Sermon: Sunday, 13th October, 2024
Speaker: Geoff Murray
Scripture: Romans 3:27-30
1. No room for boasting
Given all that we’ve been studying in previous weeks, we see that we’re all sinful – whether we are overtly immoral, whether we are respectable or whether we are religious – every single one of us is sinful and separated from God. So there’s no room for boasting because everyone is in the same boat.
It’s not as if one group is in pole position, first place; there isn’t one type of person who is more favourable in that sense. We cannot boast that, ‘Okay, we were all saved but there was a part of me which kind of earned it or a part of me that was more lovable or saveable.’ No, there is no room for boasting because everyone in the same predicament and none were more favourable to get out.
As we saw last week, in Romans 3:22, righteousness from God has been given through faith to all who believe. Righteousness that is given. Not earned, given through faith. And we read in verse 24 that we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. In other words, before God’s judgement seat we are declared righteous, just, good, not for any good in us, not because of anything we’ve done, but as a gift, freely given by his grace, in other words given in a lavish display of undeserved kindness.
Undeserved how? Because not only did we do nothing to earn it, we actually did everything to disqualify ourselves from it. It isn’t like we are neutral and pushed our way up but didn’t quite manage and God said, ‘Okay in you come.’ It was that we were in the red, we disqualified and discredited ourselves because of our sin and God forgave us when we trusted in his son Jesus. And now, though we were sinners we are declared righteous in God’s judgement through faith in Jesus Christ.
So back to Paul’s question. Where is boasting? Well, he answers. It is excluded. There’s no room for boasting. Boasting is excluded because we never deserved salvation due to being sinners. No, people are justified, declared righteous in God’s sight, because of faith, not because of works of the law. And then Paul stops to say, ‘… or is God the God of Jews only? No, he is the God of the Gentiles too!’
And it might seem strange to go there, why would he ask that question? Well, because there was a bit of a superiority complex among Jews. They were the chosen people of God, the only chosen people of God, Gentiles, non-Jews, for a time were excluded. It was the Jews who received the 10 commandments, it was the Jews who had God’s presence in their midst for much of their history. In many cases there’s a bit of a chip on the shoulder of Jews. But Paul blows that right out of the water, ‘Is he the God of the Jews only?’ No, Paul says, he is also the God of the Gentiles who justifies both Jew and Gentile, both circumcised and uncircumcised by faith.
The ground is level at the cross. At the cross we are told two things; we are all sinners and, for those who trust in Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross, we are all alike made righteous. Before these realities there is no room for spiritual pride, there is no room for looking down on others in the faith. There is no room for self-righteousness. If there is spiritual pride and arrogance Christ will pop that particular bubble.
He may pop that bubble in one of two ways or in both ways.
a. He will show you your sin
b. The Christian you may be looking down upon will shine brightly and show you God’s work in them.
Friends, God can and will use those we may think less of to show us that our righteousness is not in being as pious as we are, or being as biblically literate as we are or so on, God will use others we may, in our sin, think less of to show us we aren’t as great as we think we are.
Are you tempted to spiritual pride? Friends, let it go, leave it be. In the gospel, we cannot and must not look down on our brothers and sisters in faith. So where then is boasting? Paul answers emphatically. It is excluded.
Leave your pride behind, look to the cross and be humbled, know that you stand today because God saved you, God is at work in you and though we work at it and press on to follow Jesus, what does HE who began the good work, what will he do? HE will continue it through to completion on the day of Christ. It’s all of Him so that even your striving, even your serving, even your doing is empowered by him.
2. No room for the law?
‘Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.’ (Romans 3:31)
Paul continues to discuss the role of God’s law in the life of a Christian. He opens up with this in later in this epistle; ‘What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?’ (Romans 6:1-2)
But this is an age-old question which has haunted the church. Wherever there is this emphasis on justification by faith not by our works, that some ask, ‘Well, why bother obeying if we’re justified anyway.’ They of course won’t put it so crassly as that but nonetheless, that is the attitude. Careless living because Jesus paid for our sin.
Paul anticipates this question in verse 31, ‘Do we nullify the law by this faith?’ I’ll not say too much on this because Paul will bring this out in Romans 6-8 further so we’ll get there.
Yet this question always comes back because as religious, as self-righteous as we can be, we can also be pretty good at the lawless side too. Not maybe rampant lawlessness, but overlooking certain sins, flirting with some sins, justifying your sin because it’s not as bad as someone else’s. Just because we are justified by faith alone, not by our works, does not mean we’ve to throw caution to the wind and just ignore all God has commanded. Actually, one of the clearest places in scripture which speaks of this this dynamic is Ephesians. ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.’ (Ephesians 2:8-10)
And perhaps you need to hear that today. You’re way too casual with sin, way too accepting of it, you can sort of have a relaxed attitude with it because, ‘Well it’s okay, I have been forgiven.’ But that’s not the pattern of it at all. We’re saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ, and we’re saved in order to serve Christ. As Paul begins to answer this question more fully in chapter 6 he says actually we are now slaves to righteousness. That as we are saved by faith in Jesus, there is a new direction of travel in life, a Godward direction. We no longer live for self but for God.
‘But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you.’ (Psalm 130:4)
So the call here if you perhaps do use God’s grace as license to live carelessly is to repent, to ask for God’s forgiveness and we will see at the end of our passage, that as we do God is pleased to forgive us our sin, to cover them, to never count those sins against you. So come to him in repentance and faith and trust him.
3. The Example of Abraham
Paul jumps onto the example of Abraham next and we’ll look at that next week but we begin this heading in chapter 4 and verse 1-3.
Paul makes use of one of the most important figures in the Old Testament, Abraham. I suppose in many senses the most important figure. It is he who is the ‘father of many nations’ from his offspring the Lord Jesus came, we who trust in Jesus by faith are called children of Abraham in Galatians 3 because we belong to the same family, the family of faith. We may not be of a national or ethnic lineage like the Jews were but actually, we know that isn’t what is important. The question of whether we’re in the family of Abraham or not has little to do with our ethnicity or religious upbringing, and it has everything to do with faith in Abraham’s offspring, Jesus Christ.
To the Jews, Abraham is revered. The father of the Jewish religion and whilst he did get it wrong, his life is one of trusting God of obedience to him. What about Abraham, what did he discover, Paul asks? ‘… if he was justified because of works he had something to boast about, but not before God, what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.’
So, Paul is saying here, he was not justified by works in fact he had nothing to boast about before God. Rather, Abraham believed God and it was credited as righteousness. Paul quotes the Old Testament Scriptures, Genesis 15, the Torah, to say, even Abraham the Father of the Jewish religion, even Abraham who the Torah spoke of was justified, not by his works but by his faith. If even Abraham in the days of the Fathers, justification was not by works, but by faith. Faith in the promise given to Abraham that he would have offspring through whom the blessing would come to all the nations. It was he who fathered Isaac, who fathered Jacob, who fathered the twelve tribes of Israel and that family tree works all the way down to Jesus the one who would come to save us from our sins and bring the blessing of salvation to all the earth.
4. The Blessing of Following Abraham’s Example
When we follow Abraham’s example and trust in God’s word, his word which we know more about than Abraham did, his word which tells us that when we trust in Jesus’ death in our place to pay for our sins we have our sins, forgiven, covered. We sang in Psalm 32 and have from psalm 32 in our passage these wonderful words. Where is the peak of all human happiness, flourishing and good? It is having our sins forgiven, covered, forgotten by God.
God, the offended party offers forgiveness, offers a pardon, offers never to count your sin against you again.
How do you respond when people wrong you? Give them the cold shoulder? Give them the silent treatment? Keep bringing up their wrongs to them? Friends, God’s offer to you today if you’re not a Christian is to trust that he will count you right in his sight when you trust in Jesus’ death in your place. You may be aware of your wrong and the times you get it wrong, but God’s promise of forgiveness for your sins, of cleansing from the stain of sin, of forgetting all your wrongs to him and welcoming you in, that’s the offer to you today. But God calls you to trust in his promise that he justifies the unrighteous by faith, he calls you to trust that he declares you righteous if you trust in his son’s death in your place on the cross.
Trust in that promise, what a blessed and joyous place to be! What a reality to celebrate! God cancelling your record of wrongs against you promising not to ever bring it up again. Trust in that promise today friends and know the blessedness of Abraham, of David who wrote that psalm, of every Christian alive today. And perhaps you are a Christian but you wonder if, though God says he has forgiven you, he kind of resents it, kind of sees you sin again and sighs and thinks, ‘He’s always doing this.’ or’She’s always going down this path.’
But one of the greatest blessings of being the blessed man of psalm 32 is that God will never count your sin against you. Not now, not in 5 years time, not on your death bed, not even on the day of judgement. If your trust is in Jesus, he will never hold your sin against you, he will never bring up your past, he will never use your past as a weapon to condemn you. Friends, if you’re trusting in Jesus and you have a tender conscience, please know this, God has never, is not, and never will hold your sins against you.
That is surely what we celebrated last Sunday in the Lord’s Supper, Christ crucified for you
That is surely what we sang of last week in the hymn ‘Before the throne’;
Because the sinless Saviour died,
my sinful soul is counted free;
for God the Just is satisfied
to look on Him and pardon me;
to look on Him and pardon me./em>
That is what we rejoice in as believers, that is what we celebrate, that as his people he never holds our sin against us ever again, the price was paid, the punishment endured by our saviour Jesus. And that’s what brings us back full circle to the whole theme of these past few weeks.
Friends, the way of faith is the only way and it does a number of key things:
• It leads to our boasting and pride being squashed.
• It leads us to radically God-centred lives
• It leads us to the path of great blessing, of sins forgiven, of conscience cleansed, of restored fellowship with our God.