The Biggest Problem in the History of the World (Romans 3:21-26) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: I want you to imagine, I want you to imagine that you.

Um, maybe you don't have to imagine this.

Imagine that your sibling, maybe your brother or your sister

gets away with everything.

They get away with everything.

They never get in trouble for anything.

They do.

Imagine that they get away with all sorts of stuff, and you know it, that, that

they're guilty, that they do all this bad stuff and your parents have no clue.

And then imagine you, you get older, you grow up, you're, you're like at.

This is the fun part about, about having like an adult, like adult to

adult relationship with your parents is you get to like, tell them things and

they can't get you in trouble for it.

You're like, oh yeah, did you know that I used to do this?

And they're like, what?

You did what?

Anyway, it's really fun.

But, um, imagine that you're hanging out with your, with your parents and

your sibling who used to get away with everything and he tells, he finally

tells your parents, Hey, you know what, mom and dad, this is what I did for.

18 years living in your house.

This is what I did.

I did all these things and they're like, oh, it's okay.

We forgive you.

You'd be like, seriously, after all the groundings I got, after all the timeouts

you put me in after all the times you took away my stuff or what all the

times you disciplined me, you're just gonna say, I forgive you and move on.

You would be so upset.

You'd be like, that's not fair.

You can't just let them off and let, let have 'em have no consequences

after their whole life of disobeying, after their whole life of, of

doing things behind your back.

I got in trouble for all this stuff and they're not, that's not fair.

That's not okay.

Tonight I want you guys to see the biggest problem in the history of the world, which

is very similar to the scenario that I just gave you, which might not be that.

Imaginary for some of you, but the biggest problem in the history of

the world is that God, for thousands of years just forgave people

and nothing bad happened to them.

Right?

Think about maybe some, some king in, in Israel, there's a king named Manasseh.

He's a terrible king.

His whole life, he's, he's literally murdering children and

sacrificing them to false God.

At the end of his life, he repents.

He says, I was wrong.

I shouldn't have done that.

I'm gonna follow God now.

And guess what?

He gets to go to heaven.

That should bother you.

God.

Why don't you do something about that?

He doesn't suffer any consequences for his actions.

He doesn't have any punishment for his sin.

He just gets forgiven and goes to heaven.

That should bother.

That's the biggest problem in the history of the world because, and in fact, a

lot of people feel that today, a lot of the most common objection you'll

get to Christianity is if God is good, why does he let bad things happen?

Why does he let bad people get away with the bad things that they do?

Why does nothing bad happen to them?

Isn't God a good judge?

Doesn't God care?

Why doesn't God do something about it?

Just like you might say, mom and dad, why don't you do something about my sibling?

You can't just forgive them and let them go.

Tonight, what we're gonna see is that the only reason, the only

reason that God can forgive anyone is not just because he is nice.

It's not just because he's kind.

It's not just because he's merciful.

It's because of Jesus.

Jesus is the only reason that it's okay for God to forgive sinners.

The only reason, because otherwise God would be a really bad judge.

Right?

If he just, if you just say, imagine if someone just.

Even think about some recent scenarios at, at, maybe at your,

at schools or in the news lately, someone murdered someone, right?

We had a, there was a high schooler, I think a year ago who got stabbed, right?

And then we're just supposed to say, oh, that guy's forgiven.

If, if that, if that murderer who, if he repents and puts his faith in

Jesus, that guy's forgiven, God's gonna forgive him and let him go.

God's not gonna punish him for, for killing someone else.

That bothers us because it's exposing this problem that God just forgives

people apparently, apart from Jesus.

Jesus is the only, only way that this all works.

For God to forgive you, your sin has to be paid for.

God just can't ignore sin and forgive it.

He has to do something about it.

So far in the book of Romans, I've showed you this slide before.

This is what we've seen, right?

We've seen that God should punish people's sin.

We all want God to punish people's sin, right?

When someone cuts you off, when you're driving, when someone gets

away with something that you don't like, you want God to do something

about it or on a bigger level, right?

When bad things happen, you want God to fix them.

When things are wrong with the world, you want God to fix them, and so we can all

agree that we want God to punish them.

We want God to do, to do what he's supposed to do to, to fix the things

that are wrong with the world.

But the problem, right, is that we're part of the problem.

The problem for us is that if we want God to, to get rid of all the bad stuff in the

world, guess who He's gonna get rid of?

Me and you, right?

Because we're sinners.

We fall short.

No one is righteous.

God is a good judge, and because he is a good judge, he has to

punish everyone's sin, not just.

Other people's sin, he's to punish our sin too.

So in order for God to forgive us, he has to punish our sin, and he

has to, we need, we need perfect righteousness to be forgiven.

We can't just be kind of good because we already established right that, that

no one's good, no one's good enough.

Everyone falls short of God's perfect standard.

So we need our sin to be paid for and we need perfect righteousness.

We need to be good enough.

That is what we're gonna call justification.

That's a fancy church word that you probably heard before.

But justification.

That is the when God gives you perfect righteousness, and we're

gonna learn all about how that works.

We don't have any righteousness, so we need someone to give it to us, and

that's what tonight's passage is all about, how God made a way to forgive

sinners while still being a good judge, while still punishing their sin.

Right?

God forgave me.

Even though all the bad things I've done and he punished all

of the bad things I did and will do, he doesn't just let them go.

He punishes them.

He just doesn't punish me for them.

He punishes someone else and he gives me the righteousness that

I need to be counted as, as not just innocent, but good enough.

I'm so that's how justification.

How God can forgive sinners while still being a good judge.

So look at verses 21 through 26.

I probably should have split this up into more verses, so if it's too

small, read along in your Bible.

So I'm just gonna summarize it and explain it and then we're gonna break it down.

Okay?

So read along with me, verse 21.

But now, right, we're at a big turning point in the book of Romans.

We've, Paul just said, no one's good enough.

Verse 20 said, by works of the law, no one will be justified.

No one is righteous.

Verse 21, but now the righteousness of God, right?

The fact that God is a good judge has been manifested.

That word manifested means something different in the Bible than what you

might think it means when you hear the word manifested in our culture, right?

That's like someone is making something happen or they're speaking something

to existence manifested in the Bible just means it's been revealed.

Something that was hidden, you couldn't see it super clearly.

Now it's revealed.

So when you see the word manifested, the righteousness of God has

been revealed apart from the law.

So not just that God condemns sin, that's one way God shows he's righteous, right?

And we know that God is a good judge because he says the bad things are

bad and he does something about them.

That's one way we know God is righteous, but it's also been shown another way.

And the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

They talk about it.

Here's how that happens.

Verse 22, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus

Christ, for all who believe.

So God says, okay, you don't have any righteousness.

Guess what?

I'm gonna make it available to you.

I'm gonna make the righteousness that you need available.

That's what verse 22 is saying, and we'll continue on.

There is no distinction.

Verse 23, everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Everyone.

Doesn't measure up to God's perfect standard.

Everyone's guilty, but just like everyone's in the same boat in

terms of our, our punishment, our condemnation, everyone also can be

saved the same way, anyone, right?

Because we talked about a lot about Jews and gentiles before anyone

and are justified by his grace.

Verse 24 as a gift through the redemption.

That means what Jesus did, he, he bought us back from sin.

Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Verse 25, whom God put forward as a propitiation.

That's a fancy word we'll talk about later by his blood to be received by faith.

So God did something about our guilt by sending Jesus to die.

That's what this verse is talking about.

This was to show God's righteousness, verse 25, continuing on.

So the whole point of this is to show that God is a good judge still, even

though he's forgiving people, even though he's not punishing people for their sin.

He's still a good judge.

Even though he's letting people go, he's still a good judge because in his

divine forbearance, that means patience.

He passed over former sins, right?

We talked about in the Old Testament when someone sinned, if they

ended up in heaven, what happened?

Why did God let him go to heaven?

Why did God let Abraham go to heaven?

Why did God let David go to heaven?

Why did God let Joseph go to heaven?

They all sinned.

Why did he let them go to heaven?

He ignored their sin.

Why?

Why is that okay?

That's the problem that this passage is solving.

Verse 26.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be

just so that God could be righteous.

And the justifier, the one who makes people righteous of the one

who has faith in Christ Jesus.

So God makes specific types of people righteous, the

ones who have faith in Jesus.

So tonight we're gonna see three things that you need to know about justification.

And if you don't understand these things, you probably aren't a Christian.

I'm just gonna say that very clearly.

If you don't understand these things, you're probably not a Christian

because you don't understand how God can forgive you, and you might not

even believe that God can forgive you.

So that's why these things are so important, okay?

Usually the points are things that I want you to do tonight.

It's just things I want you to know because these things are so essential to,

to you trusting God to forgive your sin.

Okay, so how exactly.

Does this work?

Well, the first thing I want you to see from this passage is that justification is

about God, the point of justification, the point of God giving people righteousness.

That's what justification means, is actually to show us something about God.

Remember, way back in one of our first sermons from Romans, we talked about how

the gospel shows us something about God.

The gospel shows us who God is.

Justification does the same thing.

We talked about the big problem in this passage, right?

It's even a problem if you just read the Bible.

Proverbs 1715, this is God's word.

God says, someone who justifies the wicked and condemns the righteous.

So in Proverbs, usually there's like a parallel when you're reading it.

I'll go on this side so you guys can see better.

In Proverbs, usually there's like a parallel, so you can read it parallel.

So you can say, okay, justifies.

Versus condemns, wicked versus righteous.

So those things are parallel.

So these are opposites, right?

So the righteous is the opposite of the wicked.

So that means condemn is the opposite of justify, right?

So if you're not sure what justify means, it's the opposite of condemn.

So this is to say someone's guilty.

This is to say someone's righteous.

You're good

if you say that bad people are good and that good people are bad.

You're an abomination to the Lord.

God hates that.

That's what God is saying.

Now, guess what?

God also says later on in Romans, we'll see this in a couple weeks.

God justifies the ungodly.

You see the problem here?

The Old Testament says that if you justify the wicked, you're

an abomination to the Lord.

Guess what God does throughout all of human history?

Justify ungodly people.

That's a big problem.

How can God do that?

How can God say, yeah, I hate it when people say that wicked people are

righteous when you get rid of all their sin and just say, you're, you're fine.

But at the same time, he says that, that's what I do.

That's how I forgive people.

That's everyone's an ungodly person.

Everyone's unrighteous, but I justify them.

So how?

How can God do that?

That's the problem I want you to see in these verses.

So justification is about God.

Well look back at our passage.

Okay?

I want you to see verses the second half of 25.

Starting with this, you see that this was to show God's righteousness

again, because in his divine patience, he passed over a former sin.

He ignored them.

He didn't punish them.

Why?

To show his righteousness so that he might be the just and the justifier.

So God punished Jesus for all the sins that he ignored.

All, all the, all of Abraham's sins, all of David's sins, all of Solomon's sins,

all of Isaiah's sins, all of Jacob's sins, all of Joseph's sins, all of Moses's sins.

God didn't do anything about 'em.

He didn't send them to hell, but he punished Jesus for their sins.

So God is still a good judge.

Jesus said, I'll take the punishment for Moses' sin.

That's how God can say, you know what, Moses, it's fine.

Your sin.

You rejected me, you turned from me.

You're scared of things that, that weren't me.

I'm gonna ignore your sin because I know that Jesus is gonna pay for it.

It's kinda like, you know how credit cards work versus debit cards.

When you, when you pay for something with a debit card, it comes

outta your account right away.

When you pay for something with a credit card, it comes outta your account later.

So like Moses, his sin was punished later on.

Jesus.

Right?

Yep.

Our sin was already punished on Jesus.

If you forgive him, so Old Testament people before Jesus.

How did Jesus pay for their sin?

Well, it was like a credit card, right?

Jesus paid for their sin way after they already did it, but God knew, right?

'cause God made time.

God exists outside of time.

He can say, okay, I know Moses, you're sinning right now.

I know David, you're sinning right now.

But guess what?

I'm gonna punish Jesus for that sin.

'cause you trust me.

So that's how God can do that.

He can pass over former sins, sins.

In the past, God has to punish sin, right?

In fact, he, he had to kill Jesus to punish your sin and my sin.

That's how big of a deal sin is to God.

God is not gonna let any sin go unpunished.

Every single sin committed in all of history is punished.

Every Christian sin, every non-believer sin is punished.

God takes sin very seriously, and hopefully that's helpful for you to

know that God's not gonna let anyone get away with their sin, even if you

think they're getting away with it.

Even if your sibling or that person at school is cheating on tests

and they never get caught, God's gonna punish them for their sin.

But I hope also that helps you see your sin, but God is not

gonna let any of your sin go.

He either is gonna punish you for it, or you trust Jesus and

he's gonna punish Jesus for it.

But also what I want you to see is that.

Forgiveness is God's idea.

You see that in these verses.

God had always planned to make a way to forgive people.

God wasn't like, oh man, people sin.

What should I do about it?

I'm, I guess I'll have to figure out a way to forgive them.

God planned, okay.

I love people.

I wanna show people how forgiving I am, how gracious I am.

I wanna show people how merciful and patient I am.

So God created.

God invented forgiveness.

Isn't that crazy?

You like, you realize that forgiveness didn't exist and then God was

like, here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna forgive people.

And that was like the first time anyone had ever thought about forgiving someone.

Isn't that crazy?

And the reason that that you and I can know what forgiveness

is, is because of God.

God introduced the idea of forgiveness, which is so cool, right?

Like no one would think of forgiveness if it wasn't for God.

No one would think of reconciliation and, and two people working

something out and, and being patient and kind and, and compassionate.

If it wasn't for God, God invented forgiveness.

It's God's idea.

He's, he's so loving, he made this way to forgive people.

'cause hopefully what you've seen from Romans one through three is

that God doesn't have to forgive us.

Right?

A lot of people say, well, how can A, how can God not save everyone?

The real question is, why does God save anyone?

God has no obligation to save anyone.

God doesn't even have to share the gospel with anyone because everyone's guilty.

Right?

There's no obligation for God to make a way for us to be saved.

But he did it because He's loving, because he cares.

He wants to save people.

He doesn't have to, but he wanted to.

So the real question is not why doesn't God save everyone?

It's why did God save even one person?

Because he didn't have to do that.

But he decided that he wanted to do that 'cause he loves people.

But I also, when we think about justification, is about God, I want you

to remember that forgiveness is about God.

Forgiveness is about getting God.

It's not about getting to heaven.

I remember I probably told you guys before, I remember one time, um, someone

asked me, if you got to heaven and Jesus wasn't there, would you be happy?

If you got to heaven and Jesus wasn't there, would you be okay with that?

And I think that'll do a lot to show you.

Do I just want, do I want Jesus or do I just want His stuff?

Do I really love Jesus and wanna be with Jesus?

Or do I just want all the benefits of Jesus and I don't really care about Jesus?

The point of forgiveness is that you get God.

Your sins are gone.

Now.

You can have a relationship with God now you can be adopted by God.

Now God, and and God loves you and you experience His, his care as a, as a son

or a daughter, and you experience his forgiveness and his grace, that's the

point of forgiveness is you get God.

It's not that you get, oh, I'm not guilty anymore.

I get to go to heaven.

Sure, that's great, but you get God.

That's the best part about forgiveness.

One person, he put it like this is.

Is forgiveness about what God gives to you or what God is to you.

Who God is to you is God.

Your treasure is God.

Your joy is God.

Your your friend is God.

Your Father is God, is God.

Your the, the prize of your life, right?

Don't just make forgiveness about getting God's stuff and not going to Hell.

We talked about that before.

That's like someone dating you.

'cause they don't wanna be single.

That stinks.

Don't do that to God.

And something else that's really cool about justification is that no

other religion has this type of idea.

I remember one time I was talking to a Muslim and he was telling me that

Allah is just, he's a good judge.

He punished his sin.

Allah hates sin.

And I was asking, well, how do you know that you're gonna go to heaven

if, if your God hates sin so much.

And the whole point of his religion was that he was hoping that he could do enough

good things so that hopefully he, he's good enough because Allah can't forgive

him because Allah has to punish sin.

There's no one for Allah to punish.

Instead of him,

he has to punish his sin.

Every other religion is just designed for you to make up for your.

That's what every other religion is about.

Every other religion is about you making up for your sin.

You do enough good things, you follow enough rules, you check enough

boxes, you make up for your sin, and then God will be happy with you

and, and maybe lets you into heaven.

That's every other religion.

No other religion is your acceptance by God based on someone else,

and that's why no other religion can, can give you the certainty that you are saved.

It's up to you and you're fallible, you're imperfect.

You don't do the right thing all the time.

No other religion can come up with something like this 'cause no other

religion was made by God, right?

God is a genius.

I hope you see just how intricate this plan is, that God is just, but God

punishes sin, but he punishes someone else for your sin so that you can be forgiven.

You can be counted righteous.

You can get Jesus righteousness and be counted as righteous and as like you

did nothing wrong and everything right.

God is a genius.

Only God can come up with that plan.

No other manmade religion has come up with anything like that.

So we talk a lot about justification, but how exactly does it work?

I just realized that I should have shown you these verses earlier.

That would've helped you a lot.

But that's okay.

Second point, I want you to see that justification is because of Jesus.

Justification is because of Jesus.

So justification is about God.

The point of of God's plan of salvation is that it shows

that he's still a good judge.

It preserves his integrity as God, but also justification is because of Jesus.

Now, this might seem like something that you feel like you already knew,

but here's what I want you to see.

Okay, we'll look at verses.

Starting at the end of verse 22.

Okay, so there's no distinction.

Everyone's sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

That word falls short.

You can also say like, we lack God's glory.

We devalue God, right?

We all say, God, I'd rather have fill in the blank than you.

That's sin, right?

We talked all about that these past couple months of what sin is.

Sin is really about God.

Sin isn't about you doing bad things to other people or you hurting people.

Sin primarily is an offense against God.

It's, it's loving something else more than God.

It's saying, God, I'd rather have this stuff than you God.

I'd rather have this reputation than you God.

I'd rather be this type of person than have you.

That's sin.

It's when we prefer something else to God.

So we all lack God's glory.

We all reject God, but at the same time, anyone, verse 24 can be justified.

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

You see that the way you get justified is through something that Jesus did.

Justification being accepted by God and not condemned is through something

that Jesus did, and it's redemption and propitiation, okay, redemption.

That means that Jesus paid for something.

He bought something like when you, you know how you redeem a coupon.

You're like using the coupon to pay for your meal, right?

Like at Chick-fil-A, you redeem your reward, you get your free sandwich

so you don't have to pay for your sandwich anymore 'cause the coupon

paid for your sandwich, right?

Jesus paid for your sandwich, right?

You owed God a big debt, an infinite debt, not just one sandwich, and he paid for it.

That's what redemption means.

And propitiation, that's a fun word.

I should have made this bigger, but you know that meme with the soldier.

Um, protecting that like sleeping kid from the, um, the stuff.

Let's see.

Can I edit this on the fly?

I can't.

That's propitiation.

Okay.

God's wrath hits Jesus instead of you.

Have you?

Has anyone seen this meme before?

No.

You've never seen this meme?

I have.

Thank you, Caleb.

One person has seen this meme.

Now you've all seen it, so this.

I'm kind of shocked that no one's seen this meme.

Anyway, basically what's happening, right, is so people

would use this meme as like, um,

let's see.

I don't know, but anyway, you get the meme, right?

I don't have to explain this to you.

You guys are young.

I'm not teaching adults right now.

Um, I heard this one.

Church staff, they, their youth director sits down with the staff

once a week and explains like some slang or like meme to them every week.

Um, which I'd be terrible at.

But anyway, I don't have to do that with you guys, hopefully.

But here's the point, right?

God's wrath is supposed to hit you, but instead it hits Jesus, right?

Propitiation, that's what that means.

It means it's like a sponge.

Wrath absorber, right?

Jesus soaked up God's wrath for you.

That's what propitiation means.

Now, some people would say that this is overkill, right?

Some people would say that, why did God have to kill his son?

Just because I, you know, no one's perfect.

And that's when we talk about what's what's sin, right?

Sin is a big deal.

Sin isn't just messing up.

Sin isn't just, oh, well, yeah, I'm not as good as I should be,

or sometimes I do the wrong thing.

Or sometimes I'm selfish.

Sin is rejecting the most amazing person in the world, right?

You're saying?

You're telling the the most valuable, the most awesome, the most glorious

thing person that's ever existed.

Yeah.

I'd rather have this than you.

That's what sin is, right?

It's a big deal.

This isn't overkill.

This is actually the only way you can remove your sin is

Jesus has to take it away.

You can't do it.

Nothing you do can take away your sin.

Does anyone have to read Macbeth in school?

No.

Yes, Adam has to.

No one else has to.

Okay.

I won't even talk about Macbeth then.

Um, whatever.

It's this book.

There's this lady, she kills someone and she imagines that there's blood

on her hands because she feels guilty and she can't get it off.

'cause it's in her brain, not actually on her hands.

She can't get it off.

And so she goes crazy because she can't get rid of her guilt.

There's a lot of ways that we try to cover up our guilt, right?

Maybe we try to do better next time, or maybe we just wait and, or we bury it.

Or maybe we compare, we say, I'm not as bad as that person.

Or, well, yeah, I know I'm a sinner, but those people over there are worse.

Or maybe we rationalize it.

We say, well, I did it because of X, Y, and Z.

Right?

Well, well, I said those words because this person did this to me

or I, I, well, if the Bible was more interesting, I would love God more.

If sermons were better, then I would, then I would do it.

Or if I could, you know, if, if God appeared to me, then I,

then I would become a Christian.

We rationalize your sin, or we just give up.

We say, I'm not, I'm, I'm not good enough and I'm just gonna go sin.

There's all these different ways that we try to get rid of our sin, right?

We try to drown it out.

We try to make up for it.

We try to do better.

We try to say, well fill in the blank.

The only way you can get rid of your sin is trusting Jesus.

Jesus is the only person who can get rid of your sin because you don't have

enough money to pay the debt you owe.

God.

You're not good enough.

You can't do it.

But also you need Jesus perfect righteousness.

That's why Jesus didn't show up on Palm Sunday and then die on

the cross the next, the next week.

Have you ever thought about that?

Why did Jesus have to appear and like be born and then live

like a full life and then die?

Because Jesus had to earn a spot in heaven for people like me and you.

'cause we can't do it.

We're not good enough because righteous is different than innocent, right?

Innocent just means, okay, great you, you didn't do anything wrong.

Righteous means you did everything right.

You did everything that God expected you to do.

Think about that.

Think about all the things that God asks you to do or commands

you to do that you don't do.

Not just all the things you do wrong, but think about all the thing, all

the, all the ways you should love people, even just what love of

Lord your God with all your heart.

That's a lot of not loving God that, that I haven't done right?

Jesus gives us perfect righteousness and we can't add anything or

take anything away from it, and this is where justification is.

So.

Important that you don't try to take credit for it,

because even as a Christian, sometimes we try to take credit

for what Jesus did, right?

Like of course God would save me, or well, yeah, I'm a Christian

and I started doing all these good things, and then here we go.

We try to, to take credit.

Maybe sometimes for what Jesus did, I wish I had to add to it like, well, God

saved me because of Jesus and because look at all the good things I've done.

No, that's, that's not how that works.

Gotta say 'cause of Jesus.

Even if you do a lot of really good things for God, right?

I don't know what's happening over there, but try to focus please.

Okay.

Also,

justification is so important for you.

If you are a Christian, it's easy to think, well, I got saved.

Jesus made me righteous.

Cool.

Move on with my life.

Now I just live for.

Justification fuels all of your growth in godliness, because if you think

about it, all of all of your sin, even as a Christian, is you searching for

something to make you good enough, right?

The reason that you, you want, you covet and you want, oh, I wish I had

those clothes, or I wish I looked like that, or, I wish I was that talented,

or I wish I could do that thing.

Because you think once I get that, that'll be, that'll I'll be good enough.

I'll, I'll make it.

Or once those people like me, or once I get that relationship, or once I get

into this school or get these grades, or once I'm able to drive, or once

this happens, then I'll be good enough.

Or once I get to do those things, then I'll be happy.

There's a lot of things that we turn to to, to fill us up, right?

Even any sin.

Is related to that.

So

I hope you see that justification is not just for the unbelievers in the room.

I hope if you're a Christian in this room, you see that all of life is relevant to

whether Jesus makes me good enough or not.

One person, he, he put it like this.

He asked what would it look like?

If you went through this coming week fully justified not needing any further

ratification or approval from any person or accomplishment, what would

that look like if you didn't feel the need to, to get those people to laugh

so that you feel good about yourself?

What would it look like if you felt like, oh, I don't have to impress

those people or live up to their expectations because I know that I'm

accepted by God because of Jesus?

That would change a lot.

So justification is more than just for, okay, I got saved.

Now I can put it in a box and leave it.

It's for Christians too, but for salvation.

Essentially what it comes down to is this right is God has what

we need and we don't deserve.

That is righteousness.

God is perfect.

God is holy.

God has righteousness.

We need that and we don't deserve it, God.

So God has those things, right?

God has righteousness.

We need it.

We don't deserve it.

We have sin, and that's what God hates and rejects.

So the way that this works is there's an exchange that happens.

God has righteousness.

We need it, but we don't deserve it.

We have sin.

God hates it.

So what happens is God says, here, I'll take your sin and I'll put it on Jesus

and I'll give you my righteousness.

Jesus earned.

That's how propitiation works, right?

You get Christ's righteousness.

He gets your sin.

You get treated like Jesus did, and he gets treated like you should have been.

He suffers God wrath, God's wrath for you.

Now, you might be thinking, well, because of that, doesn't that just

mean everyone goes to heaven, right?

If you just died for everyone, that doesn't everyone go to heaven.

Well, here's.

The thing is this justification, right?

Jesus righteousness applied to you has to be received a certain way, right?

Just because Jesus died doesn't mean everyone goes to heaven.

How do you get that applied to you?

How do you get connected to what Jesus did?

Right?

That's the question we're asking.

Well, that's what Paul talks about here.

He says that everyone is sinned, right?

Everyone's guilty.

We've all sinned, but we are.

Justified by his grace as a gift.

So it's a gift and it comes by grace.

How do we get it?

We receive that gift by faith.

So how do I get this gift of justification?

Well, you can't deserve it and you can't buy it.

You can't buy a gift for yourself.

That's not a gift.

And you can't earn it.

You can't work for it.

So how do you get it?

Well, you have to get it by faith.

So our third point tonight, justification is a gift received by faith.

So how does this work?

If, if Jesus can really give me his righteousness and he can

really take my sin away, how do that, how does that happen?

How do I get that to happen to me?

That's the question we're asking here.

So the first thing that we saw, right, is that it happens.

It's, it's a, it's by grace, right?

That means that it's, it's not deserved in the sense of it doesn't make sense

if something happens by grace, it means, oh yeah, that really

shouldn't have happened that way.

Some things.

Undeserved.

It's not because of anything you did.

It wasn't because you were so good.

It wasn't because you were born in a certain place or just certain parents.

It wasn't because God just thought you would be so awesome if he saved you.

'cause then you would do all these awesome things for him.

It has nothing to do with you.

It's undeserved.

That's what that means.

So part of receiving this gift of justification means

you have to recognize that.

You have to admit that.

You have to say, I.

I don't deserve it.

I shouldn't get this.

There's nothing about me that makes God have to do this for me.

That's what it's, that's what undeserved means.

There's nothing about me that deserves it.

It's also a gift, which means it's unwinnable, right?

You can't earn a gift because if you, if you worked for it, then

God would owe it to you, right?

God would you would, you would deserve it from God.

You would earn it.

God would be like in your debt, so to speak, right?

Because if you work for someone and they say they're gonna pay you, then

you're in, they're actually in your debt 'cause they owe you money, right?

If you worked for your salvation God, God would be in your debt and

he would have to owe you salvation for the good things that you did.

But you can't put God in debt, right?

God owns everything God made you.

You can't put God in debt.

So you have to give up any claim or sense that, that God owes this to me.

You can't say, well God, I did all these things for you, so you have to forgive me.

That's what it means, that it's a gift.

You can't say, God, you better do this for me.

You can't get mad at God for not doing it for you because it's a gift.

It's kinda like when I, so I used to work at Chick-fil-A.

Do you guys ever this ever happen to you when someone pays for your food,

like in front of you in the drive-thru?

So at Chick-fil-A, I guess people feel nicer when they go to Chick-fil-A.

Um, it's probably 'cause we say my pleasure all the time.

But they would pay for the people.

Sometimes people would pay for the someone behind them, right?

They'd be like, oh, can I pay for that car behind these meal?

And then that person would be like, oh, they paid for my meal.

I'm gonna pay for that person behind me.

Right?

You ever seen these things?

We got some like pretty long list.

It was really fun at Chick-fil-A, someone would be like, and then there's that one

person that's like, oh no, I won't do it.

And you're like, dude, you're that person that didn't do it anyway.

Or they like pay for the person behind them and it ends up

being like this like big family.

And I always feel bad, but hey, that's what you get for being generous, I guess.

I don't know.

But um.

The whole point of that, right, is it's supposed to show God's love, right?

Because if, if you're driving, if you're in the drive through, you

have no idea who's behind you, right?

There's nothing about them that makes you wanna pay for them.

There's nothing about them that's like, oh yeah, I should do this for them.

You're just doing it because you love them, right?

You have no idea who they are.

You've never met them.

You, maybe they were in the separate lane of the drive through and you

didn't even see them until right now.

But you did it because it's, it's not, they, they didn't deserve it.

They didn't earn it.

It wasn't 'cause anything.

I did.

It wasn't 'cause they worked for you.

It wasn't, you're not paying them back for something.

You just did it.

That's how justification is a gift.

It's not something that, that you say, well, I did this for

God, so he did this for me.

It's not a transaction in that sense.

Right.

You just trust God to do it.

He does it.

It's, it's God's initiated idea for you.

So then how do I get it right?

I have to admit that I, that I don't deserve it.

I have to admit that I can't earn it.

How do I get it?

Well, it's, it's really simple, but it's really hard, right?

It's through faith.

Hopefully you saw that in our passage, right?

It's through faith.

It's received by faith.

It's faith in Jesus.

That's how you get this applied to you.

Now it's simple and it's really hard.

What do I mean by that?

Well, it's, it's hard because you have to acknowledge that you're helpless.

That's what faith is, right?

Faith is acknowledging that that's how it starts, that I can't do this.

And we don't like to admit that, right?

We don't like to admit that we're not, we're helpless.

We can't do anything about arson.

We can't take it away.

We can't hide it.

We can't cover it up.

We can't make up for it.

We can't do anything about our sin.

Someone I was reading this week, they put it this way.

They said that God forgives or they said, God doesn't forgive excuses.

If you try to justify or rationalize your sin, you're,

you're not confessing your sin.

You're, you're making excuses for your.

Faith.

Real faith leads to confession, not excuses.

Really admitting that, Hey, I, I don't deserve God's forgiveness.

I don't deserve God's grace.

I'm guilty of sin.

That type of person isn't gonna confess their sin by saying, God, this person

may be really mad at, I'm really mad.

'cause whose fault is that?

It's not your fault.

It's that person's fault.

They made you mad, right?

Or

the other reason it's hard is we naturally wanna take credit for it, right?

With, when we talk about faith, we naturally want to

say, well, I, I added to this.

It wasn't just Jesus, it was Jesus plus me.

We naturally want to take credit for things, so that's

why it's hard to trust Jesus.

You have to admit that I'm not contributing anything to it.

I'm not adding anything to why I'm saved.

Jesus did a hundred percent of it.

I did 0% of the saving.

There's a famous theologian who said, the only thing you

contribute to your salvation is the sin that made it necessary.

The only thing you add to your salvation is the fact that you

sinned and you needed to be saved.

That's all you.

That's all you did.

This equation,

but it's simple because anyone can do it.

It doesn't matter how smart you are.

It doesn't matter how well you know the Bible.

Doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter who your parents are.

It doesn't matter what you've done because anyone can admit that they're

a sinner and say, I am bankrupt.

Right?

When you play Monopoly, the game's over when you declare bankruptcy.

I, I can't repay all of the, the bills I owe.

'cause I landed on your hotel on Broadway.

Broad.

Was it Broadway?

Boardwalk.

Boardwalk.

Boardwalk.

Boardwalk.

That's clearly, I don't play Monopoly very much, um, because it's

like one of the worst games ever.

Um, 'cause then you start losing, you're losing for like hours and

then you finally get bankrupt.

You know what I mean?

You have to sell all your stuff and it's terrible.

Anyway, um, I don't even know what I was talking about.

Bankruptcy.

Yeah.

So you get the, the first step of faith is declaring bankruptcy.

I, I can't do this.

I can't repay this debt.

Anyone can do that.

So it's simple.

It's very simple.

You say, God, I'm not good enough.

I've disobeyed you.

I've rebelled against you.

I need not just help.

I need saving.

I don't just need you to help me.

I need you to rescue me.

And then you say, Jesus, I need your righteousness.

I'm not good enough.

You need to make me good enough.

And you say, Jesus, I can't get rid of my sin.

You have to take it away, and so I'm gonna depend on you to do that.

Faith isn't just mentally acknowledging that Jesus could save you.

I think a lot of you believe that Jesus could save you, but that

doesn't do you any good, right?

Knowing that the lifeboat's there.

You could get off the ship and get in the lifeboat doesn't help

you if you go down with the ship.

So if, if all you're saying is, yeah, I agree with everything that you said in the

sermon, doesn't mean you're a Christian.

What makes you a Christian is when you, you get in the

boat and you depend on Jesus.

You say, I'm not good enough.

Jesus.

I need you to make me good enough and I trust you to do that.

So let's pray and we'll talk about that more in small group.

God, thank you that you made a way for us to be saved, that you love us enough

to kill your son so that we could be made righteous, so that we could be

accepted by you and not endure your wrath.

And we're so thankful that this is your idea.

We didn't ask for you to do this.

You did this knowing that we would sin.

You actually planned all this before we would even exist.

Um.

I pray that we see your mercy, your your goodness.

I pray that we see that you're worth everything, you're worth

giving up everything for.

Um, and so help us to get to just be clear.

Help us ask good questions, help us to be focused and get a lot

out of our time in small groups.

We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen.