The Diamond of the Gospel

Grab our bibles. Grab our bibles, and turn to Romans chapter three.

If you don't have a Bible with you, just raise your hand. We're

passing those out right now, so just raise your hand. If you need

a bible or a bulletin, there's sermon notes on the back of that bullet

is going to be really helpful for you this morning for tracking along. So

just raise your hand, keep it up, and we'll get you. I

either repose thanks. Turn to Romans chapter three. Romans chapter three, we're

going to be in Versus twenty one through thirty one this morning. Let me

say a few words about that, and then our sister's going to come and

read our sermon text for us Romans three twenty one through thirty one. And

as you turn there, you might remember that last week we started with an

illustration of a guy going to a jewelry store to pick out a diamond for

an engagement ring, right, And the analogy that we're using there is that

he was he was going to see the brilliant, multifaceted diamond of the Gospel

on the black velvet backdrop, right, Because that's how they do it at

the jewelry store. Right. They lay out the black backdrop, so you

can actually see what you have on your hands. You can actually see the

color and the brilliance of the diamonds. And that black backdrop is really kind

of the whole first half of the third chapter of Romans, really the whole

first second and half a third of Romans where Paul unpacks the actual spiritual condition

of every person. It's dark, and then I mean, for instance,

like verse ten, right, if you just want a glance at ver ten,

none is righteous, no, not one, No one seeks for God.

And on that black backdrop, then you get the stunning brilliance of the

gospel when you get to verse twenty one. But now the righteousness of God

has been manifest. Here it comes, and we are going to look at

this gospel explanation of this paragraph. We're gonna look at it facet by facet.

It is beautiful. But I want to lean further in on that analogy

of our guy going to the jewelry store, because our guy is not just

going to look at a diamond and then turn around and walk out, right.

He is going in to use this diamond, as beautiful as it is

all by itself. He is going to deploy this diamond towards some relational end.

You're with me. He's looking to get something done. And in chapter

three of Romans, Paul is doing something really similar. Here. This paragraph

twenty one through twenty six is the most profound, facet by facet examination of

the Gospel, beautiful all by itself, and Paul is deploying its beauty toward

a relational end towards unifying humility. Towards unifying humility. Sister, why don't

you come and read our sermon text for us, and then we're gonna jump

into it. Romans, Chapter three, verses twenty one through thirty one read

along us as our sister reads aloud. But now the righteousness of God has

been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness

to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who

believe, For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short

of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through

the redemption that is in Christ, Jesus, whom God put forth 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 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. 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. We hold

that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is

God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of gentiles?

Also, yes, of gentiles? Also, since God is one who will

justify the circumcised by faith. In the uncircumcised through faith, do we then

overthrow the law by this faith? By no means? On the contrary,

we uphold the law. This is the word of the Lord. Amen.

Let me let me put the message of this passage into a sentence. This

is a sentence I'll use. Truly, seeing how we are made right before

God leads to unifying humility. Truly, seeing how we're made right before God

leads to unifying humility. Now, as we get into this, I want

to make sure or that you don't miss the vertical implications of what Romans is

saying in this paragraph here right. In other words, if you are here

with any confusion about a relationship with God, there's probably no other passage more

detailed in the nature of establishing that relationship. Right In thirty five minutes,

you are going to hear so much about the fundamentals of the Christian faith you

could step into that faith with one step today. Don't miss the vertical,

however, the implications the Bible itself is driving at in this most famous of

passages about the Gospel, The implications the Bible's driving had, they're horizontal.

They're relational unity humility. Right, the beauty of the facets of the Gospel

deployed to produce unifying humility amongst some squabbly, prideful believers. That's what's going

on all of verses twenty one through twenty six, leading to verse twenty seven.

What becomes of our boasting? Then? What becomes of our boasting?

And what God is undercutting is not just the bragging of some Christians two thousand

years ago. God is undercutting any kind of spiritual pride or works righteousness that

gets in between us as church members, or gets in between us as Christian

spouses. The fragmenting, hardening poison of pride should be utterly neutralized by the

real gospel, truly seeing how we're made right before God. So if you

have your bulletin right, you get your notes here, you can see this

sentence there right at the top, truly seeing how we're made right before God.

That's the first line of the sentence. That's really our first point today,

and all of the blanks below here are all corresponding with that first point.

The second line. You can circle that second line in that circle.

You can just like the circle is the thing. We're going to come back

to you later, all right, later today, right at the end.

That's how it's going to work. That makes sense. You say, no,

it doesn't make sense, But you explained it all right, all right,

So let's get into it, truly seeing how we're made right before God.

We're gonna unpack that. We're gonna look at that, We're gonna look

at the facets of this gospel proclamation, starting with this one. We're made

right apart from the law, made right apart from the law. Read with

me verse twenty one. But now the righteousness of God, this righteousness from

God that He grants to us has been made manifest apart from the law.

Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, they point to it,

they help us see it. In other words, the Bible is saying

that whatever cultural background that you have in understanding who God is and what He

is all about, whatever training you've received, whatever ceremonial works that you might

go through to help you understand who God is, whatever personal accomplishments of righteousness

and merit you think you're accumulating, they don't actually establish your righteousness before God.

In fact, none is righteous, no, not one. Instead all

of these things they merely point to the righteousness that comes from God and God

alone in Jesus Christ. The righteousness that you receive is a part from the

law. It's a part from works. It's like two kids looking at the

stars and trying to reach them. If one has a telescope, he may

be able to see the stars a bit clearer, but neither of them are

any closer to touching them on earth. And already, with just this facet,

you can see that the Gospel of God is leveling the ground between those

who might think of themselves a little better those of who might think of themselves

a little lesser because of some differences in cultural background or training, or Sunday

school attendance, or Ajana's merit badges, or just more personal baggage. But

you and every other Christian across the world and throughout history have been made right

the same way anyone is or ever will be. Apart from your works,

apart from your background, apart from your upbringing, apart from any of the

pointers and witnesses that you, by God's grace, have had, but you've

been made right by the righteousness that comes from God, not that you've accumulated

with me. All right, Well, if you're not, I've got four

more. Let's look at the next one. Okay, So say's turn that

diamond and see this next facet. Made right not only apart from the law,

but made right through faith for all, made right through faith for all.

Let's look at verse twenty two and twenty three, the righteousness of God

through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. For there is no

distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

In other words, there's no distinction amongst believers. All have sinned there are

no first and second class citizens in this family. It is only through faith,

and it is a faith that is available to every kind of person,

Jews, Gentiles, the grossly immoral, the seemingly moral and hypocritical, though

those who are externally honorable, and those who are obviously sinful. There's one

way into this family, and it's faith and only faith. They bring nothing

else. Just like we have one baptism tank, right, we don't have

one baptism tank for people who are relatively clean and then another baptism tank for

people who are really sinful. There's one, and every kind of person is

welcomed into it. There is no one in this family who has come any

other way than faith and only faith. And that faith is none of yourselves.

Right, Ephesians teaches us that even the faith that you've received, you've

received as a gift, so that no one may be spiritually prideful. One

faith in Jesus Christ. And there's one condition for all sinners in need of

a savior. There's absolutely only one claim you have on Jesus, and that

is that your eyes have been opened up to see that you desperately need him.

That's the only claim you have that's the only claim any of us have.

There is no distinction. We are all made right through faith. So

let's then turn this diamond over a little bit more. Look at this third

facet right made right by God's grace as a gift, by God's grace as

a gift verse twenty four, and are justified. All of sin falls short

and are justified, which is to say, made right before God by his

grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So redemption

is a commercial term right. It's the term used when buying someone out of

slavery to give them their freedom. Right. So the Jewish people would have

been familiar with slavery, having been slaves in Egypt, having been enslaved by

a variety of peoples, and the New Testament says that we are all of

us right in accordance with the first half of this chapter. Here, Similarly,

we are all of us in slave. We are slaves to sin and

guilt, and that in Jesus we have been redeemed, purchased out of slavery

to be free. That's not something we've merited us, something we didn't earn

our way out of slavery. It's a gift. It is God's gracious gift

of redemption. It's grace. As John Stott said, grace is God loving,

God, stooping, God coming to the rescue, God giving himself generously

in and through Jesus Christ. It's God's grace. It's God's gift. So

how can we treat God's grace as if it reflects on us in some superior

way? Are we going about embezzling some of the credit of something that is

entirely of God's initiative and God's wisdom. When we are apprehending the truth of

grace, the vertical response is wonder and gratitude, and the horizontal response is

humility. You can see that right like, it just makes sense. So

if we are living out a vertically living out apathy, and horizontally living out

irritation, maybe we've failed to apprehend grace. As familiar as we may be

with these verses, we may we may be able to quote them by heart,

but still not be seeing this diamond very clearly at all, Because it's

not about you. It's a gift. It's a gift. Let's turn this

diamond a little more. Look at this facet that Paul puts forward in verse

twenty five, made right by propitiation, by propitiation verse twenty five, whom

led us to say Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by

his blood to be received by faith. Okay, propitiation, it's a it's

a theologically significant term, and we're gonna unpack it. To propitiate means to

satisfy or a swage an anger to satisfy or a swage an anger. And

that makes some people uncomfortable. It bothers some people. It embarrasses some people

to think of the living God as angry. But the wrath of God has

been a pretty strong theme throughout these last two chapters, right right, So

it's true and it's fitting. But people are like, oh, this is

just it makes and that makes God seem like he's like in a bad mood,

right Like God is always getting ticked off and we got to do things

to calm him down. He seems like a primitive pagan deity that we have

to propitiate. But really that is just that is a misunderstanding of really biblical

propitiation, because biblical propitiation isn't about God. Being in a bad mood,

and it's not about us placating the anger of some ill tempered God. Like

biblically, when you think about the need and the nature of propitiation, let's

think about it. The biblical need. Is God angry. The Bible says

that he is. Why, it's not because he's in a bad mood.

There's nothing unprincipled about God's anger over evil. When God has created a little

girl in his own image and that girl is abused and neglected, God is

righteously angry. God is angry about evil. When God has created a little

girl who grows up to be a woman, who and a man promises to

her to look after her, nurture her, cherish her, protect her,

love her, but instead demeans her and is harsh to her, just like

God said he shouldn't be, Just like this man said he and promised he

wouldn't be. God is angry rightfully so there is nothing unprincipled about God's anger

towards evil. In fact, he's patient, he's long suffering, he's merciful.

But this wrath is real. We're talking about a real God with real

anger about real evil. That's the Biblical need and think about the biblical nature.

Right, We're not talking about us placating a moody God. God put

forward the propitiation in giving his son, He gives himself to propitiate this anger.

Right, So, understanding propitiation doesn't lower our view of God. It

raises our view of God as the one who hates evil with a true and

righteous anger, but who nonetheless loves you who have done it. And if

you want to see the logical consequences of your pride and your selfishness, all

you have to do is look at the bloodiness of the cross. That is

the picture of the ugliness of sin, and this facet of the gospel.

It doesn't just help us understand God's holy wrath or the real evilness of sin.

It also helps us understand humility. Right when we're tempted to think of

ourselves as particularly deserving or pristine, especially in comparison to others, we can

look at the blood of Christ and think what I actually deserve required that there's

nothing pristine about my heart. As Spurgeon said, if someone thinks ill of

you, don't be upset with him. You're worse than he thinks. He

might charge you. Falsely on some point. But if he knew you better,

you wouldn't gain much in the correction. The blood of Christ. Listen,

the blood of Christ which you treasure, I know you do. The

blood of Christ which you treasure, should be an antidote to your haughtiness.

Next facet made right to show God's righteousness. Made right to show God's righteousness.

In the middle of verse twenty five begins ag in this way, this

was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former

sins. 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.

One commentator said, there is no expression in the Book of Romans,

maybe in the whole Bible that is more startling than this. God justifies the

wicked, which is what Paul says in chapter four, just a few verses

from here. In chapter four, Paul says God justifies the wicked, the

ungodly, and Paul's setting up the groundwork right here to explain, how in

the world can God justify the wicked? How is that right? I mean,

God himself has told his people you must not acquit the guilty. You

must not condemn the innocent those that acquit the guilty. I detest as basic

justice, he says about himself in Exodus. I am the Lord. I

am the Lord. I will not acquit the guilty. So then, how

can a righteous God act unrighteously to righteous the unrighteous? Only the Cross.

Without the cross, justification of the unjust would be unjustifiable. It would be

immoral. But God justifies the wicked because Christ died for the wicked. Go

ahead, raise your hand if you're awake, just to raise your hand and

keep it up. I'm just gonna do this for you. Okay. God

justifies the ungodly. I'm just gonna leave that suggestion right out there for you.

Okay, you can put your hands down. God justly justifies the unjust

in the Cross, and God demonstrates his justice in this right. He demonstrates

that wrongdoing he left unpunished, was passed over in his patience, in his

forbearance, not because God is flippant or unjust or doesn't care about evil.

He does care about evil, but in his patience he forbeared, and then

in the cross that justice postponed became justice fulfilled. To quote another commentator,

both justice, the divine attribute and justification the divine action, were demonstrated in

the Cross, which should take our self justifying tendencies and starve them to death.

Truly, there is no righteous reason, there's no right reason I should

be in right relationship with God. It is not right for me to be

made right with Him except in the Cross. It is not right that you

should be made right with God except in Christ. It's not right that any

of us should be made right with God except in Christ. And if you're

sitting there thinking, yeah, but I'm kind of okay, then I've got

homework for you. It's just verses twenty one through twenty six again, this

glorious diamond of the good news of how God makes us right apart from our

works through faith alone, for all of us by his grace as a gift,

by appropreciation that he puts forward himself the blood of Christ, in order

to show his own righteousness, not ours. And here's the question. If

we see that diamond, how should we respond? Well, one way is

in faith right. So like, if you're here this morning and you're not

yet a Christian, hey, you can look at this monumental passage of scripture,

and know that you can be made right before God apart from your works.

This is being made right before God is not a ladder of works that

you have to climb. You'll never do it. You can't do it.

You can have a right standing before the Lord of the universe. That is

a gift of his grace. And all you've done against him, and all

you've done against others can be forgiven by the blood of Christ is covered.

You could trust him today. You could before you go to bed tonight.

You can stand in righteousness before the God of the universe. And if you're

like I hear you, I believe that I'm not exactly sure how to do

that, how to make that step. Come see me after the service.

I would love to help you take that step of repentance and faith and put

your trust in Jesus. That's what Paul's talking about here. Period. However,

Comma, a way to respond to this paragraph that Paul has in mind

is not to trust Jesus as your savior, although that's totally legitimate. Just

like I called anyone who doesn't know him, I'll call you based on that

paragraph to trust him. But Paul hasn't mind a different response because he's writing

to Christians. The response that Paul has in mind is humility. Humility is

this, look at this, look at all these facets of God's work in

Christ and get humble. Stop living. Is if there's a better then component

to your spiritual condition compared to any of your brothers and sisters. I'll put

it in the language of my original sentence. Truly, seeing how we are

made right before God leads to unifying humility. So let's talk about that unifying

humility. Let's just read it twenty seven. Then what becomes of our boasting?

It is excluded by what kind of law? What kind of principle?

By a principle of a law of works? No, but by the law

of faith. For we hold that one is justified, one is made right

by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of

Jews only? Is he not the God of gentiles? Also? Yes,

some gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith

and the uncircumcised through faith. And then this last sentence kind of works us

into chapter four, which we'll tackle soon. Do we then overthrow the law

by this faith, by no means. On the contrary, we uphold the

law. Do you see Paul's point? Right? If there is boasting,

if there is division, truly, seeing how God has saved us should remedy

it. Right. The principle of works is not God's way to establish his

relationship with you. The principle of faith is his way, and it levels

the field. God is the God of every kind of person, and every

kind of person is welcomed to him. So if you see these aspects to

how God has saved us, you'll see how fitting it is to live in

ability, or to put it negatively, Where there is boasting and spiritual pride

and lack of unity, there is a lack of gospel apprehension. Whether this

passage is memorized or not, he said, WHOA, I don't boast much.

I guess I'm okay, because like you'd probably never hear me brag out

loud. Okay, God isn't just undercutting the idea of bragging. He's undercutting

all spiritual pride at all. Yeah, certainly bragging, certainly bragging, right,

which is to say, like, even though God has told me right

here that there is no distinction and all have sinned because of spiritual pride,

maybe because of works righteousness having wound its way around my soul. It may

be that I can't stop lovingly looking at my works, especially compared to yours,

but not just bragging. Also the flip side, the flip side that

spiritual pride produces is spiritual envy. Right that, even though God has told

me the righteousness of God is mine by faith and all by faith, but

because of spiritual pride, I can't stop looking lovingly at your works, especially

compared to mine. Right, And the truth of the Gospel just obliterates those

things. The truth of the Gospel obliterates unforgiveness in the same way unforgiveness,

which is to say that, even though God tells me I have been released

by His grace as a gift, because of spiritual pride, because of a

focus on works that doesn't fit with the gospel, I can't stop looking condemningly

at your works, especially those that have hurt me, even though I've been

released by grace as a gift. The Gospel should destroy that. The Gospel

should destroy the kind of defensiveness, which is to say that, even though

God has told me that there is nothing that will be uncovered about me that

isn't already covered by His blood. I can't risk you looking condemningly at my

works. It's too spiritually risky. But it's not as it. It's not

risky at all, because anything you would uncover about me is already been covered

by Him. There's nothing that I attained to. No, I've been made

right. You've been made right apart from your works by faith, like everybody

else, by his grace as a gift covered by the blood of Christ to

show his righteousness. And the way we respond to that is to walk in

humility with one another. That's the demonstration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.