The End of our Boasting - Romans 3:27-31 (May 5) Josh Tong

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God for the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Well, thank you for that kind introduction, Dennis.

It's a joy to be here.

Um, I've longed for the opportunity to come and visit this precious church here in Newmarket.

I'm actually here Monday to Friday, dropping off my kids here in Nova South Campus.

I teach in the science room.

I'll be teaching there tomorrow morning theology among the high schoolers.

And uh it's just a joy to be here.

This actually happened at my request.

It's a little bit awkward when you're asking someone else if you can preach at their church.

Um, but I was away this week uh in the US for some meetings, and I was looking for someone to preach at my church so that I wouldn't have to prepare a fresh new sermon.

And I reached out to Miles and uh he very kindly, generously said, I'd be happy to.

And then I said, Well, if you're looking for someone to fill your pulpit, I'm happy to do a little pulpit switch and uh we can serve and bless one another's churches this way.

And uh he was he was happy to agree to that plan.

Uh, this really is an expression of gospel partnership, uh not only across municipalities, but across denominations.

My family of churches is called Sovereign Grace Churches, uh, but we are so grateful for the ministry of the Great Commission Collective and its local expression here in Newmarket.

We were just uh at the GCC Pastors Conference a couple months ago.

I was there uh uh recently for a biblical counseling conference as well.

So many wonderful resources in the GCC, so much that we share in common, and uh we are grateful for this opportunity to find a local specific opportunity to express that partnership together.

It's been a great morning already, though I have been slightly disturbed by the number of anti-Leafs fans that I've met so far.

It's been quite disturbing.

Us Leafs fans, we are in grieving.

And uh and we have people like Dennis and like Joel who are rubbing the salt in the wounds, and uh, you know, we're just trying to find our unity based not on our sports allegiances, but in Jesus Christ.

Uh I've had to apply the best pastoral counseling to my own soul as we annually experience this grief, this loss, this sense of futility, the sense, this reminder that all is indeed vanity.

And uh I've just been reminded that that God is good.

God is good all the time.

All the time, God is good.

And in fact, in this season, in this maple leaf season, God has shown his goodness in giving us the joy of winning game five and six.

That was exciting.

Right?

He's given us the goodness of not gluing our eyes to the screen longer than we should by ending the season in the first round.

And he's shown his goodness to us in training us in the Christ-like quality of steadfast love, loyal love, love that doesn't give up, love that pursues, steadfast love and faithfulness are the qualities of our Lord.

And through our sad allegiance to the leaves, we are being trained in the same qualities.

Well, if uh, as mentioned, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn to Romans chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

We are going through a series in the book of Romans at Sovereign Grace Church in Bradford, and by the way, our church sends you their greetings.

Uh, we are grateful for you.

We have prayed for your church in our pastoral prayers, and uh we are excited to have Miles preaching uh at Sovereign Grace this morning.

Romans chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

I've I've titled this sermon series at Sovereign Grace uh as follows.

I've called it Life Together in the Power of the Gospel.

Life Together in the Power of the Gospel.

And this is this is my insufficient, inadequate attempt to try to capture the theme of the book of Romans in a few short words.

The first part of this title, the power of the gospel.

You know those verses in Romans chapter 1.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

Romans is about the gospel, the glorious, powerful, life-changing, soul-saving gospel.

The good news that Jesus Christ has come and through his life, death, and resurrection has accomplished our salvation and redemption so that we can be justified by faith, by grace in Christ.

Now, the second part of this title is what the gospel creates.

It's a new community of believers from all different kinds of backgrounds and ethnicities and cultures and sports allegiances together into one community, life together, created by the power of the gospel.

Now, up until this point in the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul has gone to great lengths to explain the gospel to us.

From the second half of chapter one to the first half of chapter three, he has gone to great lengths to describe the bad news about our sin, about how we are totally depraved, our hands, our feet, our mouths, our hearts, all fallen, all corrupted, all poisoned by sin.

And I preached 20 plus sermons on the doctrine of sin, that sovereign grace.

There's so much richness there, so much conviction that we need personally.

But he does all of that so that the good news will make sense.

The good news that we find in Romans chapter 3, verses 21 to 26, what has been called the most important paragraph in the most important book in the Bible.

Romans 3:21–26

Now, that might be exaggeration because all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable, but but the gospel in its potent summary form is described in those verses.

And here, at the end of chapter three, Paul takes a brief moment before he resumes his explanation of the gospel.

He takes a brief moment for some application regarding life together.

Power of the gospel, life together.

It's like he's been swimming in the glorious depths of the gospel, and he needs to pause.

He needs to breathe a bit of application before he swims back into its depths.

And where do you think he starts?

Well, he starts with boasting.

Now, this may seem a little odd to us.

We might think, well, Paul, if you're concerned about life together and community and unity, I mean, maybe you should start with something else.

Maybe you should start with forgiveness.

You know, we can't do community without forgiveness, not in families, not in churches, not in municipalities.

Maybe you should do kindness.

It's kind of the modern-day virtue of our secular culture.

We hear that a lot.

You know, kindness makes the world go round.

But no, he doesn't go there.

He he goes to boasting.

Why?

Well, he begins with boasting because it gets to the root of what truly divides people, breaks communities up, and keeps people from living life together.

And that is pride.

Listen to what John Stott says about boasting.

He says, boasting is the language of our fallen self-centeredness.

Boasting is the language of our fallen self-centeredness.

You think about what Jesus said.

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Well, if we are speaking boastful words, we are reflecting prideful hearts.

This is the first thing that the gospel does.

It puts an end to boasting.

It silences the language of our fallen self-centeredness.

And it does that by making us humble.

And this is why the doctrine of justification by faith alone is so important and so crucial to Paul's explanation of the gospel in the book of Romans.

If you read through those glorious verses in 21 to 26, you'll see faith emphasized again and again and again.

We are justified through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

Verse 22.

This propitiation is to be received by faith, verse 25.

Verse 26, he was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Faith, faith, faith.

All by faith, only by faith.

Faith alone, not by works.

Now, in his commentary on the book of Romans, Christopher Ash helpfully writes this.

But why such a massive emphasis on faith?

The answer is that Paul wants the church in Rome to live together in harmony.

And he knows that only this doctrine can unite a church because only this doctrine humbles every human being to level zero.

Now think about the historical attempts by secular people, secular cultures, secular nations to try to unite people.

Think about the most ambitious project of all.

Communism.

Communism tries to unite people by leveling people to level zero as well.

But the problem is that communism tries to do so only in a socioeconomic sense.

Nobody can own private property.

We are all equal.

The state owns everything, and we are all together as comrades in this nation.

But the problem is, even though you try to do that, the human heart remains unchanged.

The human heart remains proud.

And the language of our fallen self-centeredness, which is boasting, continues.

Now the gospel creates a different kind of unity.

The gospel creates a true leveling down to zero.

Not just in a socioeconomic or external sense, but in an internal moral sense.

Because the doctrine of justification by faith alone says that none of us, none of us, not even the best person you know, can justify themselves before God.

No one is exempt from sin.

Everybody is fallen, fallen short of the glory of God and justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

And so it is in light of all of that, this is just by way of introduction, that I want to read our text this morning.

I'll be reading from Romans chapter 3, beginning in verse 21, and I'll read through the end of the chapter.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 3, verses 21 to 31.

Romans 3:21–31

This is the inspired, unchanging, authoritative word of the Lord.

But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

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

For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put 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.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of our boasting?

It is excluded.

By what kind of law?

By a law of works?

No, but by the law of faith.

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Or is God the God of Jews only?

Is he not the God of Gentiles also?

Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?

By no means.

On the contrary, we uphold the law.

May God bless the preaching and the receiving and the believing of his word.

Well, the title of this sermon is The End of Our Boasting.

The End of Our Boasting.

We're gonna have three points today.

The first one being no more boasting before God.

No more boasting before God.

Now, since Romans chapter 2, Paul has been using a method of teaching which is called a diatribe.

Romans 2 · chapter mention

Now you may have heard that word before, it's kind of has negative connotations, but in the classical word uh world, this method was just a method of kind of imagining a hypothetical opponent who disagrees with your position and interacting with that person to try to put flesh to your position.

Back in chapter two, Paul began this diatribe with a hypothetical Jew boasting about his status before God, boasting about his works, boasting about his history, boasting about his religious tradition.

This hypothetical Jew was saying, I have the law of Moses, and I have the sign of circumcision.

Everything is fine between God and me.

I come from the right bloodlines.

Other people may be in trouble with God, but not me.

I've done everything I need to do, and I am everything I need to be in order to be right with God.

Now, in response, Paul pointed out that having the law and having circumcision mean nothing if you do not obey the law.

And since no one obeys God perfectly, no one is right with God.

That's his simple logic.

In fact, he says in chapter 2, verse 23 you who boast in the law, dishonor God by breaking the law.

That's our first opportunity to see the word boast in the book of Romans.

They're boasting in the law.

We have the law.

This makes us special.

This makes us elite.

This gives us a special status before God.

And Paul is saying, no, you dishonor God by breaking the law.

The very thing you boast in is the source of your condemnation and judgment before God.

Now, Paul may be writing to self-righteous Jews, but in a sense, he's writing to everyone who boasts in themselves as well.

He's writing to all of us.

Because whether with our words or whether in our thoughts, we find reasons to boast before other people.

We can find reasons to boast about anything.

In fact, in my pastoral counseling experience, I would say that prideful boasting, that attitude that you are superior to other people, is the number one cause of conflict in marriages and in relationships.

It's the main thing that divides communities, breaks up those families that were united but no longer are.

Generally speaking, people are so much more aware of other people's sins than they are their own.

We specialize in maximizing, blowing up, zooming in to the other people's sins while minimizing and zooming out on our own.

And that is an expression of prideful boasting.

And Paul is confronting us with this.

We who boast in ourselves, do we not know that we dishonor God as well?

You and me.

It's true of all of us.

The only way that people can be right with God is if we receive God's grace through faith in Jesus.

And so now in verse 27, Paul applies.

And he says, What becomes of our boasting?

Boasting is excluded.

It is excluded from the language of the Christian.

It is excluded from the thoughts of the born-again believer.

And that begins with boasting before God.

Listen, if you think that on the day of judgment and you stand before God, you're gonna have a lot of things to say to God about why he should let you into his heaven.

You know, I faithfully went to church every Sunday, except when I was sick and when I was on vacation.

But I faithfully went to church.

Or I read my Bible, I prayed, I trusted you, I devoted my life to serving you, glorifying you.

If you think that you'll have a whole speech prepared to boast before God, then here's a reality check.

We will all stand in silence.

We will not have a defense before this holy God.

We will be silenced, we will have no boasting.

When you stand before the throne of God, God will bring all of your sins committed in private and show them publicly.

Every careless word, every lustful thought, every selfish ambition, every worldly desire, every bitter feeling, every impulse of self-righteous anger, every boastful thought, every failure to worship God, what will become of your boasting then?

What will become of mine?

It will be excluded.

But on what basis, Paul asks?

By law of works?

No, but by the law of faith.

If it was a law of works that excluded boasting, then that's basically saying, well, there's a command that says you shall not boast, and we say, okay, we obey the command, right?

But if we if we base this on the law, we will always find reason to boast.

See how good I am at obeying this law?

Right?

We'll always be like the young, rich, the rich young ruler when Jesus, when he asks Jesus, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus lists a bunch of commandments, and what does he say?

All of these I have kept from my youth.

Right?

That's what the law produces.

The law either produces self-righteous pride or produces guilty self-condemnation, right?

Depending on how you believe you've fit within the law.

I mean, most religious people fall on the first category, not the second.

We are tempted more to self-righteousness than self-condemnation.

It's not going to be under the law of works, but under the law of faith, which is really just shorthand for the gospel, justification by faith apart from works.

No one has reason to boast because the gospel humbles everyone to level zero.

It humbles us all to level zero.

Everyone has fallen short of the glory of God.

Everyone has turned aside to their own way.

And the only way that anyone can be justified before God, declared righteous before this holy God, is by faith.

That is why, verse 28, Paul says, For this is the reason why boasting is excluded, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

And so if you want a little history lesson, this is why the reformers believe with all their hearts and taught with all their might that we are justified by faith alone.

In fact, in Martin Luther's Bible, he inserts the word alone here.

It's not used by Paul, but it's a natural implication of what he is saying.

If boasting is excluded, then that means that we cannot be justified by a combination of our faith and our works.

Because if we could be justified by God doing half and we doing half, then we could boast about our half.

It is completely excluded.

There is nothing for us to say about ourselves.

It is all grace, all faith, all Christ.

No more boasting before God.

But that is not all.

The gospel puts an end to our boasting before both God and man.

Which leads to our second point.

No more boasting before man.

Now we're gonna have to follow Paul's logic closely here to get this point.

But look at verses 29 and 30.

He says, Or is God the God of Jews only?

Is he not the God of Gentiles also?

Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

So we need to remember, Paul is engaging in this diatribe, he's engaging in this hypothetical discussion with this Jew who is opposing the teaching of the gospel.

And he's trying to build this case with this hypothetical juice for why Gentiles are also equally welcomed into the family of God.

I mean, this is the relationship that is straining unity in the church in Rome.

Will the Jews accept the Gentiles?

Are the Gentiles equally justified by God, welcomed by God, or are they separate?

And do they need to conform to Jewish laws and standards in order to be part of this community?

And so Paul begins by by trying to find common ground with this Jewish brother.

And he starts off with Jewish monotheism, a given when it comes to Jewish religious belief.

Every Jew believed that there is only one God.

They might differ on a whole bunch of different things, but they would believe that no, we we believe in one God.

There's one true and living God.

And the main sin that Israel committed in the Old Testament was living as if there are many gods, it's idolatry.

And really, that's the temptation in the New Testament as well.

Except the idols aren't external, they're not statues, they're idols in our hearts.

Right?

Idolatry is the main sin.

In fact, Martin Luther again said, we don't break any of the commandments without breaking the first one.

You shall not worship any other God.

Idolatry is the root sin of every sinful thing that we do and say.

But the Jews believe that there is one God.

They at least believe that.

And this is captured in Deuteronomy 6, verse 4.

Deuteronomy 6:4

The Shema, the famous saying among the Jewish communities that they repeat morning and evening, whenever they gather in the synagogue, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

One God.

One God created all things.

One God sustains all things.

One God worthy of our worship.

One God who reigns over all things.

He is the God of Jews, and He is the God of non-Jews, Gentiles, the God of every living thing and every human being.

Paul affirms this.

He says, Is God the God of Jews only?

Is he not the God of Gentiles also?

Yes, of Gentiles also.

Don't you agree with that, my Jewish friend?

He says, Yes.

One God over all people.

Now here's his point.

If we can only be justified by obedience to the law, works done in conformity to the law of God, then how can we say that God is also the God of Gentiles, since the law was not given to them?

The law was only given to Jews.

Wouldn't that exclude the Gentiles if we are justified by works of the law?

Well, it would.

And so if God truly is one, if we truly are monotheistic and believe that God is the God of both Jews and Gentiles, the circumcised and the uncircumcised, then there must be another way for us to be justified.

Not by works of the law, but by faith.

It is because God is one that he will justify both the circumcised and the uncircumcised by faith.

And so Paul is saying, your boasting, my Jewish friend, is excluded.

This time not before God, but before your Gentile brother, your non-Jewish friend.

You cannot boast that there's anything inherently within yourself, your heritage, your moral superiority that distinguishes you from that Gentile brother over there.

We are all under this one God, justified by grace.

The gospel precludes us from boasting about anything about ourselves.

What does that mean for you?

What do you boast about that tends to create distinctions and make you seem superior to other people?

Remember that boasting isn't always expressed.

In fact, if you are a Christian here, you know that boasting is bad.

Maybe even if you're not a Christian here, you know that, hey, that's that's not modest.

You know, it's important for us to be humble.

We like humble players, like sports players, right?

We don't like players who boast about themselves, and if they do boast, we say, oh yeah, it's just confidence, right?

We we try to give it a different word because we just say, if we say these top athletes that we follow are boastful, then we're actually saying something about their moral character.

We know that boasting is wrong.

And so it may not come out with our words, but it comes out all the time.

All the time in our thoughts and in our hearts.

It happens whenever we compare ourselves in a favorable way with others.

This is how C.S.

Lewis explains it.

We say that people are proud of being rich or clever or good looking, but they are not.

They are proud of being richer or cleverer or better looking than others.

If everyone else became equally rich or clever or good looking, there would be nothing to be proud about.

It is the comparison that makes you proud, the pleasure of being above the rest.

Isn't that helpful?

Isn't that insightful into how we work into the essence of this core sin of pride?

And since boasting is the language of our fallen self-centeredness, the language of our pride, boasting is spoken pride.

That's what it is.

Speaks boastful words, thinks boastful thoughts.

Whenever we are pleased, we find pleasure at being above the rest.

It can be the silliest things.

I remember as a teenager, I grew up in St.

Catharines, Niagara area.

Not very many Chinese people there.

So my friends, we're all hockey playing white Canadians.

And uh, that's how I self-identified.

You know, before there was transgender theory, there's this kind of this internal struggle in our minds of like, how do we want to identify ethnically, culturally?

Okay?

I'm I'm your typical banana.

Okay, yellow on the outside, white on the inside.

Okay?

That's me.

But I found that whenever my family and I would travel to Toronto and to the Greater Toronto area to visit family, and we'd walk into a Chinese restaurant, okay, full of Chinese people with Chinese anime hairdos.

Okay, I would be thinking, and I distinctly remember this, and being aware that I was thinking about this, I would distinctly think, oh, I am so much more Canadian than all these people.

Right?

It's kind of a reverse racism.

You know, I'm I'm Chinese, and yet I am looking down on my fellow Chinese people because they're not as Canadian as I am.

I mean, it's it's a silly thing.

And yet, isn't that true of everything, every standard that we use to make ourselves superior to other people?

When we vocalize it, when we identify it, we recognize, oh man, how could I ever do that?

How could I ever use that as a basis to distinguish myself from other people and to make myself superior?

And yet that is what we do.

You know, here's the thing about boasting.

Whatever side you may be, you know, the superior side or the inferior side based on this standard, whatever side you may be, you can actually find reason to boast in that.

A woman may boast she's more attractive than others.

While the less attractive woman may boast that she's not as vain as others.

A businessman boasts because he has more wealth and more companies and more money than others, while the other businessman boasts that he has more family time.

A university graduate boasts because he's more educated than others.

Whereas the young woman who skipped university and went straight to motherhood boasts about being more faithful to God's command to be fruitful and multiply.

A young Chinese Canadian boasts because he's more Canadian than others.

While another Chinese Canadian boasts because he's more Chinese.

It's arbitrary.

These are the artificial distinctions we create in our minds.

So the people would admire us, and it starts by us finding reasons to admire ourselves.

Even Christians can boast because they know their theology better than others.

While another Christian boasts that he doesn't go into all this doctrine that divides but just loves everybody.

We are a boastful people, and that is because we are a proud people, and pride will kill communities every time, every generation, every culture.

We're talking about we're talking about a letter written 2,000 years ago to Romans.

Okay, Rome doesn't even the Roman Empire doesn't even exist anymore.

It's a completely different culture.

And yet, how powerfully it speaks to our human heart, to our common, fallen, sinful heart, and how powerfully it gives us the remedy, which is the gospel, the power of God for salvation from our boasting.

Only the doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, can humble us to level zero and put an end to our boasting and our pride.

But that doesn't mean that all boasting is gone, because there is one reason, there is one person worth boasting about.

And that leads to our last point: only boasting about Christ.

Now we need to think carefully about this because I want to see, I want to show you how this is found in the text.

Okay, I'm not I'm not just ending with this climax because it makes sense.

So it's actually in the text, verse 31, Paul asks, Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?

By no means.

On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Okay, it's a bit of a cryptic statement.

It's got multiple possible interpretations.

We're gonna try to walk you through it.

Okay, so this hypothetical Jew is saying, wait, Paul, if you're saying that faith is so important, then what does that say about God's law?

Was it completely irrelevant, useless, powerless?

I mean, what place does the law have?

Do we overthrow the law?

Are you saying that that Jesus has come to abolish the law?

And Paul is saying, no.

On the contrary.

Actually, he says, by no means.

You could say, not in a million years, absolutely not.

On the contrary, we uphold the law.

The law of God is being upheld by this doctrine of justification by faith.

But how?

Now there are two main options.

This is from the commentaries.

Okay?

The first option is this: Paul is saying that those who are justified by faith end upholding the law because their lives are changed.

Right?

They are born again, they are saved by grace through faith, and they have new desires, and they have a new obedience to God, and through that, they obey the law not in order to be justified, but because they are justified.

It is a necessary fruit of a saved life.

And we know that's biblically true, right?

Actually, Paul talks about that in Romans 13, verse 8.

Romans 13:8

He says, Owe no one anything except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

Okay, so in Christians, if you're a Christian, you you are you are saved to fulfill the law.

You you are saved to obey God's commands.

That is a wonderful thing.

And the law is summed up in this command to love God and to love your neighbor, to love even your enemy.

That's God's command.

The great commission is to make disciples, teaching them to obey everything that Jesus is commanded.

Okay, so this is this is true.

We don't obey the law in order to be justified, we obey the law because we are justified.

But I don't think that's what Paul is talking about in verse 31.

I believe he's not talking about how we end up fulfilling the law.

No, he's he's talking about how Christ has fulfilled the law on our behalf.

This is the surrounding context.

The context has nothing to do with us, us fulfilling the law.

All it all it says about us is that we're sinful, we're needy, and we need to receive God's grace.

That's all it says.

But everything else it says is about the righteousness of God coming to us, external from us, imputed to us by faith.

And where does that righteousness come from?

It comes from Christ fulfilling the law on our behalf through the merits of his perfect life.

He came, and before he died, he lived.

And in his living, he perfectly fulfilled the law of God to love his father, to love his neighbor, to love even his enemies.

Have you thought about that?

You know, on the way to the cross, as Jesus was falsely accused and condemned and beaten, he is being tempted.

And the stakes are high.

If he responds with revenge, if he repays reviling for reviling, he will have failed to obey the law of God.

And therefore he would have been disqualified from being our representative.

But all through every single one of his temptations, he obeyed the law of his father perfectly, and so is qualified to give us his perfect righteousness.

Jesus himself said that he did not come to abolish the law, he came to fulfill it.

He satisfied its requirements and then he credited it to our account.

Paul speaks of this in Romans chapter 8, verses 3 and 4.

Romans 8:3

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.

By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemns sin in the flesh, and listen to this, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

So why did Jesus come?

Why did he live?

Why did he die?

It's so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us.

And Jesus did that by fulfilling the law on our behalf.

And so, if you are here today and you are not a Christian, you need to know that God has a law that he commands you to obey.

But it is a standard that you cannot keep.

No one can.

But in Jesus Christ, we have a Savior who satisfied the law on your behalf.

Even though he was tempted in every way, he never sinned.

He's completely and perfectly righteous, and now he is willing to take his righteous robes of righteousness and clothe you.

Dazzling white, pure and clean.

So that when God your judge sees you, he sees you through the lens of the righteousness of his perfect son.

And you are counted righteous.

Not by works, not by merit, but by grace.

God is calling you to receive this righteousness.

He's calling you to receive this gift today.

But in order to do that, in order to receive this, you must stop trusting yourself, boasting in yourself, and learn how to boast in Christ.

And this is indeed the true delight of the believer, of the Christian.

It is to decrease so that Christ may increase.

It is to make less of ourselves and make much of our Savior.

It is to stop boasting about how good we are and to start boasting that Jesus alone is good.

Listen again to John Stock.

Praising, not boasting, is the characteristic activity of justified believers and will be throughout eternity.

Oh my friends, is this not what excites you and fires you up?

That we, justified sinners, will spend an eternity delighting in this God, singing his praises instead of boasting in ourselves?

Imagine little ants boasting about how much weight they can carry.

I can carry this crumb.

That's us boasting in our own works.

No, we boast in Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, the Redeemer of the lost.

He alone is worth boasting about.

And so, for my fellow believers, the question before us today is this: have you excluded boasting in your own life?

Have you excluded boasting in your own thoughts?

Or is boasting still part of your vocabulary?

I think we all need to admit that to some extent it is.

Because we are still fallen, we are still sinners, we are being sanctified.

And one day we will be like Jesus when we are with Jesus, when we behold Jesus.

But for now, we continue to boast in ourselves.

If you are aware of that tendency in your own mind, like I have sought to be aware of that tendency in my own mind, then the remedy is not just to say, okay, I'm gonna make a rule.

I'm not gonna boast in myself, I'm gonna be more careful about my thoughts.

I'm gonna guard my thoughts and I'm gonna confess where I have boasted about uh boasted over other people.

That's law.

Okay?

Some of that is practical, some of that is wise.

We want to apply specifically, but but before we do that, we need to return to the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

You know, listen, Romans is teaching us that that this isn't just theology, this isn't just historical doctrine.

This is life-changing truth.

If we are still boastful, then it shows us that the doctrine of justification by faith alone still has work to do in our hearts.

We have not yet completely immersed ourselves in it and lived in the good of it.

We may be leaning in that direction, we may be tasting of it, but we have not yet immersed ourselves in it and been transformed by it.

And that's not going to happen until either Christ returns or he calls us home.

But but we can engage in that process of excluding our boasting, putting our boasting to death by applying our minds, engaging our hearts with the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

This doctrine alone levels us all to level zero.

And so, when you hear the gospel preached, don't just think, oh yeah, this is the part where the preacher is calling non-Christians to repent.

Don't just think, oh yeah, I can check out and I'll recheck in when the application gets here and I can start thinking about how this affects my life.

No, listen and believe.

This is true of you, and this is true of me.

We need to hear the gospel and believe the gospel and rejoice in the gospel continually throughout the Christian life.

That never changes.

This is the means of sanctification.

It's not law, it's still faith.

It always will be faith that will change you.

Preach the gospel to yourself.

The famous words of Martin Lloyd Jones, you know, one of the main problems that we face is that we we spend far too much time listening to ourselves and not enough time speaking to ourselves.

We just coast along the current of our thoughts.

Oh yeah, I'm boasting now, and you know, that's kind of normal, and oh yeah, I'm proud now, and yep.

And and and we we we fail to zoom out and say, that is wrong, that is sinful, but Christ has died for it, and the Holy Spirit empowers me to put that to death and to boast in Christ and not in myself.

This is how we change.

It is through a daily, regular, lifelong rehearsal of the gospel to ourselves and to one another.

I mean, this is why we have churches.

We are meant to speak the truth in love.

And what truth is better to speak to one another in love than truth of the gospel?

I can tell you, when I was a younger pastor, people would come to me with their problems, and I would say, I think this is your, I think this is your issue.

Okay.

Like the golden bullet, and like this, this is what it comes down to.

Okay, and then and then I expect them to say, Oh, thank you.

I just never saw that about myself.

Now I am armed with the knowledge that I need in order to triumph over life.

Okay, I used to think that's how counseling works.

It doesn't work.

Okay, there's some benefit to that, but now when someone when someone tells me about their sin, they say, Pastor, I know that I have done this and this is wrong, but I don't know if I can change.

Can you help me?

I say, first, brother or first sister, I want to remind you that Christ died for your sins.

He has come to redeem you from the power and the penalty of sin.

And he looks upon you through the righteousness of your Savior.

You are forgiven, redeemed, justified.

There is no condemnation for you before God.

You need to believe that before we start talking about change.

Believe the gospel, and you will be changed, and your boasting will be transformed.

You know, Paul had many reasons to boast in himself, and he gives us some of those examples throughout his letters.

I was a Hebrew of Hebrews, I was a Pharisee, I persecuted the church.

You know, I was a Jew among Jews of the tribe of Benjamin.

I have many.

Reasons to boast in myself.

But after coming to Christ, he said that all of these marks of righteousness have become like rubbish.

He counts them as nothing compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ.

And he says in Galatians 6, verse 14, but far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

Galatians 6:14

Oh my friends, may we say the same.

May we have the same heart.

Far be it from us to boast in anything but the cross of Jesus Christ.

That He lived for us, He died for us, He justified us.

So that praise, not boasting, would be the language of our transformed hearts.

That's praying.

Father, we thank you for your word.

It's insights into our hearts.

And the fact that it does not just give us the diagnosis, it gives us the remedy.

And the remedy is a gracious remedy, freely given to those who are aware of their sin and their need and their weakness and their failing.

Oh Father, how we long to be able to say, praising, not boasting, is our activity.

It is the fruit of justified lives, hearts that are transformed, the fruit that leads to life together in the power of the gospel.

Oh Father, I pray that this church here in Redemption Newmarket would be characterized by a humble and joyful unity that is rooted in the power of the gospel.

And that nothing would threaten that.

When sin and Satan, when suffering, when death, when offense, when bitterness threatens to cause division in families or in this church, we pray that the doctrine of justification by faith alone would bring us all down to level zero.

And we would boast not in ourselves, but in Christ alone.

That He would be exalted, He would be worshipped, He would be praised both now and forevermore.

We thank you, Father, be at work among us, change our hearts for the glory of your name.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.