Verse 1, Romans 3: So what advantage does the Jew have, or what is the benefit of circumcision? Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted with the very words of God. What then if some were unfaithful? Will all their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? Absolutely not. Let God be true even though everyone is a liar, as it is written: “That you may be justified in your words and triumph when you judge.”
But if our unrighteousness highlights God’s righteousness, what are we to say? Am I using, or I am using a human argument? Is God unrighteous to inflict wrath? Absolutely not. Otherwise, how will God judge the world? But if by my lie, God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I also still being judged as a sinner? And why not say, just as some people slanderously claim, “let us do what is evil so that good may come”? Their condemnation is deserved.
We’ll come back to that thought in a second. Now, verse 9. What then? Are we any better off? Not at all. For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God. All have turned away. All alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave. They deceive with their tongues. Vipers’ venom is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and wretchedness are in their paths. And the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Okay, now verse 21. This is where the quarterly picks up. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the law and prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint, God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus. Verse 27: Where then is boasting? It is excluded.
By what kind of law? By one of works? No, on the contrary, by a law of faith. For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not. On the contrary, we uphold the law. Chapter 4, verse 1, we read through 5.
What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh, was found? If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. But for what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.” Now to the one who works, pay is not credited as a gift, but as something owed. But to the one who does not work, but believes on him who justified the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness.
So great passage, lots of, lots of big wordy passages or thoughts, but we’re going to talk very briefly about the first 20 verses before we open up and really dig into the 21 through 4… the quarterly part. So when we see this, Paul is, is, is answering this, this objection. And the objection was about this idea of of the Jew versus Gentile thinking. And it’s, it, They went deep in a few areas, but big picture, there were a lot of people conflicted about this idea of, well, but you’re not following the law because you’re not Jews and you’re not circumcised, but you say you’re part of the… There was a lot of… And rightfully so. This is the coming of the kingdom and it was hard to… We struggle when things change. We struggle when we don’t understand God’s word and then all of a sudden it’s made clear. You’re like, oh, I have to get rid of that bad thinking. Paul’s helping them to understand better. So…
In chapter 3, as we start out, Paul is really unraveling this idea. And the verse, I think it’s verse 8. And why not say, just as some slanderously claim we say, “let us do what is evil so that good may come.” Their condemnation is deserved.
They were arguing out this idea. They said, well, if our salvation comes through faith and not by works, well, then we should be more sinful so that God’s grace is… There’s a later verse where it talks about God’s grace abounding. It’s not an excuse to sin more. It’s the same idea we read here.
They thought, well, if it shows that God is even more gracious, then who cares? Let’s just run wild and sin completely because God is even more gracious than we are. And Paul is very quick to chop that off before that runaway train goes down the tracks.
He starts to unfold that more for us in verse 9. So he says, “What then? Are we any better off? Not at all. For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.” And then this is something neat. Different Bibles do this differently. The CSB puts anything that’s Old Testament quotes, like quoted from the Old Testament in bold. The New American puts it all like in little lowercase. I’m sorry. Little uppercase letters. But different Bibles do it differently to show you this is quoting back to Old Testament, which I think is very, very neat and helpful. And he unfolds all this, and it’s mostly from Psalms, this section. It’s different Psalms. In verse 10, it walks through. “There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God.”
It’s a pretty familiar, when we think Romans, that’s one of the sections of Romans that often will come to people’s minds is this idea that there is no one righteous. There is no one who has sought the Lord. Their throat is an open grave and they deceive with their tongues. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. The worst line is there’s no fear of God before their eyes.
It’s just utter depravity is unfolded there. And it’s not just, oh, look, they do sin. It’s like, no, their hearts are ruinous. I mean, their hearts are destroyed. Wretchedness is a good word to describe. So Paul then, we finally pick up then in verse 21. And he’s coming out of verse 20 where he says, “for no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.”
We see this in Romans. We see it in a few other letters of Paul that he talks about. The law is what gave sin the power. Prior to the law being unfolded, people had an idea of right and wrong, but there had not been laid out laws to explain this is right, this is wrong in God’s eyes. And justice needs clarity in that way. So Paul then picks up, and we’re going to reread 21 in a minute. But there’s a question on 28 that I want to start with.
And it says, we might rephrase it. It says, “in whom or in what have you placed your trust lately?” I would argue, like, what are the things you trust in the most? What are the things that you… Hi, Doris. Welcome, welcome. What are the things that you really trust the most in the world? Nothing. Nobody trusts.
What’s that? We’re cynical. We’re cynical. Pragmatic. You trust that your house isn’t going to fall in on you. You trust, like, when you go to sleep, that your house is going to collapse in on you. That’s true. I trust, after I take my car to the mechanic and spend a fortune on struts and brakes, all the things, you’re like, I will be safe going 70 miles an hour.
And if not, let’s hope that that cage really protects me as it rattles down the highway.
We really do. We put a lot of trust in things often without necessarily giving it a lot of thought. I mean, I trust that my – this is terrifying, but the old man in me hates that my money is in the bank floating around somewhere because I’m like, is it really floating around somewhere? Like I can’t see it, and I can’t go to the bank and be like, can I see the spot where my money is?
Which is why I tend to be the old man who hoards cash in different spots in my house. You just never know. But you’d think I grew up in the Great Depression and buried my money in coffee cans in the backyard. And now with AI. I know.
It’s really annoying. Like, stop making my money feel less. But we put a lot of trust in things that we don’t always give a lot of thought to. So that said, what do you think makes trusting others, like people specifically, what makes trusting people hard? Because people let you down. Man. Like, it just happens. And it’s not…
It’s not like a slam to anybody. It’s just simply we’re human beings, and we let people down. And sometimes it’s as simple as just air of omission. Or like, we forgot. Or I’ve had kids every day. A kid comes like, Mr. Mallory, can you do this for me? And you’re like, you have to email me. Like, you have to do it. Like, if you need me to do that for you.
Shoot me an email. Otherwise, there’s a really good chance Mr. Malloy is not going to remember. And it’s not. And they don’t. And I’m like, well, sorry. I guess that’s on you. You didn’t need it that bad. But we just let people down, even when we don’t mean to let people down. The beauty of this is that we know where Paul’s going with this, is that we are trusting in someone, and he’s trying to help the Romans here understand. You are trusting in someone who cannot let you down.
Like, in a world of things that we cannot trust, I can’t trust the banking system. I can’t really trust my car, my house, we all know. Like, you know, there’s so many things you just can’t trust. And in a world – and I tell this to students a lot in Devo. I’m like, guys, in a world that feels so uncertain – and I think we feel more certain than a lot of them. They’ve grown up in a world that’s even more –
up and down and we’ve always been at war and there’s always been a financial crisis looming. I mean, they don’t really know fake stability, at least like spoken stability. And I always remind my guys, this is why like genuinely resting in the word of God and trusting Jesus is the only thing we can really trust it because we live in a world that’s just, it’s going to fall apart. It’s going to decay. We know this isn’t the end of all things. So,
Oh, gosh. Oh, I wrote this in my notes. This was funny. It’s not really that funny. It’s not really worth saying, but I started talking, so I guess we will. I don’t drive home from school this way that much anymore. I used to when I would pick up Bear at Kinder Care and come home through Twin Oaks. But the Valley Park Bridge that’s right there over the wall, and it’s the cool train bridge and the feed store, I like that spot a lot. I don’t usually get stuck on the bridge. Usually traffic moves enough that you don’t sit. But when you do sit on that bridge, has anybody ever sat on that bridge for long? It like, it just sort of…
And the whole time you’re like, I’m glad the water’s low. Like, you know, it’s not in flood right now. It’s always scary to me in the wintertime. It’s the prettiest because there’s, like, ice on the water and the sunset and stuff. But it’s scarier because, like, oh, man, the bridge is bouncing. That water’s cold. It’s like you’re on an airplane if you watch the wings. The wings flash while you’re flying.
Or like I do not like going in the arch because the art, those little capsules that they squeeze you into. But the arch like moves and you’re like, nope, I’m out. Like, I’m good. I mean, I know you’d make the news if it did topple over, but I just don’t want to be up there. But yeah, in our daily routines, we put a lot of trust in little things, whether right or wrong. But the irony is in the quarterly makes this comment. I hope it says it in your book, too.
We’ll put trust in things like the Valley Park Bridge and our banking and our phones, even in our cars. We sometimes will still struggle to trust the Lord. Ironic, because he’s the one thing that actually can be trustworthy. I would say even there are times that like something is going on that you’re trying to wrestle through. I will go and talk to a person.
To get some kind of affirmation like, well, help me think this through. I don’t know. Versus, and for some reason that will make me feel better, but talking to Jesus is a secondary thing. So it’s silly, but it’s an important thing. If we have time, we’ll come back to that. There’s another question I jotted down, but we’ll come back if we have time. Let’s go ahead and reread 21 through 26. 21 through 26.
But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed. Attested by the law and prophets, the righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness because in his restraint, God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus. Praise the Lord. Like that should be like, I hope 23 rung a bell for all has sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
I mean, one of the most famous verses in the Bible. And it’s funny because that one gets quoted a lot, but no one goes farther with the quote. You know, they quote, you know, all of sin and fall short of the glory of God, which is true, but also a little bit of a downer. And then they miss. They are justified freely by his grace to the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.
Like that is the gospel. And we so we quote that first one. It’s really like her and we forget the second one that leads them to the grace of God. I love it. Such a good one. So we see this and Paul is really better at making the case than anybody else that good works do not make anybody right with God.
Good works cannot save us. The law simply reveals sin, but the law cannot fix sin. The law was never mentioned. Even when Moses received the law on Mount Sinai and then all the subsequent unfolding of the Ten Commandments and how you live these out, they were never, ever, ever, ever meant to save people. They were meant to point them to the need for salvation. They reminded them of their need for God.
And God has revealed the way of being right with him. This is why, gosh, I wish we had a cool, I wish I could make, I wish I was artistic. I would make a big drawing of like how neat this is that the law exposed their sin. And the law showed them the need to confess, to seek repentance and sacrifice. And the only way to cleanse sin was through the shedding of blood, which is why we see the sacrificial system of animals and grain and offerings to the Lord.
And then that reflecting the beauty of Passover, which then when Jesus shows up in Jerusalem at Passover, does the ultimate final, I mean, it’s incredible. I’m sure someone out there has made a cool chart of this, but I’m not artistic enough, so someday. Maybe AI can do it for me. I bet I can ask AI. I don’t know if it can make Jesus think, but maybe. We see this, and we all share this common reality that we all sin and
And we all fall short of God’s standard. And it’s one of the most important things that gets sadly forgotten in the world. There’s a lot of the world that does not believe they have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They believe they are good people. They have done the right stuff. They live in that yin-yang kind of thinking that good balances evil. You know those measuring things, the old, what are those called? Scales. Yeah, the fancy gold brass ones. They really believe. They’re like, well, if I do enough good things, in the end, it really does work out.
God doesn’t send good people to hell. And you’re like, no, no, no. In fact, that’s exactly what happens if they don’t have Jesus. And Romans 3.23 reminds us very clearly that every single human has fallen short of the glory of God. But they are justified freely by his grace through redemption in Jesus. So there’s so much hope there. But the world doesn’t believe often that they genuinely are sinful.
They don’t want to believe that. And neither do we. No one likes to be confronted with their sin. When’s the last time you genuinely like, oh man, thanks so much for letting me know I was sinful. Like, I mean, maybe like a few months down the road, like, but I’ve never met a single person in the moment. They’re like, I super appreciate you letting me know that I was. No one does that because it’s, it’s ugly and it’s hard. That’s the gospel. It’s, it is hard, but it’s full of grace and mercy.
the, the idea that this is in the notes and I think it does a neat job of helping us kind of think about those couple of verses. It says, um, he justifies those who have faith in Jesus. But when God justifies us, two things happen. One, we are declared no longer guilty of sin. And two, we are declared righteous. So this is cool because it’s, I’m not, again, I’m not a lawyer, but like there’s this idea of, um, Oh goodness. Um,
the legal way those words are unfolded. And it’s a neat, like, you are now no longer, you have been freed of the guilt of sin, but two, you have had righteousness imputed to you. That, like, you have now been covered by the righteousness of Jesus. I wrote this down somewhere, and I got it. You know how, like, after the fire, I started typing my notes more? That’s been abandoned. And now it’s just this, like,
This is all white space. It’s not white space, so it’s fun. It’s a swirling cauldron of cats all the time. So justified means we’ve been declared righteous. So when it says in verse…
24, they are justified freely by his grace. That word justified, whatever the Greek word is, it means declared righteous, like that righteousness has been declared to you. And in Romans 2 through Romans 5 verse 1, it’s used 31 times. So commentary, I did not count.
Paul uses it a lot in a short amount of time. You’ve now been declared righteous. So it’s a very legal word, and it means to pardon and to impute righteousness, which is very cool. It’s not just, oh, Jesus saved you from your sins. But also, you have been set free. You have been redeemed from the sin and brokenness and the consequences of sin.
But you have also been given the righteousness of Jesus, which is then when we read all throughout Scripture that like, you know, we share in the righteousness of Jesus, that we are co-heirs with him and in God’s kingdom. That’s why. Because this legal unfolding, this understanding that Paul was giving, it’s very, very neat. But it’s important to note. We don’t see this always. Sometimes we get excited about the other parts.
It’s they see 24. They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. It’s free to us. But if we read on, God presented him, Jesus, as the mercy seat by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint, God passed over the sins previously committed.
God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus. It was a gift freely given to humanity who could not save them sins, and the law proved they could not save themselves. But it was a costly gift for him to give. I mean, it was the ultimate gift. Those kind of phrases get thrown around a lot, and they kind of lose their luster. You know, like, oh, Jesus was the ultimate gift. He was. He was, because…
It costs us nothing for our salvation. And it costs God everything.
for our salvation. So it’s, I really, I like, I haven’t read everything he’s written, but I like Dietrich Bonhoeffer because one of his phrases he talked about was cheap grace and how often when we don’t really wrestle with the depth and depravity of our sin, it makes the grace that God gives us seem cheap. Like, oh, that’s cool. Like he saved us from, you know, consequences. But man, when we really wrestle with like,
It costs me nothing, but it costs him everything. Because, verse 23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There’s nothing I can do. The law now has shown my own sin. Now that grace is costly. So Bonhoeffer, and I think it was, I think we had to read Cost of Discipleship, I think, in college, which is like one of his more famous books. And I think that was in that book that it was really driven home, this idea of cheap grace versus costly grace. This is costly grace.
This is not cheap grace. Cheap grace means Jesus didn’t really do a whole lot. But indeed, we know he did a lot. He did the ultimate thing. There’s a few phrases here that are helpful. It says he presented Jesus.
as the mercy seat by his blood. Other translations render the Greek word as propitiation or the sacrifice of atonement. And this is the language of the Old Testament sacrificial system. So for the Jew and the Gentile who’ve studied Jewish culture, they would have understood this word propitiation, that it was the Old Testament sacrificial system. And it helped them understand that connection, that Jesus was the one and done sacrifice to complete that sacrificial system
It’s beautiful. So, question on 31, which I think we’ve been beating around the bush about: why can’t good works lead to salvation? Good works are important. We should do good things. Matt Scott thought, “Oh, I know. I know. Because the wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is death.” There is nothing I can do to change that. I cannot stand before God and argue my way out of it. Only Jesus’ blood can atone for the consequence of sin. And it doesn’t mean there’s not earthly consequence for sin. You know, if my kids are mean to each other, which, you know, happens more than I wish, there’s consequences. Like, “You’re forgiven. We move on. We start fresh. We have a good conversation.” But there might still be a consequence. You know, your brothers might get to go outside and play. Or your sister and brother might go outside and play. Or your sister. I don’t know. One of the three. And you get to stay inside. And you’re going to hang out with mom and dad. Sometimes there’s just a consequence. But there’s not an eternal consequence. There’s not an eternal consequence that keeps them from the Lord.
And I think, kind of partnered with that question, think about how knowing that you’re justified already changes the way that we pursue holiness. Think about that. Knowing that we’re already saved, how should that change the way we pursue holiness? It’s a good question to ponder. There’s a few things I jotted down that I wanted to throw out to you as you ponder. There’s a phrase that we, that was one of my classes in seminary, ordo salutis, which just means order of salvation in Latin. But when you say things in Latin, it makes it seem cooler. One, calling. To regeneration, the Holy Spirit starts to work in our hearts. And then faith comes through belief. And then that moment of faith, when we decided we believe in Jesus’ sacrifice, we are justified in that moment. That said, salvation, I’m sorry, sanctification, as we know, is the…
I was baptized when I was nine years old, and then there was a whole lot of junk until I finally got to heaven. But hopefully progressively more sanctified, more and more like Jesus, that the effects of sin are being shut off. And then when we enter eternity, glorification. So, there’s that 6-step order of salvation. And they talk about it in class a lot because it’s important because there are times that people just – they’ll either lump them all together – or they don’t quite understand how important it is. Because legally, how Paul writes this, we are justified through faith. But then it’s a life of sanctification. It’s a life of, I’m not trying to earn my salvation now. It’s been earned, like it happened before. The sanctification is I’m continually surrendering and learning and abiding in the word and being transformed by the renewing of my mind, Romans 12.
And that’s this process. And it’s important to know the order because, again, we are so easy. We’re very much, we live in a meritocracy where we earn things. And, like, “we did the work so we could get that grade.” And then “we got that job and that promotion.” Like, we live in that world. But that’s not the kingdom of God. Like, “we’ve been set right.” And then because of being set right, it transforms our motives and our actions. It’s beautiful. So justification is this idea that righteousness has been credited to us. Sanctification is righteousness is being cultivated in us. I always like farm terms. It just makes more sense. And then glorification in eternity is when our righteousness is completed. So you’ve got credited to us, cultivated, and then completed. So it’s important.
It seems like it’s very common sense, but it’s important because we slip into that idea of, like, “I’ve got to earn it. I’ve got to do the thing so that God’s proud of me,” versus “I’m going to serve and obey because he has changed me, because he’s transformed me.” Okay, we’ll keep moving. Let’s read 27 through 31.
27 through 31.
“Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By one of works? No, on the contrary, by a law of faith. For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not. On the contrary, we uphold the law.”
So, how does it feel? Does anyone love being left out? I’ve actually gotten to the point now where I kind of like, sounds so mean. Sometimes I’m like, Greg, there’s something less I don’t have to go to. Um, it sounds terrible. It sounds, it really does. But most people kind of have, you know, the kids call it FOMO. They hate missing out on things. This is why I’m convinced watching high schoolers. This is why they, they, they are obsessively compulsive. They are attached to it because it’s been designed to keep them addicted, but they’re so afraid of missing that, that video on Instagram or that, that TikTok thing or a Snapgram. I think Snapchat’s the thing where they send little weird pictures of each other all day. I don’t know.
The point is they’re so afraid of walking into the hallway and someone’s like, “Oh, my gosh, did you see that on Snap yesterday?” And they’re like, “No.” So they compulsively keep checking it because they don’t want to be left out of anything no matter how dumb it is. And I tell them, guys, I pretty aggressively look for ways to be left out of things. It sounds really grumpy and mean, but just I know that I need margin. But no one really likes feeling left out of things. No one loves that feeling.
Like, you know, your pals all go to lunch and don’t include you, or so-and-so goes on something. No one loves that feeling. Even when you don’t want to be included, you sometimes still feel that way. So when we think about this, Paul is making sure that’s not, in the kingdom of God, an option. That there’s not this like us versus them mentality. Yes, it did come to the Jews first, but the Jews were blessed. They were the holy people, the chosen people of God, to bless the rest of the world. We see that a lot, even in Old Testament, that they were purposefully God’s people to then allow the whole world to be blessed through them, which we sometimes, you know, we’re worldly and human, so we think, “Oh, like… Money?” And you’re like, “No, salvation.” Like salvation has come from God’s chosen people and blessed the entire world.
So Paul clears that up in verse, I guess it’s really 29. “Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too. Since there’s one God who will justify the uncircumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. I’m sorry, I said uncircumcised by faith and uncircumcised through faith. Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not. On the contrary, we uphold the law.”
This idea that the law was always meant to show us a need for God. I don’t want to get into circumcision today because it’s not a topic that anyone enjoys. But again, it was meant to signify you belong to God, period. Whether it was physically or whether it was through faith, you belong to the king, period. Which is very cool because we see this idea of FOMO or being left out or feeling like there’s not. Because regardless of whether Jew or Gentile, you know, pagan or or Christian, like all had the ability to come in faith to Jesus. Um, it says in the in the, where is this, this is a good phrase. It’s from Ephesians, but it’s a good phrase for illustrating this idea because salvation is by faith alone. Boasting is excluded. We read that in the first verse. Works are a result of salvation, not a cause of salvation.
Again, works are the result of salvation, not cause of salvation. Which is a great reminder. Our lives should bear fruit. Not because we’re trying to earn it. Not because we’re forcing a behavior modification to do the right thing. But because a transformed heart should overflow in the fruits of the Spirit. Different seasons. You know, Psalm, Psalm 1 talks about fruit that grows in its season. Like, it, it does ebb and flow, but that there should be obvious, um, change. Again, the works are a result of it, not the cause of our salvation.
Um, the Jews still in this moment really believed, which is why Paul’s driving at home so hard. They really thought they had a special relationship with God. That somehow, because we’re God’s chosen people, we’re superior to the Gentiles. It’s very much like tiers of those in the kingdom. And Paul, who is like the Jew of all Jews, if you recall, is like, it’s not the way the kingdom of God works. There is not the elite and then the normal folk. There’s not the special and then the, you know, oh, the Gentiles, which were Gentiles. I mean, unless, is anybody Jewish? Secretly Jewish? That’d be cool. Maybe you are and you just don’t even know. But it doesn’t matter because you’re not special.
What’s that? I said Dennis was. We didn’t find out until we were in our 60s that his grandfather was Jewish. That’s really neat. That’s really, really neat. We have one. We have one. But even then, as special and neat as that is, in the kingdom of God, not superior. And Paul makes it emphatically clear that this does not change anything because only through faith do we find salvation. Not because we’re a Jew, not because we’re a Gentile. It is a free gift, a costly gift for God, but a free gift to us.
Let’s see. The 33 has a good question. It says, “What does it mean to be justified by faith instead of works? How does that play out in life?” Well, what Adam did in the garden was he abandoned his trust in God. He started to trust in himself. And that’s what is imputed to us. We trust ourselves. And these verses really… The question is who have you put your trust in and who do you trust? It’s like you trust the guy that you’re looking at in the mirror. And that is the result of pride. “I know what’s best. Those guys left me out. I should have been included.” The answer is “you left me out because it’s not the best.” So we…
The law says you are guilty. That’s what the King James says. The King James says guilty. Not subject to condemnation. We’re guilty. We’re all guilty. So we sin when we trust in ourselves, which is what Adam did. Our trust is to be in him. And the dynamic of that… spiritual battle that goes on within the essence of a human being, a living being who is guilty of sin, that’s where Jesus went in and engaged in this battle and he defeated that. And when he defeated that and we put our faith and our trust in him, we repent of our trust in ourselves. And in the Jews’ case, of keeping the law, because we can’t keep it. No one can. So we abandon that, we repent of our sin, and we put all our faith and hope and trust in him.
And John 8, 24 says, “unless you believe that I am in, you will die in your sins.” Why? Because we’re all guilty. If the wages of sin is death, we can’t die for ourselves. We’re guilty. He died for us, the innocent one, the sinless one, the holy one. And what’s Hebrew says, he went in to heaven and presented his own blood to God as the payment for our salvation. The final, ultimate payment. Amen. I’m glad he went there because it is. One, I love doctrine.
I was hoping someone would go there with that question. This idea, justified by faith instead of works, it’s who am I trusting in? Am I trusting in me or am I trusting in the Lord? And then, man, I’m just wired. My mom told me this week, she’s like, “I don’t know if it’s the Eagle Scout thing that you always say, like Eagle Scout likes to be prepared. She’s like, I think you’re just wired that way.” And a lot of people are. They just like to have a backup plan for their backup plan. And they always, because it’s a, you know, there’s something in you that you’re like, “It’s fine. I got this. I’ve got it.” But sometimes I need to stop because I’m trusting me, not the Lord. Because that’s really the heart of that question.
Am I justified by myself? Because that’s not going great. Or am I justified by faith in Jesus? And again, it’s the man in the mirror. Am I trusting him or am I trusting Jesus? So I’m glad you went there, Matt, because that’s where I read that question and I thought, really, it’s asking what we trust in. Who do we trust in? Which goes back to that very beginning question about what do we trust and why do we trust it and why do we struggle trusting some people? Because they aren’t Jesus. Because we know our own sinful hearts. Even if we don’t like admitting it, we know that we’re a sinful, broken human. We know our evilness inside. So how can I really trust another human completely? Because they’re like me. But we aren’t called to trust them completely. We’re called to trust Jesus.
That’s why he said you forgive your brother 70 times 7. Yeah. Because your brother is going to let you down. 70 times 7. And you’re going to let him down because I’m a sinner. Yeah. So I’ll just add one more because this came up recently. He says if you bring your gift to the altar, I know your brother has a problem. You need to go to him. Set your gift down. Go to him and reconcile. And there’s a context of that that says, well, my brother’s got a problem with me. I think what God is telling us is, “Yeah, and the problem is something that you have done. You just can’t see it.” So that’s part of this, the dynamic of being a Christian. You mentioned this. I’ll just add to it if I could.
The sanctification is, I’m trusting less in you every day, and I’m trusting more in Jesus. I like that. Because Romans also says, we are predestined to be conformed in His image. And conforming takes time. God completely, even to the cross. And it’s that, I mean, molding something to something new is a slow, agonizing process. I mean, it’s like, man, I need, Jay knows this because he told me to order it and stop messing around. I need to get new headlights for my car because they get foggy after they sit outside too long and it’s annoying. And I’m not buying a new car, so new headlights.
Um, but like there’s, and I need a new, you know, there’s this broken thing that bear broke the cup holder between the two seats in the middle row. And there I need floor mats because I never bought the good kind that are rubber. Silly things. But even something as silly as an old car that just needs a little bit of work, it just takes time. Even if I would get my keister and order the stuff off eBay and come in a couple of days, it still takes time. You still got to make sure you got a few hours to take it all apart, put it back together. Or let Jay help you do it. Help you do it. I can do stuff too. It’s just slower. You have to undo it a couple times to redo it.
But I say all that, like conforming takes time. Like if you’ve ever watched like those videos of a sculptor, like sculpt something. I mean it’s rarely is it a one and done in like a couple hours sculpt. I mean unless it’s like a kid making a bowl in pottery class. It just takes so much time. And that’s the sanctification. It’s just the slow process of being conformed and more like Jesus as we go through time. I love that song.
Are those really slow too? Interesting. I know that… Yeah. I know I saw a video where they were 3D printing houses in Mexico or New Mexico. But they were like Adobe houses. The printers were probably twice as big. The house was probably the size of this room. Not a big house, but a 2 bedroom little house. And they were 3D printing it. And they were like, it costs way less. Well, I’m like, minus that $8 billion printer that you bought. But yes, it does cost less after you buy that printer. That’s interesting. I know that our kids love watching lathes. Lathes turn like wood. There’s a few YouTubers that will, like, put a block of, like, colored pencils or, like, an old tree root, and they’ll stick it on a lathe and, like, start carving into something cool. And these videos will be, like, 20 minutes long, and my kids are like, wow, like, the whole time. And I’m like, “I can’t believe you just sat there for 20 minutes watching.” I’m not going to lie. When they did the tree root, that was actually pretty cool. I watched that one. Um…
That’s pretty fun. Okay, let’s read four verses one through five. Four, one through five. So this is when we get back to Abraham, which I love this part. I think for me, this is the part that helps all the before make a lot more sense. “What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh has found? If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about.” That part, to me… drives this idea. It’s kind of like the practical theology moment. Paul’s been giving a deep doctrinal, like, “here’s the real answer,” that’s like maybe a little heady, a little hard to unpack. And then you get to the Abraham part, you’re like, “Oh, like that’s such a good reminder.” And that’s at the beginning of all things. Abraham was justified by faith because he believed God, not because he did all the right things, because Abraham did not do all the right things, but he believed God.
And then he unfolds it even more there in 4. “Now to the one who works, pay is not credited as a gift, but as something owed.” That’s right. It’s not something that’s like, “Okay, fine, you did the work, here’s your salvation.” Or, “Okay, fine, you got me, God.” It is a free gift because he believed God. Think about the things people tend to brag or boast about. Since we’re talking about this idea of like, boasting and works. What do people tend to boast about these days? You don’t have to use yourself as an example, but what do people boast about? What? Oh, grandkids. Sometimes grandkids. New cars. New toys.
Like I, I, this sounds silly and maybe this is a helpful example. Um, and there’s no, gosh, this could be misinterpreted so many ways. So please assume the best. Like we’ve never posted pictures of, of the rebuild inside our house. Cause it just felt weird. Like, I don’t know. It’s… When you go through something, when you lose it all, and then people are so generous that somehow now you have a house that’s nicer than you had before, you don’t want someone to get the impression that you’re like, “Look, it’s flashy.” Also, it’s not. It’s just we like it. It’s very normal. But it’s new. I don’t know. There’s no shame in posting pictures of like, “Oh, we redid our house.” When we bought it, we did that. I mean, it was really rough. And then it was like, “Oh, we took down that horrible wallpaper.” So it wasn’t like, “Look, new fridge.” I don’t know.
Maybe that’s a helpful example. I don’t know. It’s a hard line. I don’t know. But I like sometimes when someone posts like, “Hey, look, we got a new thing.” And I’m like, “Ooh, that’s a fun thing. Can we go on that fun new thing with you?” If anyone has a boat. But I don’t know. I don’t know where the line is. So I appreciate that, Rose. It’s easy to accidentally boast about things, not realizing we’re boasting about things. I don’t know. And sometimes people kind of do the humble brag, too. Have you heard that? The humble… It’s like we’re the… I don’t have a good example in my head. I don’t know.
It’s a fine line, because there are times… that I want to share how God has been good, but you don’t want to come across as boastful. And it’s a bummer because the only way that our house happened was because God is unfailingly good. I know that. We couldn’t have that nice of a house that’s all rebuilt and better than it was before. That’s God. That’s a miracle. But it’s such a delicate line of like, I want that to be something that glorifies God, but I don’t want it to be something that comes across as like, “Look at my house.” I don’t know. I just don’t know.
So we live in a world though that boasting is just so normal. I mean, there’s even well-meaning teachers at school, Christian school, that man, the pictures they post from some of their vacations, it’s not like Mike and Margie that are like, “Look a bear.” Like, I mean, their pictures are so fun to look at because it’s like, “Oh my gosh, I’ll never go there. And now I get to experience that pretty place because Mike takes phenomenal pictures.” They’ll post the ones I’m thinking of like, they went to some fancy swanky club and like, I don’t know, somewhere fancy in Florida. I don’t even know the fancy places anymore. And they’ll post tons of pictures of like them and their 18 friends all dressed up for like every pose. And you’re like, “You’re 60. Like, do you not feel good? Like you need to remind everybody how fancy you are.” And I know, I told you, let’s assume the best. It’s a delicate balance because I sound judgy even saying that.
But there’s also that line of, like, are we boasting? Aren’t we to be pointing people to Jesus versus, “Look, my husband and I spent, you know, $80 grand on this new membership to the mega yacht club.” I don’t know. I’m making stuff up. Someone could stop me. You guys just keep listening. You all had the option to stop me there. No one did. I don’t know. And I don’t know where the line is.
But I say that it is very easy in our world and very acceptable just to brag without even really meaning to. So we have to be careful because Paul’s reminding us deeply, you really have nothing to brag about. Like maybe in the moment you might get some likes on Facebook because you bought a new yacht and your yacht’s bigger than your neighbor’s yacht. I don’t know. I’m saying that because now I know no one has a yacht. It feels less close to home. But Paul’s reminding them, like, in God’s kingdom, there is nothing you can do to boast. So, you know, boasting in this world is common. Boasting about the things of God is foolish because there’s no one who can boast their way or work their way into better standing with God.
It says that at Juddistown, they’re quoting back to when it says Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. It’s back to Genesis 15. And it says that, quoting there, Paul notes that Abraham was made right with God because of faith. Abraham became a righteous person. Righteousness was imputed to him when he believed God. And those of you that have worked in bookkeeping and accounting, credited is an accounting term. You know, it’s when something is a deposit has been made on the positive side of the ledger.
There’s this really horrible song that we watch with the kids. It’s terrible. It’s like early 2000s. It’s like a white guy rap song. And there’s like debits on the left, credits on the right. And he raps the whole thing. But kids never forget in accounting class which side. Oh, it’s awesome. Like it’s the most annoying song. Like we listen to it. And then it’s stuck in your head for the rest of the week. It’s terrible. But it’s an accounting term. It genuinely means you have deposited something in the positive ledger column. But this credit didn’t happen because of work we did. It was a gift.
I like that Paul uses the legal and accounting terms because in a very logical sense, he’s helping them understand in worldly terms how this all matters. So page 35 asks this. It says, “In what ways do you sometimes try to earn God’s favor through your actions? In what ways do you sometimes try to earn God’s favor through your actions?” You don’t have to answer out loud because everybody went silent. It’s okay. Plus, I just judged everybody who posts anything on Facebook ever, so no one wants to say words anymore.
I think a way that I see, like, the way that I try to… I didn’t even consciously do it. But the way that I sometimes will earn God’s favor is like you mentally start adding up your good deeds. Like you don’t mean to. We’re just so human that it’s like I remember being told as a kid, getting my first jobs, like make yourself indisposable. Do anything you can to make sure your boss knows that you are valuable. Like it’s a good advice. But I think because that’s the way the world around us works, we sometimes forget, like, that’s not how God works.
So I don’t need to, like, have this little mental, creepy, holier-than-thou checklist that somehow makes me better to God. But we do that on accident. We don’t mean to. We just sometimes do. And I think when we slow down and look at it objectively, we’re like, ugh, like, that’s silly. Like, I know that’s not true. It’s just nature.
Yeah. Oh, please. And it’s one of those things, it’s like, when you do stuff like that, you have to do it because you’re wanting to share God with a group of people. I had a small group on Tuesday night. So, like you said, there’s a fine line. You want to be, you know, I’m happy that I’m doing it, but I don’t want to be like, I’m doing this when I’m doing it for God. Absolutely. And I think that’s the right… It’s such a fine line because it’s nuance, and nuance is really hard.
I’ve tried really hard. When I took Tim’s class on Wednesday nights, I really wanted to do it well because I wanted people to fall in love with the Word. That was my goal. I wrote it at the top of my planning notes when I was thinking, and I just wanted people to love God’s Word and study God’s Word. When I posted on FacePage about it, just to remind people, like, hey, this is happening. If you don’t go to church somewhere or you don’t have a Bible, I knew. I was like, okay, I’m on that line where I don’t want to come across as like, look, Brian’s doing another thing.
I wanted it to be like, hey, someone that you hopefully trust a little bit is teaching through and really would love you to enjoy if you want to learn more about God’s word. Because, again, I should have gone there instead of the vacation and boats and yacht thing. Um, it’s just, it’s a fine line and it’s, but I think it can be done well when it points people to what Jesus has done and appoints people back to the gospel over and over again. Um, that’s where, again, like I’ve said it a million times, maybe not a million, hundreds of times.
Telling our own stories to people is really important. And not because we’re bragging about like, and then God saved. But it’s like, no, God is that good that he saved even me. Sometimes it’s just taking the words and flipping them just slightly to make sure it’s not putting the emphasis on me, but on God. And we should do a good job. When we accidentally do those things, we should say something to the wrong angle.
Okay, because we’re at 10:06, we’re going to head to the wrap-up stuff. There’s a question there on 36, and it’s great. I love this question because I think while we may not personally wrestle with our own salvation, we know people who do, and thinking on these things and pondering on these things helps us. When the question comes up and they’re like, well, I mean… Why would I really believe in Jesus? Or, nah, that’s not for me. It’s good to have thought about it so that we can answer and dialogue well. Not to have the perfect answer, but just to think about it with them.
So it says on 36, “What prevents people from accepting his offer of salvation? Do they struggle with faith or do they doubt the sacrifice of Jesus? What do you think really prevents people and gets them hung up?” I think one of the biggest ones is they actually don’t know what Jesus said. It sounds mean. But there’s a lot of people that when they come at you with an objection, you’re like, what are you talking about? And they’re like, well, I mean, it says blah, blah, blah. And you’re like, that’s the most either incorrect or out of context thing that you could have thrown at me. Because they’ve never studied it. They have no earthly idea what is indeed the truth. I jotted down the faith struggle one. It says, “Do they struggle with faith?”
Here’s how I think that could play out. I’m not sure if he loves me. I’m not sure if I can be forgiven. I can’t trust something I don’t see. Or surrender is really hard. I think that’s kind of unraveled a little. This idea of struggling with faith can play itself out in very innocent things. It’s not like they’re saying, I don’t believe anything exists. Sometimes it’s as simple as it’s too much about them and they’re worried they’re not good enough or they haven’t gotten things together or they haven’t.
I wrote down in the notes below that question. It’s kind of the faith struggle is kind of fear and or like self-reliance. Like I’m afraid and I feel like I have to do it myself. And fear is never where we should be. Like think about the time, like when we make decisions out of fear, we always make bad decisions. Always make bad decisions when we’re in a place of fear. It’s… I had a friend that was going to church and got away from church. And when I was encouraging her to come back to church, she’s like, well, I’ve got things I have to take care of before I can go back to church. And I’m like, God will take care of them. Amen.
And that’s kind of the second part of the question. Doubting the sacrifice of Christ. I don’t doubt Jesus died on the cross. I’m talking for people objecting. But I think they would say things like, well, I have to get my stuff together before I can come back to church. No. It is literally a gathering of the saved sinners. It is those who deeply, deeply want to understand how to live more like Jesus and how to get rid of the sin in their lives.
Sometimes doubting the sacrifice, they don’t really understand, like, they can’t get over the fact that they don’t feel worthy. Well, none of us is worthy. Paul makes it really clear. Like, no one, everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But again, thinking through these things helps a lot. I think along with that question, misunderstanding the gospel. That’s such a common thing that people just don’t, quite understand the gospel.
And that was why that order or order of salvation was so important. Like remembering like, it’s not, we’re not doing these things to be justified. We are justified by belief and faith in Jesus. And then sanctification comes. But people misunderstand the gospel. And I also think, I jotted down very sloppily written, pride and self-righteousness. I mean, my gosh, that goes back to that question. It was on 33, like, “What does it mean to be justified by faith instead of works? Really, it’s what are we trusting in? Am I trusting in myself to be righteous and create holiness? Or am I trusting in Jesus? Who am I looking to? And our pride blinds us. All the time.”
That’s where a lot of theologians will say they think when we look back at Adam and Eve, the core sin was pride. Wanting to be like God. Wanting to be the ones who could save themselves. There was this looking outside of God for something. And then there are some that are just afraid of surrender. The idea of laying down arms is incredibly hard for them. The idea of humility is very hard for them.
Which leads me to the last question, which is also on 36. And it says, “What place does grateful humility have in your personal relationship with God?” Humility is cool here because humility is, I wrote down so I wouldn’t forget. I think it’s the doorway to everything Paul said. No one can understand this passage of Romans or Romans or scripture without humility. Because humility is what makes all. If I’m self-righteous and prideful, I’m still going to read this and be like, meh. Like, it’s just something you gloss over.
Humility is what allows a person to stop trusting themselves and receive Christ’s righteousness through faith. Which is just what we’ve been reading about. Humility is literally what allows a person to stop trusting themselves. Like that question Matt and I dialogued about the mirror. Like it is, who am I looking at? Am I looking to me for salvation or am I looking to Jesus? The prideful heart looks to self for salvation. The humble heart looks to Jesus for salvation.
And this idea of biblical humility is woven in scripture. I love the idea of humility. I’m not saying I am humble. But I’m saying, man, studying the idea of humility and trying to grow in that is a gift because it helps us see God better, more rightly. We see ourselves more rightly. And then we see the need for grace. When we see who God really is and we see who we really are, grace becomes no longer this nice thing that we sing about, but this deep necessity that I need every single day. But humility is the only posture that can accept grace.
No one prideful can really accept grace. Think about that. No one who’s really prideful can accept grace. I’ve seen it in my own kids’ hearts when they’re just wrapped up into a knot of pride over something that they don’t think was their fault and they’re just like caged animals in those moments. A prideful heart cannot handle a gentle touch of grace. A prideful heart can’t because it can’t experience the grace and it can’t give the grace. Because humility is the only posture that can live in grace.
I mean, that should be a heavy thought. Like, humility is the only posture that can accept grace. So, I think all that begs the question, how do we develop humility? That could have been the entire lesson. How do we develop humility? I have done a Devo for a whole school year on that one. But in two minutes, what do you guys think? How do we develop humility?
I think we honestly grapple with our sin. It stinks. No one wants that. But we have to grapple with our sin. And quite frankly, we might not have eternal consequences for the sin if we’re covered by the blood of Jesus. But that means we might have to grapple with consequences here on earth of whatever the sin was. Developing humility means we have to see our sin honestly and deal with it.
We have to see the, we have to practice the gospel daily. I have, there’s a book I have at home. If you want the link, I’ll happily send it to you. It’s called, oh Lord, the gospel primer, the gospel primer. And like primer being like the basic like school book kind of idea. But it’s, this pastor wrote it because he was like, I need to rehearse the gospel in my own life every day. Otherwise I’m at risk of, of not living it in my life. So he wrote, and it’s Awesome. I mean, it’s not a long book. It’s a pretty thin book.
But half the page is scripture citations and the other half is the gospel. And it’s beautiful. We have to practice the gospel daily because the cross is a really great humbler. I don’t know if that’s a word, but it is now. The cross is a really, is that a word? Humbler? Yeah, that sounds like a word. The cross is a great humbler. We have to confess our sins often because it trains our heart to stop pretending everything’s okay.
When I hold on to all the sin or I don’t feel like I need to confess, I put myself in pretending mode. That all is well. It’s not. It’s not all well if I haven’t confessed my sins. We submit ourselves to scripture, which we do every week. But we should also do daily. We should serve others to build humility because it helps train our hearts and minds to think about other people and not ourselves.
We used to do this with Jack when Jack was having some really hard days. I made these little counseling sheets for him where like it was just drawing a picture because writing was hard for him. And I would make him write down like what’s something kind you can do for your teacher today? Like draw a picture. What’s something kind you can do for a friend at school? And then at the end of the day, he would draw another picture of what he did. And the whole idea was I wanted him to stop thinking about him and whatever mistakes he made that day because – He makes mistakes. He’s a kid.
But instead, focus on other people. It was a cool accidentally stumble on kind of thing, but that’s the idea. It does make you more humble when you’re not focused on yourself. But last, I kind of alluded to this. The cross has to be the center of everything that we do. Because again, the cross is a great, made up word, humbler. The cross humbles us. Because I do not want to die on that cross.
My pride and my sin and my ego do not want to die to self. But Jesus has led the way, and we know what it leads to. It leads to eternal life. It leads to freedom. It leads to actual peace and contentment. So there’s a lot of stuff there. But biblical humility, that’s the only posture that can really accept grace. So we went a little over. Any thoughts before we pray? Okay, let’s pray.
Oh, sorry, Deb. I was just going to say, sometimes the stumbling block is in reviewing our humility and realizing how sinful we are. The other step is actually believing that God would accept us as bad as we are. Yes, yes. There’s a hump. There’s a hump there that I think that prevents a lot of people from going to church because they still don’t feel like they’re Good enough to show up in church. Yep. I agree completely. When we’re really confronted with our sin, it’s easy to let the sin itself be the stumbling block. Yeah. That’s really good. I love that. Any other thoughts? Okay. Let’s do it.
Father God, thank you for our class. Father, humble our hearts. Help us to see that growing in humility, growing in grace, I’m sorry, growing in humility is the only way that we can really experience grace, that we can accept grace, that we can live in grace, that we can give grace, that we can receive grace. We have to grow in biblical humility to understand what Paul is saying here in Romans 3 and 4.
It’s the only way we can grapple with our sin. It’s the only way we can understand that we all have fallen short of you. And it’s the only way we can really understand the costly grace that you gave us for free. So God, confront us with those things. Help us to hold fast to your word and help us to center our life around your cross. We ask all this in your name. Thank you. Amen.
All right. Thank you all. See you next week. Chapter four. And if you’re bored on Wednesday nights, it is not too late. We actually had fun last week.
Brian Maloy 