Bible Guys Classics: Romans 3 Part 1

Well today we're going on the road again, on the Romans.

Road, on the Romans road. That's right, Well, that's what

we're beginning. There's a for those of you who don't know.

There's a way to share the gospel, to lead somebody

to Jesus using scriptures in the Book of Romans, and

the first one usually is here.

In Romans Carrey, wait to get all on the road again.

Roman road. So he's Chris and I'm Jeff, and we're

the Bible guys.

So Jeff, yes, our staff have put together a segment

that seems to be sort of the opposite of the

segment that they hand to me, which is what made

Chris mad this week.

Those are the best. Well, we love those. We love

to hear the Chris rant.

Well they well, I'm not sure about that that they

put together this question because we asked it. I think

last week too, or maybe two weeks ago. What made Jeff.

Happy this week?

Oh yes, so I'm not sure I like that one.

And see here's the thing.

They know us. They know us well.

If not careful, everybody might think that you don't ever

get mad.

Oh I don't. I'm like a saint.

Yeah whatever, Yeah, so Jeff, but just actually I just.

Probably have the worst temper between the two of us.

So that's a that's a funny thing that it's just

you're more vocal about the things that irritate you.

Oh for sure, Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I would definitely

agree with that. So let's go back to the question

what made Jeff happy? What what happened this week?

Jeff? That made Jeff happy?

Let me tell you this is one of the best

things that's ever happened to me. I mean, like, wow,

Jesus saved me from my sins. My wife said yes

and married me, the birth of my three children. Yeah,

coming to Heritage Church. And this Christmas, my kids teamed

up together and bought me an a five wagu beef

ribbi steak that had to be imported in dry ice

from Japan. And this is this is one of the

most expensive pieces of meat you can have in the world,

in the world.

Wow.

And they shifted in and it was magnificent. So we

just we cooked it this past week while they were

all together. It was incredible. So every bite was an

explosion of flavor.

Yeah, so you thought it was worth it? Oh?

Oh yeah, every bite? Now you can't eat much of it.

If you've ever had wag you you know, it's just

so rich. It's beyond a beef thing. It's just sort

of like if you bring in an eighteen ounce rabbi,

you know, prime rebbi, I will just destroy that thing

in the next fifteen twenty minutes. But I could only

eat just a few ounces of this. It was just

so rich. But it was amazing luxurious, decadently luxurious.

Wow. Yeah, And were you were you scared to cook it?

Yes? Well, so expensive you don't get one shot at it,

you know what I mean? And so yeah, I was.

I was really nervous about it, but we we nailed it.

It was it was amazing. The way that normal beef

process is fat is different from wagu Waguo has this

genetic thing that creates uh mono unsaturated fats, which is

like olive oil, and it embeds it in the muscle.

So literally it would melt like we could run our

finger across the top of the meat and it would

leave like a puddle of what looked like olive oil

behind it.

Right.

So it was just so rich meat. It was phenomenal.

So to non meat eaters this sounds horrible. But to

the to the steak lovers that are listening, it was

just a spectacular experience.

Did you put some a one on it?

No, my wife did. I'm not joking. I'm not joking.

She had a one on her plate.

Wow.

I had gone about a bunch of other steaks so

that everybody could, you know, because we all knew we

were gonna have the little bites of it because it was

so expensive and so rich. So I had to brought

some other steaks. So there were others. So I don't

know that she had a one on her plate for

this wago the most expensive bite of meat she's ever

had in her life, right, But uh, yeah she did.

That's funny.

One time Bonnie and I we went to tell my

parents that we were expecting their first grandson. Yeah, and

we took them out to a prime rib restaurant, very

famous restaurant. It was expensive and we ordered and everything,

and then when we were done, she, my wife called

the server rover and said, could you bring me some

a one? And he looked like she just cussed him out.

He went, excuse me, madam, And she said, could you

marke me some a one? So he goes uh yes,

and he just looked so disgusted. He walked and he

came back and he set the A one on the

table and he said, I'll give your regrets to the chef.

Oh no, well he's not wrong.

I know you don't put anyone on that stuff. But

she did so, and she's like, I paid for it,

and that's how I like it. I didn't care what

you think, you know. So yeah, so that was That's

what made me happy this week. Was the most amazingly

expensive piece of meat I could ever dream of. Oh yeah,

what a great gift from the fIF for you. They

know me, they really love.

Me, they like me, they really like me. Yeah, that

was it.

Okay, so we're continuing with this idea that we're all sinners.

Now he's he's stacking it on at this point. It's

not just you Jews are sinners, or the Gentiles or sinners,

because you know, you live apart from God. Now he's

really kind of going to begin to build this logical

argument that ultimately, I promise you, ultimately it's going to

lead to so Jesus solved it. That's tomorrow. Actually it's

the first time he brings that up. But this is

kind of the culmination of this whole argument that everybody's

a sinner and there's a consequence to it. So Rome's

chapter three is where we're picking up, and it starts

off with this whole idea of God being faithful. Says, then,

what's the advantage of being a Jew? Is there any

value in the ceremony circumcision? Yes, there's great benefits. First

of all, the Jews are entrusted with the whole revelation

of God. True, some of them are unfaithful, But just

because they're unfaithful does not mean that God will be unfaithful,

of course, not even if everyone else is a liar.

God is true, as the scriptures say about him. You

will be proved right in what you say, and you

will win your case in court. But some might say

our sinfulness deserves a good purpose, for it helps people

see how righteous God is. Isn't it unfair then for

him to punish us? This is merely a human point

of view, of course, not if God were not entirely fair,

how would he be qualified to judge the world. But

someone might still argue, how can God condemn me as

a sinner if my dishonesty highlights his truthfulness and brings

him more glory, and some people even slanderous by claiming

that we say the more we sin, the better it

is those who say such things deserve to be condemned. Well, then,

should we conclude that Jews are better than others, No,

not at all, for we have already shown that all people,

whether Jews or Gentiles, are under the power of sin.

As a scriptures say, no one is righteous, not even one.

No one is truly wise, No one is seeking God.

All have turned away, all have been become useless. No

one does good, not a single one. Their talk is foul,

like the stench from an open grave. Their tongues are

filled with lies, snake venom drips from their lips. Their

mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. They rush to

commit murder, Destruction and misery always follow them. They don't

know where to find peace. They have no fear of

God at all. Obviously, the law applies to those to

whom it was given for its purposes to keep people

from having excuses, and to show that the entire world

is guilty before God, For no one can ever be

made right with God by doing what the law commands.

The law simply shows us how sinful we are.

Yep, there it is, and that's the.

Purpose of the law.

Yeah, so the last sentence for no one can ever

be made right with God by doing the law commands.

The law simply shows us how simple we are. Isn't

it amazing?

How I mentioned yesterday and yesterday's podcast that I do

a lot of funerals. Well, the first half of every

funeral that I do is all about the person. Yeah,

you know, like, hey, we want to honor, remember, and

you know, share about the person who's deceased. But then

the second half of the funeral, I always just try

to answer one simple question and I just say, you know,

I'm just going to spend our few remaining moments answering

this one simple question, which is, how can anyone know

for sure they can go to Heaven when they die?

Because the vast majority of people, It's the same speech

every single time, every single time that I give a funeral,

I say, the vast majority of people think that if

they're good, outweighs they're bad. That's the most important part

of the equation. Okay, And I always say I feel

like we have to apologize on behalf of the church,

because I don't think the Church has done a very

good job in answering this really simple question with clarity, right,

because I think that the majority of all the people

in my life that I've ever talked with seem to

somehow think, you know, like, well, I've tried to keep

the Ten Commandments right, and it's like, why is that

the message above? You know that that you know, salvation

is Jesus alone? Right, you know, why is it the

Ten comments? Why is it you know, you know, salvation

by works? And so here what Paul says, Hey, you

want to talk about the law. You want to talk

about the commandments, you want to talk about every law

that has ever been given.

No one can ever.

Be made right with God by doing the law commands.

The law simply shows us how sinful we are.

Yeah, yeah, so you know he's again there's no chapters

and verses in Paul's letters. These are our segments. And

so to separate chapter three from chapter two, Paul didn't

do that. So basically he's finishing up that. So then

if if Jews can be unrighte with God even though

they've followed some of the rules, and if Gentiles can

be right with God by their heart, but haven't followed

these same rules that we followed, Then what's the use,

That's what he's saying, why would we even try to

follow any of God's guidelines anyways? And then he goes

on and goes or maybe you can justify then sinning

in general, just to show how good God is. If

sin proves that we're bad and God's good, then God

actually gets glory when I sin. And Paul's like, come on, people, right,

because we're always find trying to find loopholes. Naturally humans

try to find loopholes and go, oh, well great, I

get to keep doing what I do and God gets glorified.

That's fantastic. And he's saying, no, that's not the point.

He said, Instead, we have to conclude the fact that

none of our sin is beneficial. It's never acceptable, it's

never an okay thing. God's grace is available to both

Jews and Greeks, Jews and Gentiles, it's available to everybody,

but it's never beneficial to live a life of sin.

And he said, as a matter of fact, that's where

he begins to quote the Book of Isaiah, right where

he says, no one is righteous, not even one, and

no one's truly wise, no one is really seeking God.

Yeah, it's Psalm fourteen, that's all.

I'm sorry, Palm. What did I say, Isaiah, I'm sorry

Psalm fourteen.

Which, by the way, is interesting because we so know

it is Romans three ten, right, yeah, because that actually

is the reference that I gave to on the Road

again by Willie Nils. Yeah, because Romans three ten is

sort of the beginning of the Romans Road, which establishes

that all of us are lost, there's none righteous, no,

not one, and it's it's very famous in the Christian

world as Romans three ten, but really it's Psalm fourteen.

Yeah, so I see where my mistake was there. So

he quotes Psalm fourteen, Psalm fifty three, Psalm five, Psalm ten,

and then he finishes up with Isaiah fifty nine is

Versus fifteen, sixteen to seventeen there it is, So yeah, yeah,

that's that's kind of where I think I made that leap.

And then he goes back to Psal thirty six. So

what he's doing is he's rattling off a bunch of

verses that highlight the fact that you know, God says,

man live. Even the best version of you is still

a sinner. Right, Even your best words drip with evil.

Even your best behavior is sinful compared to a perfect

and holy and righteous God. And so basically what he's

doing is he's really piling on here at the end

to go listen. You are at your core a sinner,

and the best things you do are tainted by sin,

and yet God is good and loves you. Right, but

stop thinking that somehow you can earn your way to heaven.

It's not possible. You've already broken the law, you already

fall short, and even your best attempts are imperfect attempts.

And so he said, if you're trying to trust the

law here, it's just not possible. No one can ever

be made right with God by doing what the law commands.

So then I think it does bring up the question, well,

then why why should we do what God commands? And

I think it comes down to Jesus. Jesus said, if

you love me, keep my commandments, so it stops being

about trying to earn my way to heaven. See me

trying to keep the rules so I can go to

heaven is all about me, right, But if instead, I

realized Jesus paid my price to heaven, so now I

don't have to earn it. Now. The reason to do

the right thing now, the reason to obey God's laws

is to show him I love him. There's no other

way I can other than to then willingly do what

I don't am not any longer required to do.

You know, when I was, when I first went into

ministry was by the way, I'm not sure if I've

even told you this, but when I was, I grew

up in Youngstown, Ohio. It was a small little Baptist church, right,

and we were part of an independent, you know, Baptist Association.

And they had this homemade thing with all these other

youth pastors. This sounds funny, but it's called the any

OYF the Northeastern Ohio Youth Fellowship any OAF, I know,

goofy right, But it was just a sort of like

a group of churches that came together. Well, there was

always a guy who's still a good friend of mine,

Tim Chambers, and he would meet us, and we always

met in Ohio, so we meet somewhere in Ohio. But

he was from Michigan and it was Ryan Road Baptist Church. Now,

for those of you who don't know, obviously, majority of

people that don't know who's listening. Is one mile from

where I live is Ryan Road currently, and I've lived

there for almost twenty years, right, and yet as a

kid living in Ohio four hours away, this guy was

a pastor and I just remember his church, Ryan Road

Baptist Church was, by the way, is no longer there, okay,

but anyway, but that you know, and then here I

ended up living right down the street, and I knew

this guy's names of the church Ryan Road.

Anyway, The point is.

Is that he was sort of like a mentor along

because he was best friends with my youth pastor. And

I remember asking him saying, like, hey, when I go

into ministry, how do I teach kids how to follow God? Which,

by the way, is sort of the topic here? Now,

how do you how do you get people to obey

the law?

Right?

And here's what he said.

He said, Chris, it's three things and these are in

specific order. I just I just tell my kids, you

have to love God, know God, serve God.

Right.

I'm sorry, no, God, love God, serve God. Sorry, right

to know God?

You got it out of order, I did, he's going

to be mad.

Now he's going to be mad and he's lisening. So

to know God, Love God, serve God.

And I started and I started thinking about that, and

then it wasn't until much, much, much later on in

my ministry that I realized, WHOA, that is completely true.

You first have to know about God. You have to.

You have to understand him.

You know, you sort of you know, input all the

information about who God is, you learn about his character,

you read about it, right, you sort of get to

know God first, like an introductory type of thing, and

then the more you get to know him, the more

you love him, which is the absolute key to obeying him.

So one of my favorite phrases after that became this,

I obey God because I want to, not because I

have to. And by the way, both are okay, right.

It's it's kind of like when God says God loves

a cheerful giver. Well, you know, it's just better as

long as you give, right, So it's sort of like this,

it's like, well, as long as you obey. But there's

a major difference between obeying because you have to and

obeying because you want to. And see, I think the

key is what Tim told me so long ago, and

that is, if you don't love God enough to obey him,

chances are you just don't know him, because to know him.

Is to love him.

Yeah.

Well that's great. Yeah, so there it is.

That's great love. I love the idea that it's a

great progression. I think sometimes because we come to Christ immaturity.

We come to Christ usually because you know, he's been

drawing us, the holypit's been drawing us to Christ. But

he's been doing it through the circumstances of our life.

So a lot of times it's a struggle, it's a difficulty,

it's confusion, it's lostness, it's just it's purpose, uselessness, whatever,

whatever thing God used. Oftentimes when we come to faith

and we find the solution to the thing that's missing

in our life, so it's kind of an us centered

thing at the beginning, it's Jesus is the answer to

what's missing, or Jesus is the answer to what's broken,

or Jesus is the one who solved this problem in

my life. And so we come to him and it's Jesus, yes,

because he fixes me in this right right. And then

if we're not careful. We stay the whole Christian life,

the whole journey still being all about what Jesus can

do for me, rather than us learning who he is.

So you know, God so loved that he gave, so

the giving is it's for you. There's no shame in that.

It is for you. But it's because God is love,

and when you really discover who he is, you learn

to love him. And then that's why Jesus said, now

you know, keep my commandments because you love me, because

he makes Paul makes it clear here there's no chance

of you getting to heaven by doing right. Can't do that.

But every time I do choose to do the right thing,

I'm saying I love you to Jesus. That's another hug.

It's another thing I was thinking about this. I had

a friend that was very particularly sensitive to smell. If

he smelled something that you know, if he smelled shoes

and we didn't smell him, it'd make him gag, right,

just everything would you know, everything was too sensitive, so

he could not be around people wearing any kind of

cologne at all.

And you know, oh, that's that's a strong gag reflex.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I have a gag reflex, but it's not

that strong.

So if you were wearing any kind of scent, he

would start sneezing and his eyes would puff up and

he just couldn't couldn't handle it. So you know, I'm

free to wear whatever I want to wear. And back then,

you know, when we were in college, you wear what

your car right.

Right, right, brute my faberge right for the cowboy and

all of us.

So whatever it was, you're free to I'm a free individual,

I'm a grown man. I can wear what I want

to wear. I want to do and wear it. But

I enjoyed his company and I cared about him, so

I would limit my freedoms in order to please him

so that I could be with him and be around him.

And if Boule says God cannot be in the presence

of sin, so it'd be the same thing that I

care enough about my relationship with God that I'm willing

to limit the freedoms that I have in Christ. And

I limit those things. And by the way, when I

keep God's laws, my life will be better. I'll avoid brokenness,

I'll avoid some of the destructive behaviors, I'll avoid addictions,

I'll avoid ruining relationships. I'll strengthen so many of the

things that would naturally be weak. So if I follow

God's loss, my life will be better. It will be

it won't be worse. There's not one of God's laws

it will make my life worse. But I'm free to

do what I want. But I'm not demonstrating love to

God or thankfulness to God when I choose to just

live for myself. And I think this is kind of

the contrast between Jesus in the Gospel saying, if you

love me, keep my commandments and Paul saying there's no

way you can get to heaven just keeping commandments.

You know.

So you know, the Bible tells us that God institute

marriage as a reflection of our relationship with him. Right,

So marriage is a thing given to us, but it's

actually very cleverly designed to show our relationship with Him

and then the family unit as well. So when it says,

for instance, bear with me, when it says God gave

his only son for us, we think to ourselves, man,

we can't relate to that until we have a son, right,

And so think about this, you know, I know, I know,

serving God for the pleasure of loving God is not

too much different than going out of your way for

your kids or for your.

Wife, don't you agree.

So it's like it's like, it's like I will go

through the pain of like cleaning my house, right, not

because I like cleaning my house, because I like when

my wife walks in through the door to go, oh,

thank you so much. For the first time ever, we

actually attempt to decorate the entire house with Christmas decorations

without my wife. She was at home in Ohio, think no,

she was in Florida visiting Sarah, and we were going

through some stuff, and my daughter Tory said, I don't

think we should be doing this because you know how

much Christmas decorations there are in a typical household, right,

And Liz does all that. She decorates the whole house.

We're talking every room, every decoration boxes and boxes. I

bet you there's twelve boxes, like big huge bins right

from the attic. And so it's like, so Tory goes,

I think we should I'm not sure if we should

do this, I said, can you imagine what it'll be

like if she walks into the door the Christmas tree's up,

you know, not decorated but up and everything else is up.

So we did it, and it's the first time in history.

And my wife walked in through the door and.

She goes, I don't know how I feel about this.

That she walked around and she said, you have no

idea what it was like to walk in and just

see everything just done. And ultimately, thank goodness, she loved it.

But the only reason why I did it is not

because I like it. So we live our lives trying

to please God. And it's like, you know, just just

to know that, like you know, when we live in

His laws, it glorifies God.

Right, we love and forgive others. It shines God's love.

Do you remember I think it was a week or

two ago in Two Corinthians where he says, come out

from among them, be separate, don't touch down, clean thing. Right.

So those are some rules that seems pretty strong. But

then he says, and then you'll be like my children,

my sons and daughters, and I'll be like a father

to you. So God is using the family relationship to say, hey,

if you want to make me happy, do these things.

Yeah, right, just for your kids, yeah, for your dad.

And so I love this idea. And we've said this

before in a podcast. I think we need to wrap

up with this. But the Bible is its own best commentary.

So in this passage, he says, there's no chance of

getting to heaven by obeying the law. So then why

why should we obey the law? Jesus said, because if

you love me, keep my commandments. And it turns out

it's a family thing, right if you do when I say,

it will be like a family together, and you speaks

directly to the illustration you just used. Yeah, it's pretty

great how the Bible works out that way.

Cool.

Well, we will see you next time and hopefully you'll

join us on Monday on the Bible Guys,