Romans 3:10-26
In February 1996 I nearly died.
I was on a hike with a bunch of first-year students from the University of Cape Town. It was late in the evening and dark - and my friend Mark and I decided to take a “shortcut”. Why go around when you can climb straight up? And that’s how this genius here found himself stuck halfway up a cliff face unable to move either up or down. I could see the lights of Cape Town city centre below me, and the stars above me, and I began to realize that maybe this had been a rather stupid idea. Fear gripped me as I saw the situation I was in. My arms and legs began to tremble with fatigue.
As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous— not even one. 11 No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. 12 All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.”
These verses describe our situation. We have chosen the wrong path. Two ways to live – and instead of choosing God's way, we have gone our own way. And now we begin to realize that maybe this wasn’t our best move. Maybe you’re here today because your arms and legs are starting to shake and you don’t know how long you can hang on before you lose your grip.
Maybe you’re looking at the ground far below and you’ve been tempted to just give up. Take your own life. At least you’ll be at peace? Right?
Maybe I would’ve started thinking like that gripping onto that cliff 300 meters above Cape Town? How long could I have hung on for?
Well, who knows, because suddenly a hand reached down, grabbed my right arms and hauled me upwards. I was saved! I had been in a terrible situation, without hope – until I was rescued by someone standing on solid ground.
20 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. 21 But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. 22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.
If you are a sinner today - and you are because you are a human being - you are a sinner here today, so you, like me, need someone to save you from yourself. And that's what Jesus does. He is the mighty hand that reaches down and pulls you up to safety.
In my case on the cliff that mighty hand was my friend Mark, who had climbed with me, was got stuck, but after a moment of intense sweating and equally intense prayer in a slightly higher octave than usual from both of us, he managed to see a tiny shrub that he could grasp. He pulled himself up on the shrub, and then managed to pull me up. We called that shrub “answered prayer”!
I have to say that Mark and I had true faith that evening. Because we risked everything on that little bush. If it had come loose we would both have fallen and probably not survived. I stand here in front of you today because I had faith and trusted that little shrub on Signal Hill in Cape Town in February 1996 - and it held fast!
But how about you? What do you trust? What are you believing in? Is it yourself? Are you betting your whole life now and into eternity on… you? Is it your good morals you’re betting on? Your background? Your church experience? Your “goodness”? Or, are you betting on “science” to save you (which I think is always a bit strange. I believe in science. Everyone believes in science. It explains how the world we live in works and it’s constantly evolving. It's like saying “I believe in the dictionary”). Or maybe you believe in Buddha or Mohammed or Krishna or countless other gods or alternative philosophies. Or religion without Christ - which is really another way of saying “I believe in myself and my own efforts”.
How secure do you feel? Is it working? Is it solid? Or are you feeling the roots begin to losing their grip on the rock, and you see the long fall awaiting you?
God tells us that anything but him is worthless. It will fall. Oh you may succeed in climbing your own way - for a little while. Some of us get a little further than the rest. But we are all of us stuck. None of us can reach up to God on our own. None of us are good enough. We all are miss the mark. And so we are left clinging on for dear life, waiting for the inevitable.
As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous— not even one. 11 No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. 12 All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.”
We reject God, and that is the root of what the Bible calls sin. Sin is a term that encompasses everything that is wrong with us and the world. It does not mean naughtiness, and it's doesn’t mean delicious like the adverts use it “oh, that ice cream is sinful”!
Sin is rebellion against God: we have chosen our own way. And because we have turned our backs on God, broken our relationship with him, everything begins to go wrong.
Sin is unfortunately the easiest Biblical doctrine (teaching) to prove. We know it all too well. Turn on the news. Look at your own life. We hurt people - even those we love the most. And we are hurt by them in return.
Why? Because we have chosen our way instead of God's. We were created to function with God as King – then everything just works. But we have chosen the path of death.
Just read v13 to 18. Does this not describe our world and all too often our own lives?
13 “Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave. Their tongues are filled with lies.” “Snake venom drips from their lips.” 14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” 15 “They rush to commit murder. 16 Destruction and misery always follow them. 17 They don’t know where to find peace.” 18 “They have no fear of God at all.”
It is a summary of what the Bible says about humanity without God. And to our shame - he's right. The world is full of violence and abuse of power. Our lives are all too often full of lies and gossip, curses and bitterness. And peace! We lack peace. There is no peace in the world and no peace inside us.
What do we do when we realize this? I'll be better, we say. I'll work harder, be a better person, strive.
We have the story of Israel in the Bible to tell us that this does not work! For they didn’t have their own made-up morality, but God's morality, called the "law". They had the Temple, and miracles, and had experienced God's kindness and faithfulness - and they failed to keep the law.
19 Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. 20 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.
As v19 and 20 say the law, or morality, is not the way to salvation, but instead it mocks us by showing us that we can not do it.
The law is laughs at us as it shines a spotlight on those areas in which we fail most.
Just take some of the ten commandments: No other gods before me. Fail. Do not worship anything but me. Oops. Money, power, sports cars ... Fail. Honour your mother and father. Fail. Be sexually pure. Fail. Do not lie. Fail. Do not covet (be jealous of) what other people have. Fail and fail again!
And these are just some of the Ten Commandments, never mind the rest of them. And not to mention what Jesus said!
The law makes a mockery of us. And you totally miss the point if you come to the Bible to find a way to impress God as if you could be obedient to God. The Pharisees who killed Jesus thought that, and so do cults like Jehovah's Witnesses and Iglasio ni Christo (Church of Christ)
20 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.
What hope is there, then? Because if we have sinned against God and cannot make amends because we can’t be good enough, and if the law is no way of salvation but a judgment, and if religion has no answer and science has no answer and humanism doesn’t work either - because if the Jews who received God's morality direct from God failed, we can be quite sure that following our own made-up morality isn’t going to succeed in impressing God. So, if nothing we do works - what hope is there?
Just like me on the cliff - we need a rescuer. We need someone other, someone above, someone who standing on solid ground to reach down and pull us up. We need someone who can do what we cannot. And that's what Jesus does.
20 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. 21 But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. 22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. 23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.
Let us spend a few minutes on these verses. For this is the essence of Christianity.
21 But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago.
That word “but” at the beginning of v21 is probably the most important word in human history. For all hope was lost - but God. We were done for, arms trembling on the cliff face - without hope. And then we hear a voice “grab my hand”. I tell you that I was filled with rejoicing when I heard those words!
But what a fool I would have been if I had said “no thanks, I can manage”
Don’t do that! Accept Jesus and let Him pull you up.
We rather naughtily call v21 God's big butt! Yes, it’s childish I know. But it is God's great big BUT! We deserve judgement. We deserve hell because we chose life without God and life without God is the very definition of hell! As Homer Simpson says "Doh!"
BUT GOD! God set in motion his rescue plan, and instead of US dying, HE died! That is love.
21 But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law,
God’s righteousness is not gained through the law. You don’t have to fix up your life before you come to him. It has nothing to do with what you do or have done. Without keeping the requirement of the law.
22 We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. 23 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
This gospel, this good news, is not only for the “good people”, those who are good at religion, the ethnic Norwegian or those who are “proper” people, good an upstanding citizens. This is for everyone. Because all have sinned. I am a sinner, you are a sinner, the pope is a sinner, the King is a sinner. We are all sinners and we all need Jesus. We all fall short of the glory of God. We fall short, we don’t make it, we run out of steam and we are ridiculously far away from the finishing line.
24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.
God’s righteousness is a gift. It is given, not earned. At Christmas you don’t open your presents and then say “how much do I owe you?”! It's a gift. The gift of free grace from God to each of us who is willing to receive it.
24 Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.
On the cross Jesus took our punishment. We are all sinners, unable to save ourselves, and so in his love and mercy he stretched out his arms and bore all our sins on his shoulders. He dealt with our sins as he carried our sins into death.
When Jesus was on the Cross - the Son of God on the Cross - God the Father gathered all the sins that all his people had committed from the past and the future - all your sins and all my sins - and laid them on Jesus on the cross.
Like when you use a magnifying glass or a prism to gather and focus light to a point, a burning point – really fun when you’re a young boy – I can burn things with LIGHT! – but on the Cross it was as if God had a huge cosmic magnifying glass that gathered all of our sins from all of time and space and focused them down to burn of the cross.
“It is finished!” cried Jesus as he breathed his last.
And dealt with all our sins – our past sins, and even the sins we haven’t committed yet – all our sins were dealt with on the cross. Amen and hallelujah. His sacrifice has made us right with God. He calls us “righteous” because we are now redeemed in Christ Jesus. His death, his blood, has made us clean.
Yes, we are sinners, but we are forgiven sinners, declared righteous by the judge, and so we are righteous.
Imagine if you were unlucky enough to end up in court. You wait for the verdict. The judge's word has power, real power. If he says “guilty” - then you are, and you will be punished.
But if he says “innocent” – then you are, and you are free.
In Christ Jesus we are declared “innocent”. And if an earthly judge has so much power in his judgment - how much more God Almighty?
If you are here today and you feel unworthy, weak, hell-bound – you’re in the right place. We here are not good people who have impressed God, but we are sinful people who have had their eyes opened. We are all by nature selfish egotists who ignore God. And we come to him to say sorry - and then we discover that it is He who has been calling us and working in us to call us to Him.
So I’d like to welcome you here today, especially if it's your first time, and especially if you're not a Christian. Because you are here today because the Holy Spirit is at work in you. God is saying to you: “Come, I accept you as you are”
In this church you come as you are. Here you will find mercy. Here you are allowed to fail, to be a sinner, without judgement. Here we know that we are sinners, but also that we are forgiven! Amen.
Now some of you are maybe sitting there now saying to yourself “yes, yes, but he doesn’t mean me. I'm too bad for Jesus, too far gone. If you knew what I’ve done... Jesus won’t accept me.”
If that's you, then I have a word for you: rubbish! Jesus came for you. You who know you're too dirty, too ruined, too bad, too sinful - it's you he came for. He didn’t come for those who think they can do it, but for those of us who admit that we can’t, that we need him. It is by faith. Not effort.
It doesn’t matter lies in your past. Norwegian society may well judge you and exclude - but Jesus does not. Here there is always hope.
In this church there are people just like you. People who have done the same things as you. Some of them, even worse things! And they have experienced the truth that we read about here. We are forgiven. God forgives us because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.
So receive. Don’t hang on the cliff, arms shaking, waiting to fall. Lift up your eyes and see Jesus standing there with an outstretched arm saying “take my hand, you don’t have to struggle any more. With me you are safe. With me you will find peace”.
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