All You Need Is…Faith

All You Need Is…Faith

Romans 3:21-31

The New Testament in a Year sermon series

Rev. Brian North, Westminster Presbyterian, Chehalis, WA

February 19th, 2012

This past week we finished the book of Acts, and now we continue reading through the New Testament as we enter into Romans, the first of a number of Epistles, or letters, from Paul to various fledgling churches or individuals in those churches. Show of hands: How many people have been making an effort to read the NT in a year? For those of you who haven’t, this is a good time to jump in. We’re almost half way through, and this last week we entered into a different section of the NT, with the letters. So I invite you to join in and finish out the year reading God’s Word.

Romans is considered by many to be the most profound and single greatest letter of the New Testament. Some consider it the greatest writing of the entire NT, including the Gospels. Martin Luther said of Romans, “This Epistle [Romans] is really the chief part of the NT and the very purest Gospel, and is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but occupy himself with it every day, as the bread of the soul” (Martin Luther). It is deeply theological, it has the Old Testament woven through out it, and it is highly Christocentric: Everything points the reader to Jesus Christ as the one who redeems people from sin and makes us righteous and holy in the eyes of God, not because of anything we’ve done to earn God’s favor, but completely and totally because of the grace of God. So, I suggest you strap on your seatbelts and put on your thinking caps, because Romans takes us for one wild ride. With that in mind, let’s pray before we begin…Amen.

Now, if someone were to say to you, “I have two pieces of news, one is bad, the other is good. Which do you want to hear first?” What would you choose? Most would choose to hear the bad news first. Paul does exactly that in the first two-and-a-half chapters or so of Romans, which deal with the sinful nature of humanity. The start of Romans is just a brutal analysis and reminder of the sinful nature of people. No one is free from sin, and God, as the holy and righteous judge of His creation, judges based on the truth of our lives (Romans 2:2). And the truth is: sin has reigned in all of us. And that is a problem, because God cannot tolerate sin. He stands in judgment against it. On April 14^th, 1970, John Swiggert radioed out to the NASA station from Apollo 13, saying, “Houston, we have a problem.” Almost 2,000 years before, Paul is saying, “People, we have a problem: and its name is sin.”

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAmsi05P9Uw&feature=fvst

From the start to 1:47.

They had a major problem on their hands. But it pales in comparison to the problem of sin.

Paul articulates two options to deal with this problem that. First, we can try to live in such a way as to please God so that he will reward us with reconciliation, redemption, and a right relationship with him. This is called, “Justification by works.” We try to justify ourselves as worthy of being in God’s presence by what we do. Paul did this for many years. He tried to maintain every jot and tittle of the law before he met Jesus Christ. Many people try to do this still. Even the most un-religious person, when asked about the possibility of meeting God and what they hope will happen in the afterlife, will respond something like, “Well, I try to live a good life and help people and I hope that’s enough.” Paul knows first-hand what the fruit of that is, because that’s how he lived. He articulates the futility of this when he writes, “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law” (Romans 3:20). What we see here, and we see it in many of Jesus’ parables, too, is that our work isn’t enough. So, that’s the bad news. It’s bleak. It’s depressing. All of that – the sin problem, the pervasiveness of it, and the first option to try and overcome it by our own efforts is what Paul articulates in the opening section of Romans.

Now, I said there were two options that Paul articulates for overcoming this problem. The second option is presented to us in Jesus Christ. And Paul lays it for us like this in Romans 3:21-22: Option 2: “But now, irrespective of law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” (Romans 3:21-22). Contrary to “Justification by Works” this is “Justification by Faith.” The Beatles sang that all you need is love…But here we see that all we need is faith. And it’s not faith in ourselves. It’s not faith in our money. It’s not faith in our talents or our deeds or our family or even our church. It’s faith in Jesus Christ. That’s where it all begins. Later in Romans, in 10:9, Paul puts it like this: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

God has taken it upon himself to justify creation. God is both the judge of creation, and also the justifier. And all we need is faith for that righteousness from God to become a part of our lives. Now, immediately some of us might say, “So, is helping people irrelevant? Should we abandon good works? Is this a license to continue living in sin, to live slothful, lazy lives and just ‘have faith’?” In a word, “No.” Paul addresses that briefly at the end of this morning’s passage, and in more detail throughout the rest of Romans, so I encourage you to keep reading Romans this week. But for now, let’s continue on through this morning’s passage, picking up the last few words of verse 22 (Paul just wrote about justification through faith for all who believe):

For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:22-26).

Let’s pause there for a moment. We see here the means by which our sins are forgiven and we are justified and made righteous. And that means is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. There is a paradox at work here. Jesus: miracle-worker, healer, teacher, prophet…was also the Messiah, the Christ…and this Jesus died to take upon himself the sins of the world. He was without sin, but it is through his death that our sins are atoned for. It is through his death, the “sacrifice of atonement by his blood” as he says in verse 25, that we can be redeemed, and Paul reiterates what he said in verses 21 and 22, that this becomes reality for a person when they put their faith in Jesus Christ. Faith gives Christ’s death effectiveness in a person’s life so that they would be made righteous in the eyes of God. Let’s continue on…

Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by 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; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

You see, if works righteousness held sway with God, then boasting becomes an issue. I mean, can you imagine the boasting, the cliques, the sense of pride, the division, and the judgment that would reign in the church? It would be crazy. Part of the genius of God’s saving activity in the world is that all of us are on level ground. We’re all declared to be sinners and no one has done a single thing to merit God’s grace, but we’re all saved by the blood of Jesus Christ when we put our faith in him. Nothing there to boast about. I guess if you want to boast you can boast about who sinned biggest and the most often and therefore has the most to be saved from…but who wants to boast about their sin?

So there’s nothing to boast of, because we’re justified by faith in Jesus Christ, graciously given by our holy God as an atonement for the sin that separates us from God.

Now, Paul ends on a note that confuses some, and I want to make sure we understand what’s going on. He says, “Do we overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law” (Romans 3:31). This seems to stand in contradiction to Jesus’ statement that he fulfills the law (Mt. 5:17), to what we just encountered in Acts with the obliteration of food purity laws, and to Paul’s own statements a bit later in Romans that we are “dead to” the law, “discharged from” the law, and in other of his letters where he says that the law is “passing away,” we’re “no longer under” the law, we’re “set free” from it, and so forth.¹ We’ve talked about this some before, but this will be a refresher, or maybe new for some of you this morning: In the Bible, the term “the law” can mean any one of a handful of things: The 10 commandments (most narrowly), the Levitcal code as set out in Leviticus, and the entirety of the first five books of the Bible, which include Leviticus. Those are the three basic uses of “the law.” Paul’s use of it here, however, seems to be different still.

Paul writes a little earlier in Romans, “When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness” (Romans 2:14-15). Paul uses the term here in a way that transcends what’s written anywhere in the Old Testament. And it refers to moral and ethical purity laws, things that we know simply by being human, that are “written on [our] hearts” and that Christians are to still uphold. Certainly some of those – like “don’t murder” and “don’t steal” help your neighbor, share your toys, play nicely – stuff like that are a part of the Old Testament law, but Paul is saying that this sense of the law is known even by people who have no access to the Jewish Scriptures.

With that in mind, we can read this, where Paul continues to talk about Gentiles and Jews and how God is God over all of them, and see that this sense of “the law” is in this context: It’s not the written code of Leviticus, but a moral law that is inherent to all people. And that law we still uphold.

Wow. Ok, that’s heady stuff…so let me re-cap. Sin is a problem between us and God. God can’t tolerate it and his judgment against sinners is one of condemnation. We could try to solve the sin problem on our own, but God, in his graciousness, has made a way through Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. Our response is to trust that to be true, and trust for God to extend his mercy to us as we live by faith.

So what does this mean for us? First: Get a relationship with Jesus Christ through faith in Him. If you’re going through life hoping that you’re living good enough to appease the judgment of God, then you’re fooling yourself. Sure, most everybody on the face of the earth does nice things for people, and we’d like to think that we’re “good;” but we all fall short. Have you ever coveted somebody’s stuff? Or looked lustfully at another person? Have you ever used the name of God in an unholy way? Ever lied…even just a little one? Cheat on a test? Obtain a song or some software without paying for it? Have you put more value on something or someone than you put on God? I could go on…but I think you get the point. We have a sin problem, and we need help from beyond ourselves to overcome it and stand in the presence of our Holy Creator God. And that help is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. We can confess and repent of our sin, and give them over to him, putting our faith in Jesus Christ.

Then: we live so as to bring glory to God. Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Later in Romans 12 Paul delves in with much greater detail about what this means to live up to the glory of God. But for now, suffice it to say that God created us to live lives that glorify him. And so when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we can glorify him in all that we say and do. Do you have a body? I’m pretty sure we each do. Glorify him with it. Do you have a voice? Everybody say, “I do ” Glorify him with your speech and with your singing. Do you have a talent? The people of WPC and in Chehalis are very talented. Glorify him with that talent. Do you have an income? I know the economy stinks…but most people still have an income. Glorify him with your money. Do you have time? I know we’ve all got that. Glorify him in how you use it. And I don’t know about you, but the gift of freedom from my sins and a right relationship now and in eternity with my holy God is worth a lot. I can’t thank him enough. I can’t glorify him enough. I can’t give him enough. I can’t worship him enough. I can’t praise Him enough. So let’s be generous to Him. No holding back with our time, with our money, with our talents, with our voices, with our hands and feet or any other way that we can bring live up to the glory of God and thereby bring glory to him and to his name.

Because God has done something for you and me that we could never do ourselves. And it’s yours and mine through faith in Jesus Christ, thanks be to God. Let’s pray…Amen.