Romans 3:1-8
Today we come to the last sermon on Romans we will preach this year (except perhaps for some special circumstance that arises). The first Sunday in January 2004 we will pick up with Romans 3:9-20 so study that passage and be ready next year for a sermon on it. Don’t let me hear you say you did not have enough time to prepare for it.
For the past several Sundays, we have been focusing on the wrath of God. This is a subject to which we do not naturally gravitate, but it is a starting point indispensable to a proper and healthy understanding of our relationship with God.
It’s a lot of fun to play a sport and race up and down the field or court but the fun does not come without having started at the beginning with getting into shape and developing the skills needed to play.
There is a lot of satisfaction in putting the last piece of the puzzle into place but that doesn’t happen without getting the pieces out of the box and searching for edge pieces and turning all the pieces face up so you can see the printed side.
We delight in the celebration of a couple’s fifty years of marriage, but a couple does not get to a fiftieth wedding celebration without having worked hard at the relationship and sacrificed over the years to make this event a true celebration.
And so we delight in our relationship with God. We love to sing and praise and receive the peace of God which passes all understanding, but that relationship we so much enjoy does not come unless we start at the beginning and understand why it is we need God in our lives. Unless we first understand why it is we are dependent on God, our relationship with God is a shallow and superficial one.
For this reason Paul set out in the beginning of his letter to the church in Rome to make the case for why we are all deserving of the wrath of God. Not one of us, no matter how pious we are, no matter how morally good we think we are, no matter how religious we are can escape the wrath of God.
Paul does this to set up the rest of his letter and next year we will move into Paul’s declaration of what God has done to rescue us from his wrath. The love and grace of God will shine in that section of his letter. You’ll have to wait a year for it but there is just a chance we may talk about God’s grace before then. For some reason the Scripture is full of God’s grace. And we may even talk a bit about it this morning.
In Romans 3:1-8 Paul finishes up a section of his letter in which he has been talking about religious Jews who thought they would escape the wrath of God because of their devotion to the Law. Now at the end of this section, three questions are raised which Paul answers. These eight verses are presented in the form of a diatribe. This is a literary form in which the writer posed the questions his listeners might ask and then answered those questions.
In these verses there are basically three questions and in these three questions, hope for us is revealed. We are sinners desperately in need of God and we need these words of hope. The words that I hope will bring us encouragement this morning are:
God’s word has redeeming value
God is faithful even when we are faithless
God’s grace is present even when we do not acknowledge it
Let’s look at this first encouragement. God’s word has redeeming value.
What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? 2 Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God.
Paul has just written about Jews who thought by their piety and obedience to the Law, they would escape the wrath of God and Paul has answered definitively that there is no difference between Jew or Gentile. So the question is raised. If there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, then what was the covenant God made with Abraham all about? Why did God give Moses the Law if it had no value? Why did God insist on circumcision if it meant nothing? What is the purpose of all that we read in Genesis through Malachi if it doesn’t make any difference?
We will have to wait three or four years until we get to Romans 9 where Paul goes into this more deeply, but for now, Paul’s quick answer is that of course there is value in being a Jew and being circumcised. Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God.
The word of God has redeeming power. Paul has talked about the fact that knowledge of God’s word does not save us, but that does not mean it does not have value.
Hebrews 4:12 in a verse many of us know says this:
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
This verse has a living, breathing, pulsating quality to it. The word of God is not dead words on a page of paper. It has a living power.
When the writer of Hebrews wrote this verse, what was the Scripture to which he was referring? He was not referring to the Gospels and Acts and the letters of Paul and Peter and John. He was referring to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. He was referring to the Psalms and Proverbs, Kings and Chronicles, Isaiah and Hosea. He was referring to what we call the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. And it is this scripture that is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword.
The New Testament speaks of God’s grace and forgiveness and his provision of a savior for our redemption. The New Testament speaks of Jesus but the Hebrew Bible also speaks of God’s grace and forgiveness and points the way to Jesus.
So each Sabbath when Jews gather to read from the Scriptures, they read from the word of God that has redeeming value, that is alive and active and sharper than any double-edged sword.
It is not popular these days, especially in our part of the world to identify with Israel and we may not like the politics of Israel or how they have been oppressing Palestinians for many years, but Jews are people who read weekly and in many cases daily the same Scriptures we read and this word of God has a redeeming value in their lives.
Knowledge of God’s word may not save, but it prepares the hearts of those who hear God’s word for salvation. And so Paul wrote in Romans 11
Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell [here Paul is talking about the Jews], but kindness to you [ followers of Jesus], provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. 23 And if they [Jews] do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24 After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!
Week by week as Jews read God’s word it is at work in them and while I do not understand exactly how things will work out, it does seem to me that the step Jews have to make to come to faith is not as great as it is for many others because they have already the foundation for what we believe.
I remember listening to a radio conversation between a Christian psychologist in the US named Jim Dobson and two Jews, Michael Medved, a film critic and political commentator and Don Feder, a columnist for a Boston newspaper. These are two wonderful men and it was fascinating listening to this interview because it was clear that Jim Dobson, the Christian, was experiencing a spiritual bond with these men who did not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. There was such an affinity and yet the most important person in Dobson’s life was not being acknowledged. It was clear that the word of God was active and alive in their lives.
As an aside, Michael Medved told this story. He said that both Jews and Christians are awaiting the coming of the Messiah. When the Messiah comes, he said, Christians and Jews should meet hi in Jerusalem and greet him with palm branches and Hosannas and ask, “Is this your first visit to our city?”
The word of God has redeeming power. My parents go to a Unitarian Church where they rarely, if ever, hear God’s word. God is, at best, a cosmic force. They sing some of the same hymns we do but God is replaced by nature and the name of Jesus is heard only as an example of a good moral teacher. My wife’s parents go to a Lutheran church where many would also deny or at least question the deity of Jesus but there is a huge difference. Each Sunday in this Lutheran church, there are readings from the Old and New Testament. The proclamation of those scriptures may not be orthodox, but there is redeeming power in the word of God.
When my wife’s parents come to RPF, they have a positive response to our service that my father does not have and I believe it is because the word of God is at work in them. Again, knowledge of the word does not save, but it has redeeming power.
Richard Lovelace, my church history professor, made the point that when awakenings come, when revivals come, things are not neat and tidy but there is a lot of disorder and along with the church being revived, strange and bizarre cults also form. But, he said, if the Scriptures are an integral part of their personal and corporate life, over time, these cults move toward orthodoxy. This has been the case with Seventh Day Adventist and there is even a part of the Mormon Church that is moving toward Christian orthodoxy because along with the Book of Mormon, the Bible is read.
The church in which I am ordained is the mainline Presbyterian Church in the US. My denomination last year formed a commission to study whether or not Jesus is the only way to salvation and sent out a proposal to the churches to be voted on that would allow each local group of churches to decided it practicing homosexuals could be ordained. My denomination, as a whole, has moved away from an orthodox understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
My denomination is also getting smaller year by year. The main-line Presbyterians along with the other main-line denominations, Methodists, Congregationalists and Episcopalians are shrinking as they distance themselves from Christian orthodoxy.
But these churches continue to read the Scriptures week by week and the word of God is alive and active and because of this I do not give up hope. Over the past couple centuries, these denominations have been revived as God’s Holy Spirit has been poured out and I believe it will happen again. There is hope because they continue to focus on the word of God which has redeeming value.
There is redeeming power in the word of God. Why should you read your Bible every day? You may pick it up and it may be like reading a dull, dry textbook. So why read it?
There are a lot of reasons why we should read Scripture daily, but there is at least this. The word of God has redeeming power in our lives that transforms us even if we do not see it.
We are sinners deserving of God’s wrath, but the power of God’s word is at work in us, leading us in the direction of rescue from the coming day of wrath.
Be encouraged by this gift, given by God because of his love for us so that we might find the way that rescues us from our predicament.
The second word of encouragement is this: God’s faithfulness is present with or without our faith.
What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? 4 Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written:
“So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.”
Paul has just said that the Jews have an advantage because of the Word of God in their lives. God made promises to the Jews through Abraham and Moses and the prophets. God promised he would send the Messiah, the Christ.
So what advantage is there if they do not believe? If the Jews do not believe in Jesus, the fulfillment of the promise of the Hebrew Bible, what advantage is it? Does this mean that God is not faithful? Has God failed to deliver the promise he made?
Paul’s response is much stronger than the Not at all! We read in our Bibles. One commentator has suggested this be read as Not on your life! Or Not in a thousand years!
It doesn’t mater if no one believes, God is still faithful. Paul wrote this in his second letter to Timothy
Here is a trustworthy saying:
If we died with him,
we will also live with him;
12 if we endure,
we will also reign with him.
If we disown him,
he will also disown us;
13 if we are faithless,
he will remain faithful,
for he cannot disown himself.
I have talked about justice and love as being part of God’s character. God cannot not judge and he cannot not love. Faithfulness is also part of God’s character. God cannot not be faithful.
Take this as encouragement. God is faithful. God has made promises: Never will I leave you or forsake you. I will prepare a place for you. Come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest.
God has promised and he will keep his promises. You can count on it. You can bet your life on it. When all the evidence seems pointed in the opposite direction, you can rely on God’s promises. When your doubts have taken over and you are not even sure God exists, you can still lean back in the arms of Jesus who will support you because he is faithful even when we are faithless.
God is faithful and he will keep his promises. He will never leave you or forsake you and he will take you to be with him in heaven when you die, to a place he has prepared for you.
God’s word has redeeming value. God is faithful even when we are faithless. And the third word of encouragement is that God’s grace is present even when we do not acknowledge it.
But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) 6 Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? 7 Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” 8 Why not say—as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say—“Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is deserved.
Here is the argument: God’s glory is revealed in his solution to our desperate need. If we were not in need, we would not see God’s glory revealed so powerfully. So why should we experience the wrath of God when we have given it room to shine? We have done a service for God so why should we suffer for it?
This is an argument Paul addresses in other of his letters and it is such a weak argument that Paul does not even answer it. He says simply Their condemnation is deserved.
But there are two sides to this. On one side you have people whose lives have been so clearly sinful that when God forgives them, his grace is made extravagantly clear. I read last Sunday an excerpt from a book by Anne Lamott. This is a woman who lived a sordid life filled with drugs, sex, and alcohol. From her early teen years until she was in her thirties, she was drunk or stoned much of the time. She had affairs with married men in seedy hotels and had an abortion from an affair with one of these married men. There is not much she did not do to hurt herself and when God moved in her life and offered her his forgiveness and love, the depth of his love and forgiveness became abundantly and gloriously clear. God’s grace shone brilliantly in her life.
But think of the flip side. On this side you have someone who was always a good little girl. Everything she did was perfect. She was obedient, excelled in school, excelled in music. People loved her, were charmed by her brilliant personality. Whatever she set her hand to she succeeded. Where was the room in her life for God’s grace and glory to shine?
The problem is that this girl began to view all the love she received as conditional love. She began to ask herself why people loved her. Why did her parents love her, her teachers love her, her other relatives love her? And as she thought about it, she concluded that the reason she was loved was because she was good. As long as she kept getting good grades and dazzling people with her personality, she would be loved.
The love she received became conditional love for her. God’s grace was stripped from her and she was left with the fear that one day she would be discovered. If she ceased to be good or made a mistake, she risked being rejected. One day those who loved her would discover that she was not a nice, perfect little girl and would reject her.
We are all sinners. Those who view themselves as morally superior, those who prize their religious piety, those whose lives clearly reveal themselves as sinners and those whose lives hide so effectively that they are sinners. We are all sinners and it does not matter if you have lived a life in which a lot of grace is needed or a life in which you think just a little grace is needed.
God’s grace is abundant and covers you so that you can come to him without fear of rejection. He knows you better than you do and is more aware of the weaknesses and sin in your life than you are and he loves you completely. He could not love you more and he will not love you less.
God’s grace is present whether or not you know you need it. God’s grace is poured out on your life whether or not you think you need it.
The truth is that none of us are good little girls or good little boys. We are all equally deserving of God’s wrath and all have been offered the gift of God that rescues us.
God’s grace is poured out over us abundantly.
You are a sinner but there is no where you can hide. Your perception of yourself as a good moral person will not protect you. Your feelings of moral and spiritual superiority will not protect you. God’s word is at work in your life. It is cutting and digging, doing spiritual surgery so that you will open your heart without reservation to God.
His grace is being poured out over you waiting for you to surrender to the warmth and brilliance of its presence in your life.
Release yourself this morning to God. Let go of the things that you hold on to prevent yourself from slipping into the loving arms of Jesus.
Let go and be loved this morning.
