check to
make sure that that is the guy. I know I heard God say, that's
my son. I want to be sure. Oh, faithless one, where was
his faith? In the fullness of Christ, whoever
he may be. Faith sees forever the glorious
gift of Christ in His full and eternal work, not only in life,
but in His death and in His resurrection and His forever standing as an
advocate for the saints. Faith binds us to Christ as His
bride, never to be separated. Faith marries. I think John Murray
might have said this best. I don't know if he said that
quote, but I remember reading this about faith. I think it's
Murray who says, John, a faith marries the soul of a sinner
to the beauty of Christ and his righteousness. So God is just in justifying
sinners who can only receive justification as a gift to be
received by faith. because those sins are paid for
by the blood of Christ. God is just in saying, you're
righteous. I declare you innocent. I declare
you justified before me, because the Son of God has taken our
debt. Hell cannot be filled with any
persons for whom Christ has died. Did you hear that? Hell has no
one Will is not there yet. Hell will not have anyone in
it for whom Christ has died. Think about it. Because what
this text teaches us is that by putting Christ on the cross
and such as a propitiation he was. Some Yoda language there. By his blood. We receive by faith. This shows God's righteousness
because in his divine forbearance, he passed over former sin. So
he forgave people of old because he was going to punish their
sins in the body of Christ and in the present time so that he
may be just, right, correct, legally righteous. And that he
also may be the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
So, faith in Jesus. Then, therefore, God can say,
because your sins have been paid by my Son, you are just and justified,
and I am just, and my righteousness and justice is upheld. You are
forgiven because your sins are paid for. Do you see that? So
there will be no just paid sins or sinners There'll be no paid
for sinners in hell. That's what hell is, where you
pay for your sin forever. Judgment cannot be desired for
any persons who are innocent and declared righteous. There's
no double jeopardy. You've got all. It's over. You're free. Christ died for
all who believe. And all who believe by faith
are just. And there is therefore now no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Friends, that's
good news. Gospel means good news. Evangel means good news. God speaks good news. Your faith in Christ is not a
burden. Am I doing this right? Am I doing
that right? It's not living that way. Live by faith in the Son of God
who loves you and gave himself for you. That's what Paul says.
I live this life. It's not I live a Christ who
lives within me. It's Christ's righteousness who
lives within me. And when I sin, I'm an advocate for the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous, is what John says. He's our propitiation. He satisfied the judgment of
God against us. There is no debt to be paid to
God. You owe God nothing, church. But he's due everything. Because
he's declared us just and he saved us through Christ, we give
him everything. We just love him. We give him
our lives. We give him our worship, our
wealth, our worth. It's all his glory and honor
and majesty and wealth and power. It's yours, God. Because our debt has been
paid, because we stand justified today, we have no guilt for our
sins. There's a difference in guilt
and conviction. There will be conviction. And without conviction,
there's probably no justification. But there's no guilt. There's
no legal guilt against us. You're free. What makes you want to live for
Christ more than knowing you're guilty and He's declared you
innocent because He took your guilt and died in your place?
And you realize that death, burial, and resurrection is not what
we would have gotten. Death, burial, judgment, or impending
judgment, resurrection, back to the body, unto judgment forever. not to life, to judgment. God is not a liar. He's just. And He says you're forgiven. God gave this to you freely.
Grace. That means he was under no compulsion. He wasn't writhing in horrible
pain. He wasn't writhing in guilt and frustration. What am I going
to do with these people? I know I'll die. That's what
I'll do. God didn't discover that. God
didn't think of that. God didn't come to a place where
he thought, OK, I'll do this, don't want to. I'll do the God
purpose before the world began that this was his plan. And so
when the world looks at God and says to his face, how dare you
call me to be holy? And call me to do that which
I cannot do. And God goes, but I did it for
you. And then they say, get out of my face. See how wicked unbelief
is? Because God decreed that every
sinner would die. And then in the gospel, God decreed
that He alone would satisfy His judgment against sin for whoever believes. And God has a satisfied heart.
against you or towards you, rather than a
judge judging heart against you. He's right in having a judging
heart against you, but he's declared you just in all of your debts
been paid by Christ. So he is satisfied in his heart
toward you. That's what Jesus means. When
he cries out on the cross, it is finished. It is paid It is
over. You are satisfied, Father. A few thoughts in closing. I hate to beat the same old drum
and the same old tune, but there's no other song to play but the
gospel. Justification. As a reminder,
it is God's legal decree that you are right before Him with
no guilt of sin. It is freely given by His grace
and mercy. And it is always an effective
grace given to those who believe. The cause of this In a way of application, maybe
this will work for application, it might not. It does for me,
but I'm different. We are not justified because
we apologize to God. I'm sorry, God. So? You think that's going to
make up the difference? You're sorry? You're wicked. You're sinful. If all it takes
is a sorry, why did Jesus die on the cross? If all it takes
is an apology and a sincere, heartfelt, wrenching, guilt-ridden
gut to go, oh, shouldn't have, shouldn't have. Is that all?
Then why did Christ, the righteous one, have to take our sin on
Himself? It's not apology. Justification is God's alone,
not man's. It's His work. It's His decree. Justification is the grounds
for sanctification and the guarantee of glorification. I'll say it
again. Justification is salvation. It is God saving His people. And it is effective for you when
you believe. I didn't say it was the cause
of it. God is the cause of your justification. His decree and
His grace and His mercy and His affection toward you is what
causes it. But you are born again because
you are justified. And you believe by faith because
you're born again. See, those words right there
cause problems. But I would challenge any person
in the Baptist faith to pull any document from any confession
or creed from the beginning of time to today that would refute
that. For even the Baptist faith, the
message of 2000 says that faith and repentance are inseparable
experiences of grace. The grace of God is given. You're
born again. You believe. You're justified. You're decreed to be just. Justification is opposed to condemnation. It sits in the opposite corner
of condemnation. There is no condemnation because
our debt against God's holiness has been settled and we are declared
just, though we are not yet. But anyone who says they're without
sin is a liar and makes God a liar. Because we are justified and
not condemned, no one can bring a charge against the elect of
God. Romans 8.33. Who can bring a
charge against God's elect? No one. What can separate us
from the love of God? Paul goes to argue. Angels, demons,
powers, principalities, darkness, life, death, depth, height, circumference,
chasms. He put a whole bunch of stuff
in there. Nothing in all of creation shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We don't make him our Lord. He
rules over us and has declared us just. We do not work toward justification.
It is given as a gift. Any work that appears to be work
is subsequent, is after the fact. It's underneath the outcome of
justification. It's not before it. Any work
is prepared by God for us to walk in as justified believers.
It doesn't get us there. Though a gift of God is the response
of man to the gospel of grace. Don't downplay faith, church. There's a lot of people that
ignore that because they love the idea of election, which is
God's justification of sinners so much, they don't even want
to talk about faith. If you don't have faith, you're not elect. You don't have faith, you're
not redeemed. You don't have faith, you're not justified. You don't have
faith. But the faith that we hear about
so often is often so frustratingly confusing that we think that
it belongs in all this categoric work. Faith alone, sola fide,
for by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not of
your own doing. What? I love these grammatical
anomalies that people like to pull out of that text in Ephesians
chapter 2, verses 8 through 10. Well, it's pointing back to you.
No, it's not. Get your Greek book out and look at it. This
refers to grace and faith. Not saved. have been saved, no? Grace through faith. This, the subject, grace through
faith, is not of your own doing, but is a gift of God, so that
no one can boast. But when we do boast, we boast
in our Lord. Faith is the effective reality
as a gift. It's the response to the gospel
of grace. Without faith, no one can please
God. Faith always has an object. And for the true child of God
and the unified faith, the perfect adopted one, they agree with
God about their sin, repentance, and they agree with God about
the answer to that sin, Christ Jesus. Yes, God, I see. See, that's a better way of looking
at faith. I see what you've done. I trust in what you've done. I hold to what you've done. I hold to who you are. I hope
in who you are. I hope in your work. And nothing
less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. This is all I have. It's not
the more I believe. It's your faithfulness I hold
to. That's faith. And it's not a point in history.
It's a present reality that never stops, though it wanes. For God
is always faith. Faith has an object. Faith is
the effect of reality, bringing justification to application. In other words, faith is the
only means through which one receives justification. You don't
work to it. You don't get right. You don't
start thinking through it and do something. You don't say something
that affects God. You don't do anything. You just
know that God has declared you just and you believe in the fullness
of everything you are. And you are a child of God because
the Spirit of God testifies with your spirit that you are adopted
as sons. And I'm mixing some scripture
here. But then as sons, as heirs, then heirs with Christ, not only
to his death, You're dead in your sin. The old man is dead,
the simple man is gone, but then raise the newness of life. You are justified, church, because
of what God has done for you. Can you see it because of what
God has given to you? Do you see it? Is it your hope? Is it your treasure? Faith is a continual resting
and trusting and believing and abiding. And it's not in our strength,
but in the strength of God. The weakest of faiths, the smallest
of faiths, the most doubtful of faiths produces the fruit
of faith. But we do not put our hope in
Him. We put our hope in the Father of faith. who gave the Son that
we might be just before Him. It's not just lip service, church.
It's not a prayer. It's not a commitment. It's not
a mind game. It's a solid resolve. It's a
forever resting, forever holding, and forever trusting in Christ. For God is the just and the justifier
of all, or of the one who has faith in Jesus. He goes to say,
and what becomes of our boasting? I believe, God, that's why you
saved me. Now, that's a boast. God, you
were good and merciful in your saving of me. And I see because
you helped me see. But because of our boast, it
is excluded. By what kind of law? What should
we work? By the law of works? No. By the
law of faith. For we hold that one is justified
by faith apart from the works of the law. What must we do to
be doing the works of God? They asked Jesus in Capernaum. when he tells them not to work
for the bread that perishes. And what are we going to do then
to be doing the work of God? And they were ready, and they
had their notebooks out, and they had their MP3 recorders
on, and they had their iPads up, filming him. They were going
to YouTube tweet it and everything else. They're going to put it
up there and they're ready to blog about it, live blog about
it. And here's what we need to do.
Here we go. Jesus, the Son, is going to tell us what we need
to do. We're doing the works of God. And Jesus says to believe
on the Son whom He has sent. Do you believe? Do you believe? It seems too
simple. Christ alone. One ball purchase affected my
salvation. God alone has just done this.
He's just done this for me. That's what my faith is supposed
to be about. I'm just supposed to believe that God did it. Yes.
Otherwise, he hasn't. Church, he has. Do you believe that? Believe the gospel. It's good
news, not just for now, but forever. Let's pray. Lord, in the heat of our day,
a small coolness will swing by,
just a second, and a fan rolls through. In some way, sort of like our
life, Lord, we live So much internal here in this flesh. We don't need to. Yes, we're in a battle. Yes,
it's hard at times. But even in the depths of darkness,
when everything we know to be good is gone, we know that the
fullness of all goodness is there. You have never moved and you
will hold us. And one day that That glorious
breeze will never stop, we will never sweat, we will never be
discomforted, because Christ has paid our debt against you,
Father. Lord, as these children have
sat under this teaching, I know it's hard even for me to sit
for 45 minutes and listen. Lord, we trust that your word
is sound, and it does what you promised it to do, and it will
hide in the hearts of all, in the soil that is ready. So
we just keep teaching, keep preaching, and pray, Lord, that these young
ones would obtain a palate to taste and see the goodness of
your glory in Christ's face. Father, that we, as your beloved,
would just stop trying to figure everything out to such a detail,
to the waning of our worship, but Lord, that we would truly
just get up and rise every day with a peace, knowing that we
are just before you. Father, knowing full well that
there is no condemnation against us. Lord, we seek after you with
a tenacity that can never fail because your spirit within us
not only prays, but pushes and sanctifies us every day. Empower
us, Lord, to live the gospel. Empower us, Lord, to be very
careful not to walk into a very dangerous area of making grace
a license to wickedness. Father, help us, on the other
hand, not to walk into an area of legalism and savageness to
where we're so worried about what we say and do that we're
not living in the spirit of faith. Work in us as we grow. Lord,
would you take this very undone, very shallow message of justification
and would you grow roots in our minds and hearts That we would
just begin to think on this, Lord, and contemplate it to our
perplexity as we look like children to the sky and go, I don't know,
God, but I know you. And our faith may be like that
of little children. We just trust you, Lord. We know you love us because we
love you. We love you because you first
loved us. And we thank you for salvation, for declaring us just
before you. We thank you for the effects
of salvation, that we grow in sanctification and in faith,
that we grow in our works, that you work in us and through us,
so that the world may see that you are indeed our Father. Because
we do that which you are doing. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.