Sermon: Romans Part 13 (Pastor Brian Fuller Romans 3:19-26)

Hi, and welcome to the Sermon Podcast of First Baptist Church Woodlawn in Woodlawn,

Illinois. I'm Senior Pastor Brian Fuller, and it is our desire to

impact the world with the Gospel of Jesus. We do so through small group

ministry, personal testimony, as well as corporate gatherings. You can find us

on Facebook, YouTube, and our website FBC Woodlawn dot org. Join us

now as we hear from God's Word in Romans, and we're going to be

in verses nineteen through twenty six of Chapter three of Romans today. So if

you have your Bibles, you can turn there. If not, you can

follow along. And lots of stuff here today Romans three nineteen through twenty six,

beginning with verse nineteen. Now we know that whatever the law says,

it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may

be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For

by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight,

since through the law comes knowledge of sin. 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 Christ, Jesus, whom God put forward as a

propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. And this was to show

God's righteousness because of his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It

was to show the righteousness at the present time, so that He might be

just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. A lot

to unpack today, Let's pray, Lord, we thank you for today.

We thank you for your word, and we thank you Lord that you give

us these opportunities to dig in and proclaim the message of hope that we have

through faith in Jesus Christ. So Lord, have your way today, speak

the words that you would speak through me today for your glory and your glory

alone in Jesus name. Amen. Well, let me give you some cliches

this morning that you've probably heard many times. You may use them on a

regular basis. If you say well, let's just get to the heart of

the matter. You've probably heard that, you've probably said it, or whether

the rubber meets the road. That's kind of an important thing, and you

know what that means. If you get down to the nitty gritty of something,

you know what that means. And if you talk about the nuts and

bolts of the situation, you know exactly what I'm talking about when I say

those things. And you can look at something from twenty thousand feet, like

a city, those that have flown I like to I don't fly very often,

but when I do, I like to be at the window. I

love to look out and just see the creation of God, whether it's over

the mountains or to see a city way down there, and you get such

a great overview of a city, the lay of the land. But if

you want to know the culture, if you want to know what the attractions

are of that city, if you want to know what the climate is,

or the school systems, or what the shopping experience might be, or what

the sports teams are like and the neighborhoods, you have to take a closer

look. You have to get down to ground level. And it's the same

with scripture. If you want a great overview of the gospel from say twenty

thousand feet, you can look at John three sixteen. For God so loved

the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever would believe in

him should not perish, but have ever lasting life. You cannot get a

better overview of the gospel than John three sixteen. But if you want to

get down to the nitty gritty, if you want to get to the nuts

and bolts of the Gospel that you might have the opportunity to share with someone,

we have to take a closer look at the righteousness of God, which

Paul says has now been manifested or made known in Jesus Christ. And here

Paul continues to talk about the righteousness of God, and in the Old Testament,

the righteousness of God, or the character of God, if you will,

was revealed to the children of Israel the Jews through the of the Law

was given to Moses, and was established in the first five books of the

Bible. A little bit of review from last week and in Romans three,

verses twenty one and twenty two, this is what he says. He says,

but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law through

faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. That truly is the heart

of the Gospel. Amen. And Verse twenty one starts with two very important,

their three letter words. They're transitional two words. But now, just

as he used in Ephesians two four, he uses, but God, and

I'm sure you know. Ephesians chapter two begins with Paul talking about the fact

that before we were saved, we were dead in our trespasses and sins,

following the course of the world. Right and verse four comes along and Paul

says, but God. But God, being rich in mercy because of the

great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our

trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Transitional, you were dead,

but God, now you are alive. Amen. Back to Romans three twenty

one. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law

through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. So we know that

we know what the but now transitions two? Right, But what was it?

Transitioning from the heart of the gospel. The nuts and bolts of the

Gospel is that is that man could not live up to God's standard of holiness

right, so he sent Jesus to be born of a virgin, and Jesus

lived a perfect life. He died a criminal's death on the cross. He

was buried in a tomb, and he was raised from the dead three days

later, and he ascended to heaven seeding sitting at the right hand of God,

the Father. Right. We know that, and God gave the free

gift of mercy and grace through Jesus because we you and I failed, have

failed at keeping the law of God. Verse twenty says four by works of

the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. Since through

the law comes knowledge of sin. We talked about that we have laws in

our nation that keep us in place to keep us straight right. A lot

of times they're in place so we would know what is right and wrong.

So the law was established so that we would have knowledge of sin. In

verse twenty one. But now since you failed at keeping the written law of

God and you fall in short of God's glory, But now the righteousness of

God is fulfilled through faith in his son Jesus Christ. Faith faith in this

entrance, in this instance of faith in his son, Jesus Christ means utter

reliance, utter complete reliance. It's on the risen Savior to forgive sin and

to secure our eternity with him. It's God's free gift because of his great

love for us. Utter complete reliance on Jesus Christ, completely forsaking self as

a means to God. That's what faith is in Jesus Christ. And that's

the message. We still proclaim. You can't follow the written law, we

can't follow its rules and its regulations and its requirements. But somebody did.

Jesus did. Jesus kept the law perfectly, and he was called the Lamb

of God, the spotless Lamb of God. Sometimes I try to think about

how somebody could perfectly keep the law in humanness? How can somebody possibly keep

the law? Was Jesus full of God, Yes he was. Was Jesus

fully human, yes he was? How did he do it? And now

by following Jesus through repentance through his shed blood, we are now justified as

sinless in the eyes of God. Amen, we through the blood of Jesus,

you and I are justified as sinless in the eyes of God. And

God is no respector of persons. There is no distinction. Paul says,

no distinction in God's eyes, nor should there be in ours, red,

yellow, black and white, brown, male, female, young or old,

short or tall, bald or harry, skinny or not so skinny,

Democrat, Republican, Jewish or non Jewish. Verse twenty three. For all

have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's you and me,

every walk of life. Without Jesus Christ, we are lost. Because

of Christ, we are justified. For all who would believe in his name,

there is a condition. You get that, there is a condition.

We hear that God loves us unconditionally. Well, there is a condition.

You have to repent. You have to call on his name. You have

to come before him with utter, utter reliance, that He is the only

begotten Son of God. And by works of the law, no one is

justified but now, but now, apart from the law, through Christ,

all are justified by faith in Christ. Look at verse twenty five. He

says, I put in parentheses Jesus Christ, because that was part of the

previous verse, Jesus Christ, whom God put forward 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. Jesus was put forward by

God. You could also say that God put Jesus on public display for all

to see. And you know, people used to be able to uh to

live their life with a little bit of mystery with with privacy attached to it.

You know. Was when I was growing up. There were some celebrities

that I admired, ballplayers that I admired, and we didn't know anything about

them other than what we would see on TV. You know, they're a

ballplayer. You know his batting average and and these kind of kinds of things,

but that's really all we we knew about them. And the same with

celebrities. There was such a mystique about these people that were bigger than life,

and you didn't really know anything about them other than what maybe you'd read

in the paper on occasion, or you'd see them on on TV. They

were, they were famous, but they were they were untouchable for us.

Their personal lives were not put forward or publicly displayed as they are now.

Because of the Internet and social media, you know, you could you could

disappear on purpose, right, nobody would know where you were. But not

anymore. Everything is put forward for all to see and to know. And

we know that everything that we read on the internet is true, so we

can trust all these all these things. But we like to let people know

when our kids and grandkids do well. So what do we do. We

put it on social media for all to see. We put them forward.

If God the Father worked with me here, if if God the Father did

a status update on his ex account, it might read works of the Law

no longer justify Salvation is now in my only son Jesus. Hashtag truth,

hashtag forgiven, hashtag propitiation, hashtag blood bought. God put Jesus forward and

displayed him publicly as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

And you know I'm going to define propitiation, aren't you glad? Propitiation means

that his shed blood was enough. His shed blood was enough to cover all

sin for all time. His blood was enough Jesus as our propitiation means that

God's wrath. This is important for you to hear, that God's wrath against

sin is totally and completely satisfied. His wrath is satisfied against sin because of

the shed blood of Jesus, and he is now merciful, and he is

forgiving towards sinful people who put their faith and their utter reliance in Jesus.

One John four to ten says this in this is love, not that we

have loved God, but that He loved us has sent his son to be

the propitiation for our sins. It was enough. And the rest of verse

twenty five says this was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he

had passed over former sins, and his divine forbearance he had passed over former

sins. The finished work on the Cross declares God's righteousness and mercy forgiveness of

sins for sins that were committed before the death of Jesus. On the cross

the work, the work of the Cross is done. It's complete, finished,

And this portion of verse twenty five is really not one that can just

be explained quickly in one sentence. We know that there were godly people in

the Old Testament right such as Moses, Abraham, David, Prophets, many

many others, many other godly people in the Old Testament that lived and died

before Jesus lived and died on the cross. In Genesis chapter fifteen, God

makes his covenant with Abram. Abram had proven to be faithful and obedient to

God, and in verse six it says, and he believed the Lord,

and he God counted it to him as righteousness. And one thing that we

when we when we look at this, this idea, this concept of former

sins in the in the Old Testament, and God God counted them as as

righteous, we have to bring into account that God is not limited by time

and space or human intellect. Right, was Abram a sinful man under the

curse of sin? Yes he was. Had Jesus, the perfect Lamb of

God, died on the cross to pay the price for sin. Not yet,

then, how could God declare Abram righteous while living under the curse of

sin. It's a great question to ask, it's a great answer to know.

But because God is not limited by time or space, because He's not

limited by the intellect of man, he always knew that the work of the

Cross would be completed. One of the great mysteries of God. And I

remember when I caught a glimpse of this one time, that this made all

the difference because we live moment by moment, right, we can't. We

don't see yesterday anymore. Tomorrow is is yet to be seen by us.

We can make future plans I based on what happened yesterday and all these kinds

of things. But yesterday is gone, Tomorrow's not here. We see what

we see, right. But with God, all is one, All of

time is is at one moment with God. When Moses said who should I?

Who should I? Tell them? Sends me? He says, tell

them, I am, sends you. God is forever I am. God

is forever present, being not bound by time and space and intellects. God

sees all of history, all of eternity, if you will. At the

same time hard for us to grasp, but it's true. The example that

I received one time that I that really helped me was, you know,

if you live in Mount Vernon, you know what, especially on the east

side, you know what it's like to be stopped at trains on a pretty

frequently. You know, well, when we stopped at a train, what

do you see? You see the train moving by, You can't see the

you can't see the end of the train. You can't see the first of

the train. Unless you are what unless you are high. If you are

high above it, you get that view where you can see the beginning and

the end. But in the present, in the moment, all you can

see is what's right in front of you passing by. And that's our limitation.

But from God's view, he sees it all. So it is hard

for us to understand that by not being limited by time and space, God

knew that the work of the Cross would be complete. He had already had

it planned, he had already been there right And because he knew that it

was a future event, he knew that he could count the faithful Old Testament

Saints as righteous based on the future finished work of Jesus on the Cross.

And don't ask me to explain it any more than that, But the Old

Testament saints they knew of a Messiah to come, and Scripture says by faith

they looked forward to the time of God's salvation, kind of like salvation on

credit. It hadn't happened yet, but they believed God for it, and

based on their faith and their obedience, God counted them as righteous. And

Paul calls it God's divine forbearance, meaning showing patience or being calm when there's

a reason to be upset. I'm really glad that God has divine forbearance towards

me, aren't you. God showed patience towards sin for four thousand years,

knowing in advance that Jesus would be the atoning sacrifice for all sin at God's

pre determined time. Look at Galatians chapter four if you will, Galatians four,

four and five. But when the fullness of time had come, God

sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law,

to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption

as sons. When the fullness of time had come, meaning God had it

planned and at the right time, according to his will, it came to

pass. So my question for you this morning is this, have you experienced

the butt now of God? Are you still trying to earn God's salvation by

doing the right things to please him? And if so that stop doing and

start believing. If you're still on the before side, whichever it is for

you. If you're still on the before side of but now, stop doing

and start believing, because now the righteousness of God has been manifested. Apart

from keeping the law through faith in Jesus Christ. For all who believe in

Jesus and in him alone, we are made in right standing with God.

I mean we are justified. We are made right righteous because of the righteousness

of Jesus. Jesus paid the price for sin on the cross, and he

did it once. He did it once for all time to make us clean

before God. And that's the heart of the gospels. That's the nuts and

the bolts, and that's where the rubber meets the road. Let's pray.

Thank you for tuning in to today's broadcast. We hope you are encouraged and

challenged by the preaching of God's word. You can reach us by phone at

six one eight three nine zero ten forty six, contact us via Facebook or

our website FBC Woodlawn dot org. It's our prayer that you answer the call

of God on your life to follow him and share your faith story with others.

Goodbye for now, and God bless you.