Justified by Faith

We're looking at Paul's letter to the Romans and trying to understand what it means to be saved by faith or to be justified by faith.

And so the first two chapters in the first part of chapter three really led us to an understanding of why we need salvation, right?

It's kind of the bad news of Romans.

And finally, what we're going to get to this morning is the good news of Romans.

That's where we're headed to this morning.

And so when we look at this kind of uh text, what we have to see is what it's flowing out of, right?

So if this is the good news of Romans that's coming out of the bad news of Romans, it would be, it would serve us well to kind of survey what we've sought to understand up to this point, right?

So we've got a lot to cover.

I'm just going to get to work as we try to get through this passage here, concluding all of Romans chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

So Paul's work to show us this far.

We have all been found guilty of breaking the law in our sin.

So whether we are a Gentile or a Jew, this is how Paul kind of uh makes this uh uh position, right?

Is Gentiles have the law because they have the law actually inscribed on their hearts.

They they know in their conscience what is good and what is not, what is the right thing to do and what's the wrong thing to do.

And so because they have it inscribed on their hearts, they break the law in their sin.

And the Jews who have been given the revelation of the law on parchment, they equally are unable to uphold it and fulfilled it.

So we've all been found guilty of breaking the law on our sin, no matter who we are, what background we come from, the punishment of our guilty verdict is God's wrath.

All right, so not only have we been found guilty, but then the consequence or the punishment for our guilty verdict is punishment under God's wrath.

This is what Paul went to uh long uh efforts to try and help us understand.

Thirdly, we came to the conclusion that we cannot pay the sentence to escape his wrath through our own efforts, right?

So there's nothing that we can do to pay back our uh uh the ways that we've fallen short, the ways that we've sinned, the way that we've committed spiritual treason against God, or we we even looked at how it's really spiritual adultery toward God.

We can't pay that back in any of our own strivings and efforts.

Uh so we can't escape this wrath on our own.

So, left to ourselves, we utterly and we are utterly and despairingly hopeless.

For none is good, no not one.

That's what that's what Paul says in his conclusion.

If you want to try to be justified by the law, if you want to try to actually save yourself through the works of the law, then then let's see what the Bible says.

He's gonna conclude none is good, no not one.

So left to ourselves, we're utterly and despairingly hopeless.

So what do we need?

We need the good news of Romans.

We need the good news of the gospel because that's real bad news, right?

We can't do this on our own, we can't do this in our own strivings or efforts.

So if we look at verses 21 through 26, and we took that chunk out and we tried to really distill it down into a main focus, we would see this that we are justified by his grace as a gift.

We are justified by his grace as a gift.

This is what Paul wants to get to.

It's not about works, right?

You can't do it.

You can't fulfill the law, you can't obey the law, you are constantly going to choose self and sin over God and righteousness.

That is going to be our default disposition in life.

And so, how then are we justified?

Paul says you are justified by his grace as a gift.

That gift is important.

You see, he starts off, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.

God's righteousness has been manifested or made evident to us apart from the law in Christ Jesus.

So it's not through the law, it is set apart.

It's found somewhere else.

It's found in Jesus himself.

Through the law comes knowledge of sin, not hope for salvation.

We talked about this last week, right?

The law wasn't about avoiding judgment, but about demonstrating why judgment was ever necessary.

The law was not simply insufficient to save us.

This is something that we have to really try to mentally exercise to understand.

Uh, Jesus isn't plan B because the law was insufficient, right?

It's not like God was at his drawing table, he's like, okay, mankind's in a mess, right?

How are we going to get ourselves out of this?

I know what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna make 660 some laws and I'm gonna give it to them miraculously on top of a mountain, transcribe it with my fingertip, and then when they do these things, they'll be good, right?

They'll be saved.

Okay.

And then God looked down like 400 years later and it's like, this isn't working.

Something's broke.

What are we gonna do?

Well, we're gonna send Jesus to die.

And Jesus probably, I'd can we send someone else, right?

Can can the spirit go, maybe, or or Father, how about you?

You're no one's gonna miss you if you're no, I'm joking.

But here, this is this is what we can't look at.

We can't look at the law as something as insufficient, or God put forth something that needed something better.

It wasn't a flawed design, it exposed that we are flawed image bearers.

You see, the righteousness of God apart from the law, this isn't a new idea, concept, or philosophy.

This is what Paul talks about.

He says that this was actually shown or realized in the law, in the prophets.

This isn't something new that Paul's bringing to the table or fabricating post-resurrection ascension of Jesus.

It is the story arc of the entire revelation of God.

So when we look from Genesis to revelation, the story arc of God is that we are justified by grace through faith.

And that faith then is accounted to us as righteousness.

And one of the historical examples that we use of this in the Old Testament is Abraham.

He's the classic uh example that we're gonna see that this was always God's plan of salvation, to account righteousness to us because we believed his promises.

Let's look at Genesis 15, 5 and 6.

So Genesis 15, 5 and 6 says this, and he brought him outside and said, This is this is God calling Abraham outside, he's getting ready to speak to him, and said, Look toward heaven and number the stars, if you're even able to number them.

Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be.

And he, being Abraham, believed the Lord, and this is key, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

So we see faith preceding righteousness being accounted to someone because they believed in God's promises.

This is the way God always designed for us to be saved because he understood that our works would always be insufficient.

Abraham's faith was counted or accredited to him as righteousness.

This reveals to us that salvation by grace through faith was always the sovereign purpose of God for us.

So Paul says this language that the righteousness of God is manifested apart from the law.

Well, how is it manifested?

It's manifested through Jesus.

Right?

He's the one that puts on cosmic display the righteousness of God for us through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, Paul says.

Uh for all who believe.

He's saying there's no distinction, right?

Paul Paul's continually working back toward trying to uh bind this chasm that exists between Gentile and Jew.

And he makes the statement.

There's there's no distinction for all who believe, Jesus is the righteousness of God manifested to us.

And then he he brings it home again.

Why really is there no distinction?

And this is that key verse, right?

If you've ever been in like an evangelism class or something, or maybe you grew up Baptist and there was a class on how to share the gospel with your neighbors, you have the Romans road, right?

And this is the one you're gonna pluck out first and just hit them in the head with it.

All have fallen short of the glory of God, right?

And then what what they're supposed to be is like, oh, how can I be saved?

And instead they're just like, and uh, right?

They don't seem to care too much.

However, here's where Paul puts the distinction to rest.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Gentile and Jew, all of mankind, from history, past, present to that which is coming, fall short of the glory of God.

So there's no distinction.

Therefore, all mankind equally need to have a righteousness that is beyond themselves for salvation.

You see, we need something that's transcendent, something that is beyond us to be able to acquire for us the righteousness which is demanded that we might have a right relationship or right standing with God.

No human being could accomplish that for us.

We could not have accomplished that for ourselves.

So we need a righteousness beyond us, and that righteousness is seen and made evident and known in Jesus.

And then Paul's gonna lay to work three parts of salvation that's in view.

Now, there's there's other parts of salvation throughout the scriptures, but where he's gonna take this argument, where he's gonna really help us understand the need for Jesus' righteousness, is in these three-part view of salvation.

The first part that he's gonna bring to bear is justification.

So we have this big word, right?

Justification.

And he sees it in verse 24.

We are justified by his grace as a gift.

Uh justification by faith means that we are getting right with God.

We're being acquitted in his court, being forgiven for our sins, being declared righteous, and having the righteousness of Christ imputed to us or given to us, and our sins imputed to him.

Not becoming righteous, but being counted as righteous, though we were yet sinners.

So justification, we need to be acquitted.

We need to have the guilty verdict that stands against us washed away.

And only Christ is able to bring such justification for us because where we in faith get his righteousness on the tree at Calvary, He got all of our sin.

And again, it's not that we become righteous fully, but we are being counted as Christ's righteousness, which is fully, even though we were sinners.

Martin Luther called this simuljustice et peccator, meaning simultaneously justified yet sinful.

That there was nothing of our own works of which made us justified before God.

But while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

That's what the scriptures tell us.

And so even though we were sinful, his righteousness was counted to us.

How are we made right and acquitted?

Paul makes it very clear by his grace as a gift.

We didn't earn this justification.

There's nothing that we did to merit this justification.

Who we were born through, our bloodline didn't create it, uh, where we grew up didn't create it, the things we did or didn't do in high school uh didn't create it, right?

The choices that we've made through life didn't create it.

There's nothing of merit that ever comes to our position as being made right before God.

It is by his grace unmerited favor as a gift.

So justification is the first part in view.

The second part is redemption.

Verse 24, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

This language of redemption speaks to paying a ransom to win back captives of war.

It was further used in the language throughout history as making payment for a freed slave.

Christ has redeemed us.

We were bound, we were enslaved by the law.

It was a yoke of burden that we could not carry any longer.

And as its uh weight stood above us and pushed us down to the ground to where we could never stand up.

Christ comes and he purchased us out of that slavery that we might be free, that we might be uh liberated from its demands.

So Christ justifies us, he makes us right before God, he acquits us in his grand court, he redeems us, he purchases us to release us from the slavery of which we find ourselves in our sin.

And thirdly, he is the propitiation.

This is the third view of salvation that Paul brings to mind.

Verse 25, whom God, speaking of Jesus, put forward as a propitiation by his blood.

This word propitiation means to have wrath removed from us.

Uh, this is why Paul's emphasizing this so much, and this is why it's coming out of, for the wrath of God is revealed against all mankind for their unrighteousness.

God sh uh Paul shows us the consequence of our sin, right?

That it is God's eternal wrath that is poured out in judgment against unrighteousness.

So, what did Christ do?

In this propitiation, he stood between us and God's wrath and he absorbed all of it, removing God's wrath from us.

You see, without wrath, there's no need for propitiation.

So this is why Paul's using this out of this argument of that our unrighteousness demands God's wrath when he puts forth Christ as the propitiation of our sin.

And there's really two parts of propitiation or uh of our freedom from sin that we see in salvation.

So we have propitiation.

That means that the wrath that we deserve because of our unrighteousness, because of our sin, Christ bore in himself.

When he was on the cross and he declared, he cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Right?

He's silent throughout all of his trial, he's silent throughout the passion road as he's being spit upon and mocked and beaten and his beard torn out and thorns upon his head, he remains silent.

But where did he choose to cry out?

When God's wrath was poured out on him for our sin.

You see, he was the propitiation, but he's also the expiation.

That means the removal of our sin from us.

Not only does Christ stand and bear God's wrath, but he also removes the sin from us.

It's this expiation of sin.

In the Old Testament, we saw this through the priests.

What they would do is that once a year they would make atonement for the sins of Israel.

And they would bring out two beasts that they would use, one as the propitiation and one as the expiation.

The propitiation one, they would slit its throat, it would bleed out, and it would absorb the wrath that their sin deserved for the people of Israel.

The other one, though, was had the priest's hands laid upon it, and he transferred the sins of Israel into this animal.

And then they would set it loose to run outside of the city, to be freed, and to actually uh uh formalize the removal of sin from Israel amongst their presence.

Christ here, though, is being set up as the propitiation for our sin.

And really, this propitiation is a definitive mark for me and an understanding of God's sovereignty and our salvation.

Uh, because this is what we have to understand.

God is a just God, right?

This is an aspect of his character of which we want to uphold and which we see throughout the whole scriptures that he is just.

So when Christ is on the cross and God's justice is revealed by pouring out his wrath on his son, this shows us the sovereignty of God in our salvation because that wrath is no longer ours to bear anymore.

Christ has sufficiently absorbed God's wrath.

Christ has efficiently absorbed God's wrath.

Because this is what we come to understand.

If we don't see God's sovereignty and salvation, and that Christ's propitiation, his absorbing of God's wrath, is both sufficient and efficient, we either become a universalist or a bad theologian.

But we become one of the two.

Because here's where God would no longer be just.

If Christ was the propitiation for your sin, if he absorbed the wrath of God on your behalf, and then and you remained in your life in an unbelieving state, and you stood before the Father, and he said, You're found guilty.

You're not made right before me, you are not justified before me.

Therefore, I'm gonna cast you into outer darkness and pour out my wrath on you for all eternity.

Christ should stand up rightly and say, Did I not absorb that wrath for him?

Was I not sufficient in being that propitiation?

Was I not efficient when you when you poured your wrath out on me?

Was that not him?

You see, in that predicament where God pours out his wrath on Christ for you and then pours out his wrath on you because of you?

God's no longer a just judge, he's a wicked murderer.

For God to be just, he pours out his wrath on Christ alone, who was sufficient for those of whom God chose before the foundations of the earth to have that wrath absorbed in their place.

We have to work to uphold God's justice.

Because if we make God anything else, he's just a wicked murderer who pours out wrath on Christ for you and then pours out wrath on you because of you.

That's not just.

And so what Paul is saying is that this time, this climax of history, this zenith of our human existence is to put forward Jesus as the one who would be the righteousness of us for all eternity.

Verse 26, we see, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Let's try to break this down.

God is both just.

We talked about his justice, right, in the cross, uh uh, and then he is also the justifier.

So one is talking about who he is, another is talking about an action he performs, both just in his affliction of wrath over our sin, and also the one who acquits acquits such sinners by his mercy.

In the cross, we see both the justice of God and his mercy fully satisfied for all who have faith in Jesus.

This is this kiss that we see at the cross, right?

This full justice of God demonstrated and his full mercy.

His justice is demonstrated in that the wrath that our sin deserved was not poured out on us, but it was poured out on Christ.

See, God didn't just shrug off our sin, God didn't sweep it under the rug, God didn't look at us and say, hey, maybe next time you'll get it right, you just need a second chance, right?

He's the God of second chances.

Um uh no, right?

That's such horrible theology to say that God is the God of second chances, as if the next time you get an opportunity to do it right, you will.

No, what the Bible says is the next time you get an opportunity, you'll sin.

God's not the God of second chances.

God's the God of redemption.

God's the God of justification.

God's the God of salvation.

God's the God of righteousness.

And so in the cross we see the justice of God fully demonstrated by his pouring out of his wrath on his son and fully satisfied for all those who would believe.

That's an important part to understand.

Not only was it manifested, but it was satisfied.

And his mercy fully demonstrated and satisfied by allowing Jesus to be in our place.

How merciful is God.

How just is God.

In the 1800s, a Welsh hymn writer named William Reese pinned these words in his song, Here is Love Vast as the Ocean.

It says, On the mount of crucifixion, fountains opened deep and wide.

Through the floodgates of God's mercy flowed a vast and gracious tide.

Grace and love, like mighty rivers, poured incessant from above, in heaven's peace and perfect justice, kissed a guilty world in love.

You see, it's only in the crushing of his son Jesus, in our place for our sin, does God's perfect justice and endless mercy kiss.

With justice alone, God would fail to be merciful.

And with mercy alone, God would fail to be just.

In his holiness, God must be both.

And he suspends them eternally together at the cross.

You see, God is not just a God of justice, but he's a God of mercy also.

He's not just a God of wrath, but he's a God of love also.

And where we see this best out of all human history is at the cross, where in his holiness both his justice and mercy are perfectly suspended for all eternity.

If we look through verses 27 through 31, we see this that there is no boasting in the kingdom.

There is no boasting in the kingdom.

I love this.

What uh Paul comes out in 27.

Then what becomes of our boasting?

It's excluded.

What he's saying is that in faith that we are justified by grace through faith, there is nothing, nothing that we could ever boast about in regards to our salvation.

There's no work, there's no morality, there's no inherent goodness, there's no inherent faith.

There is nothing of which we can boast in regards to our found uh our salvation.

All of our boasting is laid to ruin.

No man can boast because it's righteousness apart from the law, righteousness apart from works, no merks, no works will ever merit our own righteousness.

It's through faith.

Faith is the agent, not the work.

And this is important.

Here's what we tend to understand in our Christianity is that we somehow have faith, and then we choose to exercise it or not in regards to Jesus.

That's a work.

That's something that you intrinsically have and are inherently born with.

And then in your own choosing, whether it be your morality, your ethics, your uh intellect, or whatever it might be, you choose to exercise that faith to choose Jesus.

That's a work.

Paul says that work, that work is laid to ruin.

There's no boasting in the kingdom.

You are not saved ever by works.

Paul continually uses the language through faith, not by faith.

Faith is the agent by which faith comes and is expressed.

Faith is the agent, not the work.

How is faith not a work if it is exercised?

Well, faith must be inherent and intrinsic.

Something we're born with, something that we have naturally in our personhood.

Faith must be there for it to be a work of which we are saved.

But because it's a free gift of God, it cannot be of our boasting.

You're not born with faith.

You're born with sin.

That's what Paul labored to help us understand in the first opening chapters of Romans.

You don't have this inherently within you.

You don't choose to not exercise faith.

You don't have faith to exercise.

It is God's free gift of grace to give you faith that you might put it in Jesus.

Hermann Bavink, a Dutch Reformed theologian from 1854 to 1921, said this.

Not mechanically or magically, but inwardly, spiritually, organically, in connection with the word that he brings to people in various ways.

You see, effectual calling and regeneration precede the free gift of faith, which then we are counted as righteous once believing.

This is what I mean by that.

When God effectual calling is this calling of the sovereign, calling of God to us to be in relationship with him, to be drawn near to him.

Those of whom Christ died, God calls effectually.

That means that his calling will produce the fruit it's intended to, and that is to bring his people into himself.

And when that calling is put on an individual at point in time, then regeneration, a new heart, a new life.

That dead man rises out of the tomb and he is now made alive again, according to Ephesians chapter 2, according to Ezekiel 36, that the heart of stone you once had in your chest is now put there a heart of flesh.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

We are made alive in Christ.

This precedes the free gift of faith, which then we are counted as righteous, once believing.

Great.

Faith is the agent, not the work.

He says it's by grace.

Grace means this unmerited favor, getting what we do not deserve.

Salvation is a grace gift of God.

It is unmerited.

I mean, are we getting the gist of what Paul's talking about?

You're not cool.

God didn't look from eternity past and be like, oh, that one, right?

That one's good looking, has a good physique, and they're pretty smart.

I'm gonna pick them for my family.

God didn't look at us and see, oh, I'll see that their works will actually be better than others, so I'll pick them.

No, he saw through eternity past that none were righteous, no, not one.

Grace is unmerited favor.

God is not picking a basketball team.

So we get what we do not deserve.

It's a free gift.

Salvation in its totality is a free gift to us based on the sovereign power of God, where we are left without boasting, but we fall in worship at his steadfast love for us.

You see, if if your salvation produces boasting, you you really need to check yourself.

If your salvation produces boasting about your own works, your own choices, the own things that you did, you're missing the gospel.

You're missing the point of what Paul is trying to help us understand about grace and the free gift of faith that produces salvation for us.

If we understand the gospel, we won't boast, we'll fall in worship.

This mode of salvation is both exclusive and universal.

Let me explain.

It is exclusive, and that is only through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ that we can be saved.

Jesus is exclusive.

No man can come to the Father except through Jesus.

No man can know salvation except through Jesus.

There's been no man in history past, in present day, or in future to come that will ever get to God apart from faith in Jesus Christ for his righteousness.

So Christ is exclusive in his salvation, yet he is also universal in that the same standard is applied to all mankind throughout all human history.

There is no distinction.

There is no get out of jail free card.

There is no bypassing God's wrath because you didn't know, because you didn't understand, because you didn't hear.

So he perfectly upheld the law in his fulfillment of it, so that faith in him is the only means by which the law is totally fulfilled in us.

Since we could never be saved by the works of self, we must be saved then by the works of Jesus.

So our main idea this morning is this that we are made righteous through faith in Jesus.

This is the good news of the gospel.

This is the good news of Romans.

We are made righteous through faith in Jesus.

Let's recap our state without Jesus.

We've all been found guilty of breaking the law in our sin.

The punishment for our guilty verdict is God's wrath.

We cannot pay the sentence to escape it through our own efforts.

Left to ourselves, we utterly and despairingly are hopeless, for none is good, no not one.

So then the question becomes how can we be made right with God?

And this is really the question all of us in human existence wrestle with.

How do we make things right?

This is the great dilemma of which we exist in.

And many of us believe that there is some cosmic being who judges us, and we have to do so many works to be able to tip the scales of justice in our favor because we know that we start off with the scales tipped not in our favor, right?

Loaded down heavy with the weight of our sin.

We must strive and work to try and tip it into our favor that we can escape such punishment in the life to come.

All of us are born inherently with some sort of semblance or idea of that kind of situation.

And so we wrestle with this.

What can we do to be made right with God?

And Paul gives us an emphatic answer: faith in Jesus.

This is the good news, church.

This is the gospel.

When Jesus says, Come to me, you who are weary and heavy laden, he's talking about trying to earn salvation and favor by producing the works of the law.

He says, All you who are heavy and weary, come to me and I'll give you rest.

Why can we rest in Christ?

Because he's already fulfilled the law for us.

We don't have to strive, we don't have to labor and toil.

We don't have to scrape the ground to try and produce some fruit in our own actions and behavior.

We can rest in Christ.

Because you can't earn more of God's favor.

Christ earned it all.

You can't earn more of God's love.

You can't earn more of God's blessing.

You can't earn more of God's affection.

There is nothing you can do.

And when we when we have that mentality that our strivings and our works can earn more of this from God, we are simply stating that Jesus was insufficient to earn it for us.

We are not better than Him, saints.

Our elder brother has sufficiently and efficiently acquired for us the fullness of God's love, his favor, his blessing.

Now we can rest.

But you see, some of us we don't believe this, right?

We actually believe that we see no need for salvation the way the Bible puts it.

We see that something's gone wrong, but we don't see a need for salvation.

We embrace a worldview where what is wrong with the world can simply be fixed.

We don't need supernatural intervention.

We simply need human ingenuity.

You see, through science, politics, cultural progress, we'll make the world better and fix what's broken.

We fail to see that our problem is not with the state of this world, but with the state of our worship.

If our worship was right, the world would be right also with it.

But because we're sinful idolaters, ourselves in the world we inhabit has been corrupted by our sin.

We won't fix the world because we can't fix what is actually wrong.

All of our attempts to fix sin with sin will end up with a result of death, not life.

But we fool ourselves.

We constantly fool ourselves to believe that this time it'll be different.

This time we'll fix what is broken.

We'll make the world right.

And look at the efforts we're going right now to try and fix what's broken.

Look at the efforts culture is putting forward to fix what is broken.

It's so sad.

We should have empathy.

We should have righteous anger, but we should have empathy.

Their mind is darkened, they are debased, they cannot help but sin.

And in that we should have empathy.

But we should have righteous anger as well.

Because we don't recognize the reality that the world's not simply just broken and we need to fix it, but that it's completely fallen and under the corruption of sin and we need salvation.

Because we don't recognize that, we we really see no need for salvation.

We simply need progress.

So Jesus becomes for us a way in which we are empowered to make this world better rather than the way in which we are made right before God, our Creator.

And this is crept into the modern church, this is crept into modern Christianity, this is blasphemous heresy to believe that Jesus is simply an empowerment to your personal life so that you can live the blessed life and make things better by your own strivings and efforts.

You see Jesus as a means to a different end rather than the end of all of our means.

The answer to our problem is not progress.

The answer to our problem is not anti-racism, anti-bigotry, medical advancement, hyper-inclusivism, education reform, social justice, government overthrow, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the burning of the Constitution or the defending of it, etc., etc.

None of these are solutions to the problem we face.

The one and only answer is Jesus.

Faith in his substitutionary death on the cross and his glorious resurrection from the dead.

All other attempts at fixing what is wrong with the world are idolatrous and demonic pursuits.

Church, we don't need to just fix what's broken.

We need saved.

And how dare we enter these realms that are so full of unbiblical, idolatrous, demonic things that only put forth that in our own human effort and ingenuity and progress, we'll fix what's wrong.

That's trash.

None seek after God, none follow him, none are obedient, none, none.

But some of us, though, we see a need for salvation, we embrace the reality of salvation, but we boast in our works.

We make our right standing with God about ourselves rather than about the deep grace of God.

And why do we do this?

We're so prideful, that's why we do it.

We will white knuckle any semblance of control that we can.

We tout and boast that we're Christians because we chose to be.

We're Christians because we put our faith in Jesus.

And let me just ask you this: if there were two people sat before you and you proclaimed the gospel to both of them, and one chose Jesus and one didn't, you have to ask the question, why?

Was the one who chose Jesus more virtuous?

Did they have a better moral and ethical compass?

Did they have better intellect than the other one?

What is it that was within them that made them choose Jesus than the other person not?

Any boasting is of works of self.

You have to come to the resolve that the spirit made that one alive who was dead in his sin and trespasses and passed over the other.

Because that is the work of the Spirit.

That is the sovereign work of God in our salvation.

Paul has gone to work and put us to the table to help us understand that there is nothing that we can do to ever boast in what we stand before God, our Creator, now.

Salvation is the free gift of God in spite of you.

Romans has emphatically settled it.

If left to ourselves, we would never have chosen God.

Our works are works of unrighteousness without the Spirit.

Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

To quote an IFB, an independent fundamental Baptist preacher, I'm about to unload the whole wagon.

I brought it with me and I don't want to take it home.

I have no clue what that statement says, but I heard it and I thought it was funny.

So I'm gonna post it here.

But let's let's unpack this in Ephesians 2.

For by grace, by grace, by unmerited favor, you have been saved, redeemed, justified, made righteous through, not by faith.

And this, this salvation work in you is not your own doing.

It is what the gift, the free gift of God, not a result of works, even the work of exercising faith, so that what no one may boast.

Praise God.

Praise God that he knew in eternity past that I would never desire or have the ability to choose him of my own self, so he chose me instead.

That's grace.

That's the gospel, that's God's love for you.

So our hope in the gospel this morning is this Jesus was put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

This is what Paul puts before us here is our gospel hope.

This is the climax of God's wrath against sin for whom Christ died, and the zenith of his love for us.

Like we said earlier, this is where we see justice and mercy to kiss.

Christ was put forward as a what?

As a wrath absorber for you.

By his blood.

The payment for our sin was blood, and Christ emptied himself for us.

We have to understand the consequence of our sin.

We can't just fix this, we can't just make it better through progress and ingenuity.

God doesn't man we try again harder the next time.

God demands blood.

Jesus was that for us.

Jesus was the wrath absorber so that we might be the grace receiver.

This is the hope we have in the gospel.

And so if we're gonna live this out, church, I'm gonna see it in three ways.

Number one, we're gonna rest in the gospel, rest in grace.

Church, we've got to rest in grace.

Stop doing your daily devotionals thinking that reading your Bible and praying is gonna make you God love you more that day.

That's works.

It just is.

You know why some of you struggle to do reading your Bible and praying?

You know, you know why?

Because the days you don't do it, you think God's mad at you.

Because the days you don't do it, you think you've somehow took three steps back in God's favor, blessing, and love and affection for you.

And so you put yourself under a bondage of works, you put yourself back in the enslavement of which Christ's blood purchased you from, and then you go a month without doing it again.

Because you're trying to claw your way out of a bondage you put yourself into.

Rest in grace.

That's so much more liberating to understand that there's nothing that you can do.

So what do you do?

You just do it out of joy.

You just do it because you know you're loved.

Man, I know when I discipline my kids, like like when my kids just do stuff because they know daddy loves them, how beautiful is that, right?

When you see that joy and that obedience just come from a place of comfort and resolve and protection and security, and they just do it.

But but and we see the other side, where their obedience because they're sinful heathens that need Jesus, come out of coercion and persuasion, and we make them do things, right?

Grab them by the back of their neck.

I don't know, I'm just joking.

Never do that.

Anyway, as God's children, church, we need to rest in grace.

Christ promised that he would be a respite for us, that he be a refuge for us, that he would be rest to all those who were weary and heavy laden.

But too many times we act as if we earned our salvation and we act as if we're going to maintain it.

And we are tiring ourselves out.

We are wearing our souls thin.

If we can see anything through this in Romans, it said, There is no boasting, there's no works, there is nothing that you can ever do.

So just rest.

Number two, we should boast in grace.

Boast in grace.

If we're gonna boast about anything, boast in grace.

First Corinthians 2, 1 through 2 says, and I, when I came to you, this is Paul speaking, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech and wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ in him crucified.

That's all I determined to know before you, because Paul was committed to boasting in grace.

Uh we talked about this last week.

Too many times we call the unbelieving to works, not worship.

And we say, if you quit cussing and you quit listening to Q102 and you you quit, everybody should quit listening to Q102.

If we're just on, if we're honest, like, you know, redemption from your sin aside, just stop it.

Um if if you stopped watching these movies, if you stopped dressing this way, if you stopped doing that, and we're calling people to works, not worship.

If we're gonna boast in anything, church, it's boasting in his grace.

You were a sinner, now saved by grace.

We should make it known like Paul made it known to his brothers at Corinth, to make nothing among us known except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

That's what they need.

They don't need to be pointed to a politician, they don't need to pointed to a political party, they don't need to be pointed to some uh old document inside the Smithsonian or wherever the Constitution is labeled.

We we don't need to be pointed to uh to progress, to inclusivism, to anti-race, we don't need to be pointed to any of these things.

We need to be pointed to the gospel because the gospel addresses every single one of these things.

If we understand the way that the writers of the New Testament worked through different issues, it wasn't a racism issue until it infected the church.

When it impacted the church and there was racism being expressed in the church, that's when the apostles wrote and said, No, you don't understand.

You were all bought with the same price.

You were all purchased with the same blood.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, no male nor female, nor free nor slave in Christ Jesus.

Get your stuff together.

Understand the gospel.

They never wrote to the unbelieving world to tell them to get their stuff together.

They're unbelieving, unrepentant, unregenerate sinners.

You don't get mad at a dog for barking.

We are saved by grace through faith.

When does race become an issue?

When it's a gospel issue.

When does uh these other issues that we're dealing with in society become an issue?

When it interferes and impedes on the beauty of the gospel.

Because what?

We've first been called to Jesus, not the end of racism.

We've first been called to Jesus, not the end of sexism.

We've first been called to Jesus, not the end of socioeconomic crisis.

We first were called to Jesus.

We got to get this straight.

Lastly, and I'll close, band, get up here.

Pizza's not coming.

Uh no, I love you guys.

Uh, proclaim his grace.

Proclaim his grace.

So we have rest in grace, boast in grace.

Church, may we proclaim his grace.

May we be a church that proclaims his grace.

If we're gonna be known for anything, if sacred mission is gonna have a legacy that it leaves behind and that we're known for, it's that we were radical proclaimers of the grace of Jesus.

That's what I want us to be known for.

A church that proclaimed Christ, that made it a point to know nothing among our city but Christ in Him crucified.

That if we are going to raise a banner, it is the banner of the blood of the Lamb.

If we're gonna exult in anything, it's in the cross and the and the empty tomb.

If we're going to be about anything, if we're gonna die on a hill, it's gonna be the hill of Golgotha.

Amen.

And that's a that's a hill worth dying on.

I won't die for any of these other goofy things.

Not without Jesus, not without the gospel, because it's futile, it's hopeless, and it just produces death, not life.

Church, let us rest in his grace, let us boast in grace, but let us also be committed to proclaim his grace.

Let's pray.