©2000 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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8/13/00
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Messing With The WayThings Are
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Romans 3:27-28
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8/13/00 Messing With The Way Things Are
I want to begin this morning
by reading 4 verses
from the first chapter
of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.
This 1 Corinthians 1:26-29.
1 Cor. 1:26 ¶ For consider your calling,
brethren, that there were not many wise
according to the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble;
1 Cor. 1:27 but God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to shame the wise, and
God has chosen the weak things of the
world to shame the things which are strong,
1 Cor. 1:28 and the base things of the
world and the despised, God has chosen,
the things that are not, that He might
nullify the things that are,
1 Cor. 1:29 that no man should boast
before God.
I know we are studying the book of Romans,
but there could be no better introduction for us
this morning
to the passage we will be studying
than these 4 verses.
We are going to be talking this morning
about the way things are -
both about the way they are
in the world system in which we live,
and the way they are in truth.
In these few verses from Corinthians
Paul begins by calling us as Christians
to a point of honesty about ourselves.
If I could paraphrase him,
Paul is saying, "In case you haven't noticed,
folks,
there are not a whole lot of the rich and
famous flocking into the family of God."
He says it better, of course.
He says, "consider your calling" - in other words,
look around you!
Those who have been able
to score big in this world's social system
are far less open
to an honest examination of the message of Christ.
And then he goes on
to say that God has chosen the weak things of
the world
to shame the strong,
and He has chosen the base things,
the despised things,
and the things that are not,
so that through them He might nullify the things
that are,
so that no one will be able to boast before God.
Before we finish this morning
we will have a better understanding
of why it is so hard for those who achieve
exceptional success in the world's system
to risk looking honestly
at the Person of Jesus Christ,
and we'll also see
how the message of Christ
nullifies the things that are.
But let me back up first
and get a running start at this.
We have been studying the last 11 verses of the 3rd
chapter of Romans.
After blazing through the first two and a half
chapters of Romans in about two weeks,
we are now moving very slowly
through these 11 verses
because the concepts presented in this
passage
form the foundation for everything
else Paul says to us in the rest of this letter.
So far we have studied our way through verses 21
26 and we have seen:
1. That through Christ God is offering us
the ability to become righteous,
holy,
absolutely morally pure.
It's no wonder that, when Christ chose words to
describe
what He would be offering the world through
His death,
He said it is like being born all over again.
The change that takes place within us
is as extensive,
as far-reaching
and all inclusive as if we were reentering
the world
through a totally new body.
2. We have seen that this righteousness
that is being offered to us through Christ
is exactly the same righteousness
as we would have obtained
if we would have kept the moral law
of God perfectly
from the instant of our conception
through the instant of our death.
It is in every sense true righteousness.
3. We have seen that this righteousness
enters our lives
by God creating within us a new heart,
a new center to our lives,
a new inner spirit that loves God
and longs to please Him.
4. We have seen that this new heart is given to us by
God
in response to our simple faith in Christ and His
death for our sins.
It is absolutely, totally APART FROM works of the
law,
apart from our performance.
It cannot be earned,
it cannot be merited by us
through anything we have done or have not
done, will do or will stop doing.
5. And then, two weeks ago we saw that
this offer of forgiveness and righteousness
is made possible to us
not because we have somehow been able
to offer to God an acceptable sacrifice,
but rather because God Himself
has offered to us an acceptable sacrifice,
the sacrifice of His own death
in our place
for our sins.
Now, we have three more steps to take
as we complete our study of these 11 verses,
and each of these 3 steps
contains a result that will take place
or has taken place
because of what Paul has just told us.
So let's go ahead and walk through
these three conclusions Paul presents
in these remaining verses.
#1. The first one is found in 3:27-28:
Rom. 3:27 Where then is boasting? It is
excluded. By what kind of law? Of works?
No, but by a law of faith.
Rom. 3:28 For we maintain that a man is
justified by faith apart from works of the
Law.
And let me offer to you what I see here in single
statement,
and then we'll talk a little more about it.
In these two verses
Paul attacks and destroys
the foundation of all man-made religious
systems,
and even more than that,
he destroys the greatest single security
blanket the human race has ever wrapped around
itself.
I'll explain what I mean by that in just a minute,
but first let me state simply what Paul is saying
in those verses.
He is telling us that
what Christ is offering the human race
shatters the foundation of human arrogance
forever,
both arrogance before God
and arrogance before one another.
Now listen carefully once again to this statement:
Rom. 3:28 For we maintain that a man is
justified by faith apart from works of the
Law.
It is the truth contained in that single statement,
perhaps more than any other truth contained in
God's communication to us,
that both draws and repels the human race.
It is true that, for many of us, there is something
huge within our spirits
that rejoices when we hear those words.
Our God is telling us that
as a result of Christ's death for us
and His removal of our sin forever,
we can now stand totally and eternally
holy before God
simply on the basis of our faith in
Christ.
That is the best news the human race
ever has or ever will receive.
That is the gospel,
the good news from God in a single statement.
But there is also something taking place in that verse
that has the power to repel
many who see honestly what is being said.
You see, if those words are true,
and they are,
it does not just mean
that I am invited to stand righteous before
God through faith alone,
it means that EVERY man and woman
stands justified before God on the basis of
faith,
and that EVERY man and woman stands EQUAL
before God on that basis.
It means that every human being
has equal value,
equal dignity,
equal prestige,
equal significance before God.
It means that every human being is unique,
and yet every human being who comes to Christ
is recreated equal before God.
Do you know what that means?
It means the entire foundation
upon which the human race
has built the fiber of society
is declared meaningless.
The 'A' student in school
and the 'C' student,
and the 'D-' student,
and the 'F' student all stand equal before
God.
The president of the company,
and his secretary,
and the shipping clerk,
and the janitor who throws out the trash
can all stand equal before God.
Both that little boy in 7th grade
who has always been the very last one to be
picked for every team
because all the world knows
he cannot throw,
cannot hit,
cannot catch,
and cannot run,
and Tiger Woods
can stand equal before God.
It means all of those pretty faces
we see paraded across our TV and movie
screens
who have achieved great status
and great wealth
by selling us a glimpse of their beauty for a few
minutes
all of the sudden
find themselves
with no claim to special recognition,
standing on an equal plane before God
with all of the rest of us lumpy,
balding,
bulging,
rather misshapen people.
We hear our God making a statement to us that
declares,
For we maintain that a man is justified by
faith apart from works of the Law...
and at first we wonder
why all the world is not dancing in the
streets,
claiming by faith
what we could have never achieved
through our performance.
But then, as we get a little closer,
we begin to understand
why Paul said what he said
in those verses from the first chapter of
1 Corinthians that we began with this morning.
It is no wonder that...
there were not many wise according to the
flesh, not many mighty, not many noble...
by the world's standard
within the family of God,
because the very nature of the message
shatters all the rules
upon which our world's social systems are
founded.
and it is impossible for us to get near our God
without that nearness shattering
the very foundations of the lives we have
lived
outside of Christ.
And just so we understand why that is,
let me remind us of what's really going on.
When we as a human race
declared ourselves independent from our
Creator,
and severed our communication with Him,
in the process we also severed ourselves
from the only true, accurate source of
knowledge about ourselves that we will ever have.
Only our Creator
can tell each of us
who we are,
and why we have value,
and how our lives were designed to operate.
But once we could no longer hear His voice,
or more accurately,
once we refused to hear His voice,
we were forced to create for ourselves
some alternative system
by which we could establish some sense of
worth,
and identity,
and value.
So what did we do?
We established a whole bunch of artificial measuring
systems
by which we then were able to measure
ourselves against one another,
and on the basis of those systems
we tried to tell ourselves
why we have value,
why we have importance,
why we have significance.
In our U.S. culture
we have 5 major standards of measure:
1. our appearance,
2. our wealth,
3. our IQ,
4. our athletic abilities,
5. and our charisma and personality.
These are the things Paul is referring to
when he talks about "the things that are"
in that Corinthian passage.
If we can score big in at least one of those areas,
then we claim for ourselves
the right to declare ourselves of value,
and to expect those around us to do the
same.
If we can score big in more than one area
we move up higher.
If we can score big in 4 out of 5
we might even get elected President.
But my point is this -
the good news of Jesus Christ
in which we maintain that a man is justified
by faith apart from works of the Law...
can only be heard as good news
when God brings us to the place
where our need for answers,
and our hunger for truth,
and our longing for healing in our
lives
becomes more important
than whatever success,
or status,
or prestige we may have achieved
through the false status systems
offered to us by our society.
Here we are as a society of people,
desperately seeking to achieve
peace with ourselves,
and some sense of security,
by achieving more and more status
through our positions,
and our wealth,
and our affirmations from others.
But when all the applause stops,
and we have run the numbers in our net worth
again, and again, and again,
when we finally turn off the computer
we still find within ourselves
that nagging, empty, aching hole deep
inside.
And the most terrifying moment of truth
any human being will ever face
is that moment when we finally step out from
behind those hiding places
we have worked so hard to create
through all those false sources of
security we've been clinging to,
and let our God tell us who we really are.
And the remarkable thing here,
and the thing that never ceases to take the human
spirit by surprise,
is that when we do that,
when we dare to reveal our confused
and broken lives to our God,
what we anticipate from Him
and what we actually receive
could not be more different.
Given the fact that we stand before Him
with are arms filled with the broken pieces of our
lives,
we just naturally anticipate His disapproval,
and find ourselves confronted with His love.
We see our own moral failures
and anticipate His wrath,
His condemnation,
and find ourselves confronted with His forgiveness,
His kindness,
and His compassion.
You see, when we come to our God
in the very act of doing so
we forfeit our right
to cling to those things we were
previously using
to give us status,
and make us feel good about ourselves.
But we gain in return
the growing ability to hear
the sure and certain voice of our God
telling us the truth about our true value,
our past,
our real identity,
our future,
and our special place in His family.
I certainly don't mean to suggest
that there is some instant silencing
of all those other voices we've been
listening to,
and an instant, clear, direct line to the
voice of our God,
telling us the truth about ourselves.
We have been keenly focused
on all those other voices
for our entire lives
before meet our God
and every one of us
are highly skilled at hearing
and interpreting what they are saying.
The transition from those voices
to the voice of our God
is a life-long process.
But God's Spirit can and will
actively seek to replace
the lies we have heard about ourselves
with the truth that He alone can tell us.
And then one final observation
before we stop for the morning -
when Paul summarizes
the result that salvation through faith in Christ
brings into our lives he says:
Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By
what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a
law of faith.
In other words,
he tells us that our equal access to God
through faith in Jesus Christ
destroys any basis of our arrogant boasting
either before our God
or before our fellow man.
Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to Your cross I cling.
But it is the nature of man-made religious systems
to reestablish that boasting base
into our attitude both toward God
and toward one another.
Man-made religious systems
offer us a list
or a religious system
by which we can once again
establish our social pecking order
and even feel as though
we have done something
to earn God's acceptance and
approval.
To all such systems
Paul's message is clear:
Rom. 3:27 Where then is boasting? It is
excluded. By what kind of law? Of works?
No, but by a law of faith.
Rom. 3:28 For we maintain that a man is
justified by faith apart from works of the
Law.
So, the first of the three results
of Christ's sacrifice for our sins
is that now, through Christ,
every one of us can stand equally,
fully,
and eternally justified before God Himself.
The second ot the three results
of Christ's offer of Himself
as the sacrifice for our sins
is found in 3:29-30
Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not
the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles
also, since indeed God who will justify the
circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised
through faith is one.
Simply stated,
God is the God of all people,
His death is an acceptable sacrifice
for the sins of the whole world,
and now His offer of salvation through faith in
Christ
is extended to all who will receive it.
Next week we'll look at Paul's final statement in
3:31.