Sermon: Romans Part 12 (Pastor Brian Fuller - Romans 3:9-20)

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. Well, it is great to be

here, and we continue through the Book of Romans, and today we're going

to look at chapter three, verses nine through twenty. A lot of verses

to cover. May or may not get through them, but it was important

to cover to at least make mention and read through all of them. So

let's look at that Romans chapter three, verses nine through twenty. And I've

been entitled today's message Jesus Our Righteousness, Romans three nine through twenty. Verse

nine, What then, are we Jews any better off? No, not

at all, For we have already charged that all both Jews and Greeks are

under sin. As it is written, none is righteous, no, not

one, No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned

aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even

one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive

the venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses

and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are

ruin and misery. Are you encouraged, jen and the way of peace they

have not known? There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now

we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under

the law, so that every mouth will 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. And I pray today, Dear God, that you would you

direct me in the words that I that I speak, that they will be

from from your heart to the hearer today, that Jesus would be glorified,

and that Lord you would give insight and clarity into this word today. And

we pray it to honor the name of Jesus. Amen. So what what

did what did the law require? And some of you might even be asking

the question this morning, Brian, what is the law? I know what

that the Ten Commandments are, I've I've read them before, I've seen the

movie, you know, But what is what is law? The Old Testament

law of God. Well, first I'll answer the very first question. What

does the law of God require? And the law requires perfect obedience to God's

will, which all people have fallen short of right Romans three twenty three.

The first five books of the Old Testament Genesis, Exegus, Leviticus, Numbers,

Deuteronomy are called what they're called. They're called the Torah. They're called

the books of the Law handed down by God, written by Moses, and

contained in those five books of the Law are over six hundred laws and more

accurately, six hundred and thirteen of covenant, of covenant between God and the

children of Israel. And to keep covenant with God, the entirety of the

law must be kept. And because no one could perfectly keep and obey the

law, animal sacrifice was a temporary cover for sin, and the sacrifice served

as as a reminder to the people of the seriousness of sin, the seriousness

of breaking the law of God, and that blood must be shed to cover

sin. The Book of Hebrews is a great book to study on the Mosaic

Law, a New Testament view of the law and the fulfillment of the law

in Christ. Hebrews nine twenty two says, Indeed, under the law,

almost everything is purified with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there

is no forgiveness of sin. And that's an Old Testament quote. Without the

shedding of blood, there is no remission or forgiveness of sin. And of

course this all ties in to Jesus, a man. The law pointed to

Christ and the sacrifice Old Testament animal sacrifice was a foreshadow of the promised Messiah

who would come and willingly lay down his life for a as a once and

for all sacrifice for sin. Look at Hebrews Chapter ten, verse nine.

The writer of Hebrews actually quotes the Messiah. He quotes Jesus when he says,

behold, I have come to do your will. Jesus came to fulfill

God's plan to be the sacrifice of sin, once for all, right,

for all people, for all time, one time, to be the sacrifice

for sin. And verse nine continues he God does away with the first in

order to establish the second, the first, the first sacrifice he does to

establish the second, the most important Jesus and verse ten. And by that

and by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of

Jesus Christ once for all. And if you jump down to verse fourteen of

the same chapter, for by a single offering he has perfected for all time

those who are being sanctified, those of us who are born again. We

are in that process of growing in our faith. Right we start the journey

of faith in Christ. And it is a journey we call that sanctification.

Romans ten four ten Romans ten, verse four. We have this for Christ

is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Meaning again,

the law points to Christ. The law leads us to Christ. He

is the fulfillment of the Law of God. And the purpose of the law

was fulfilled. It was completed in the perfect life, sacrificial death on the

cross of Jesus and his resurrection. And Jesus is our righteousness. He is

our righteousness for everyone who trusts Him and calls on his name. Amen.

The purpose, the purpose in gives the law in the first place, was

that God's character would be revealed in the law. We see what God requires.

We also see that the nature of sin is revealed Romans three twenty.

Through the Law comes knowledge of sin. We see the law in front of

us. We see how wrong we are. We see how we have failed

in the eyes of God. So the law really was a gift from God

to his people so that they so that we could see what was required to

please God. But being sinners by nature, you and me, by being

sinners by nature, no one knows one could keep the law. And that's

why Jesus came. Jesus came to fulfill the law because we could not impossible.

And so in our text this morning, Paul confirms that the Jews who

were given the Law are no better off than the gentiles. Right, the

Jews, they thought they were special, and they were, they were special

in God's eyes. But apart from Christ, all are guilty of sin,

all are under the curse of sin. Apart from Christ, all without exception

have fallen short of the glory of God. And under the New Covenant we

talked about this last week, the New Covenant, the Law of faith in

Jesus Christ he is, He is the image of God. And in Christ.

In Christ all are made righteous. Apart from Christ, all are unrighteous.

All people lack understanding of God. And if left and if left to

myself, apart from God, I would never seek God. Apart from God,

I would not desire him. All people turn away from God. They

speak evil and they are deceptive. And this sounds that sounds harsh. But

apart from God, our our intentions, our desires is to do harm to

others and bring distress. That's the sinful state in which we live, apart

from Jesus Christ. And it's only through the work of the Holy Spirit that

we can have a thought of God or to do good. You need to

hear that, need to hear that over and over and over again, that

it's only through the work of the Holy Spirit that you and I can can

have a thought of God or to even do good. Aw Tozer wrote of

prevenient grace. I love that term. Prevenient grace means that before a man

can seek God, that God must have first sought the man. Before a

sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a

work of enlightenment done within him pursue God, because he first put the urge

in us to do so. End quote. What did Jesus say In John

six point forty four, He says, no man can come to me unless

the Father who sent me draws him us coming to God, whether it's in

prayer, us coming to God with a question or whatever. Whatever, the

even the thought us doing so is not of our own initiative. It is

a work of the Holy Spirit to draw Most people today believe that their behavior

is rights and good and acceptable rights. Even there are some people in the

Church even believe that their behavior, if it is right, if it is

good, then they are acceptable in God's sight. And according to human standards.

It might be for ages people have considered their own goodness as worthy of

God's acceptance. But God does not judge according to human standards. And for

those who, for those who choose to live separate from the provision of forgiveness

and salvation in Christ, their own righteousness is measured against the law, which

is impossible. No one can live up to that. Jesus, he is

the fulfillment. He is the completion of the law of God. He is

the absolute standard of a perfection by which all people will be judged. Good

luck with that, well, how often do you compare yourself or measure yourself

against another person? Because we can feel pretty satisfied in ourselves right when we

compare our actions or our lifestyle against against others. How about as a Christian,

how often do we as Christians measure ourselves against other Christians? Yeah?

All the time, every day. Yeah, And we see the shortcomings of

others and say, well, at least I don't do that. At least

I'm not I don't do what they do. Yeah, you're probably worse.

And our our self assessment as as a follower of Jesus is never determined by

what we observe and other followers of Jesus. Our measurement that we use is

Jesus period. And when we see ourselves in lights of Jesus, who listen,

this is for all of us little. We measure ourselves in light of

Jesus, we get an accurate measurement of our intentions. We get an accurate

measure of our lack of mercy towards others. We get an accurate measurement of

how we treat our spouse wives and husbands. Don't be pointing to the other

one and Paul says there is none who is righteous, not even one.

And when we measure ourselves against the perfect standard of God in Jesus, we

see very quickly how desperately we need his mercy for ourselves. We see very

quickly that apart from Him, we fall eternally short of His righteousness. Because

there is none righteous, no one by nature apart from God. Man is

completely incapable of doing what is right in the eyes of God. You are

not capable on your own of doing what is right in the eyes of God.

We have no righteousness apart from God. We have no understanding of God.

Apart from him. We have no initiative to seek God apart from Him

unless he draws us one Corinthians two fourteen. Paul says this. He says,

the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God,

for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them

because they are spiritually discerned. And again that's why the lost people act like

lost people. They don't have the Holy Spirit. You understand, the lost

people don't have the Holy Spirit right to give them understanding in the things of

God. They don't have the Holy Spirit. They don't even possess the ability

to seek God on their own if the thought or the desire to seek God

comes upon them. That does not come from themselves. The drawing is a

work of God through the Holy Spirit alone. That is what Tozier says is

prevenient grace, work of God. First. Yeah, something I enjoy.

I enjoy listening to smart people who talk about their areas of expertise. I

don't know if you do or not, but when people know what they're talking

about, I enjoy that because I can glean something from that. There are

a lot of There are a lot of brilliant people that know things that I

could I could never begin to fathom. Whether it's technology, whether it's mechanical,

or whatever the case may be. You have the most brilliant of minds

are are clouded concerning the things of God. If you hear somebody really smart

trying to explain spiritual things, they can come across as as as as foolish

and arrogant if they attempt to answer questions of a of a spiritual nature,

and you can have all the brilliance of a genius and have no understanding of

God. That's what the nature of sin does. It clouds, it blinds

man with regards to the things of God. The enemy of this world has

blinded the eyes of man. That's why we that's why we pray on a

regular basis. Lord, open blinded eyes to see, to see their their

spiritual need and open deafened ears, that they may hear the call of the

Gospel and understand their their need. There to understand that they are lost,

to understand that they are sinful, that to understand that they need the salvation

of God. But the enemy blinds the lost. Look at verse thirteen this

morning, and if you want to talk about the current state of affairs,

their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive the venom

of asps is under their lips verse fourteen. Their mouth is full of curses

and bitterness. And to say that that man's speech is corrupt is an understatements.

You men, I don't remember a time when people had less self control

with their mouth than now. And there is a mindset that has abused free

speech. Agree, free speech is no longer a two way street. Political

here for about thirty seconds, a Christian conservative voice is no longer tolerated on

college campuses. Liberal humanistic and disrespectful displays of protest are not only welcomed and

encouraged, but a respectful Christian display of ideals and protests are labeled hateful and

intolerant. And Paul says, their mouth is an open grave. An open

grave has the stench of death and the appearance of corruption. I have no

desire to see what lies in an open grave, because there will only be

rottenness and decay. And Paul says, there, that's what their mouth is.

Their speech is characterized by deception. And Paul says, the venom of

asps is under their lips. I did have to look up when an asp

was and an asp is a an Egyptian cobra. It's a viper and they

have unique fangs. I'm not a I don't study snakes. They kind of

creep me out, you know. Somebody can look at one and say,

oh, that's just a garden snake. I'm gonna kill it. I don't

care what it is, I'm gonna kill it. Yeah, all right,

as long as the tail ain't rattling, you know. But egypt and Egyptian

cobra has has fangs that normally they kind of they kind of they are folded,

they're folded back. But when they get in, when they get in

attack mode, when they attack, those fangs, those fangs come out and

they drop down with a bite that injects their poisonous venom into the wound.

And that's how man, that's how Paul describes man, describing man as using

poisonous words to wound one another. And those words can wound deeply. And

Paul says, their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. We use thousands

of words every day, and generally, by the time I get done preaching,

I don't have many words left to use for the rest of the day.

That doesn't seem to affect some people, you know, But I know

men and women it's all different. You know. Men have what ten thousand

words, women have about thirty thousand words. Huh a lot. But our

words, our words speak volumes, speak of who we are and what we

think and what we value. And then James chapter three, James says,

the tongue is a fire. The tongue is a world of unrighteousness. The

tongue stains the whole body and is set on fire by hell. The tongue

is full of deadly poison, and he says, with it we bless our

Lord and heavenly Father, and with it we curse people who are made in

the image of God. Yeah, and Jesus said in Matthew. In Matthew

twelve thirty six, he says, I tell you, on the day of

Judge, people will give an account for every careless or idle word they speak.

I think I'm gonna close at that point today and go over the next

few verses next week. But let me let me overview here by nature,

apart from Christ, to these things we've talked about, this is who we

are, right, We're careless in nature, careless and how we live careless,

and how we treat others, and how we speak. Apart from from

Christ, we have no understanding of God. We have no desire to even

know God. It's a godless nature that abounds for all that ends in eternal

separation from God. And I love the two words that begin Ephesians to chapter

four, and you know what they are. But God. Those are two

of the most powerful words in all of Scripture, given our spiritual state of

lostness. But God. But God being rich in mercy because of the great

love with which he loved us in verse five. Even when we were dead

in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace,

you have been saved. Praise God. In our sin nature state, we

are dead. We are dead spiritually, and unless God does something to draw

us, we are hopelessly lost. This morning, you might be here apart

from Christ, and I will say, without Christ, you are hopelessly lost.

Stop trying to do good to earn God's favor. Because of His great

love for us, even when we were dead and sin, he made us

alive together through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, no longer dead,

but fully alive. Fully alive. Can I say that again? Fully

alive in Christ. 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 point eight three nine Rogue 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.