Please maintenance of relationships is a common a constant challenge or our lives, isn't it? All right, it is a common thing to be at odds with somebody Now you can be at odds with with your spouse. I've heard of that You can be at odds with your children or your parents or your neighbors or friends. You can be at odds with a coworker That's not uncommon and what are the what are the fruits of of being you know off with somebody that's important and close to you? What is that often yield your stomach can turn right you can lose your appetite you can just be Captured with with anxiety. You could go through sleepless nights tossing and turning because You know, we want to be right with people that are important to us. I Think of this summer when one of my Family members was Driving and they experienced a rare botanical anomaly a tree actually leaped in front of their car and
And that that led to the car being significantly wrinkled and And so child has to go to parent you know to reveal this event How does child generally feel? You know terrible right? Terrible because you just don't know what the reacts to be you don't know if the parents could be mad You don't know you don't want to be not right with people that are important to us. I remember just a A week or two ago. We had a Meeting some of the staff were there and there was a vigorous debate and And Ron Brown and I kind of just locked up in that meeting and we're really kind of going at each other and you know Ron can be really dogmatic and So in the meeting was over I sensed That something wasn't right between us. So I want to tell you I went right to Ron's office because I wanted to give him every Opportunity to apologize You know what it means. You know what it is to not be right You know to have that experience talk to somebody on the phone this week and It was a vigorous conversation and at one point they said I want you to be totally frank with me Well, you get we asked for you know, and I felt obliged to comply and So I mean I I was invited and there were some things to say and so I said them and now when the conversation was all the way over What do you think I said hey are we are we okay with each other you know We still friends You know so important to be right with people that matter Do you know Well, I mean imagine what it would be like to live in a perpetual state of not being right What it what would it be like if there was never relief if you were never right with the one person it most mattered to be right with If you weren't right with the God who made you with your with your father in heaven And the Bible says that there's a God shaped vacuum or a gustan said there's a God shaped vacuum in every human heart And that man is restless until he finds his rest in Christ There's a sense of which I can say if you've never been right with God and utterly assured of that That you you've never lived You don't know what it is to really be set free to Really live Until you know that you're right With your creator the God who made you so that's where we're going this morning Romans chapter three Take your sermon outline the first thing we can say without question is that we need to be right we need righteousness From God. We know what it's right to be what it means to be right with Uncle Sam right April 15th coming up You got to square up with with the federal government right? Well, it's right to be What it means to be right with your creditors, you know Your bills are paid. There's nothing between you and them. We know what it's means to be you know right with Right with the law to have no charges against you nothing on your record. What does it mean to be right with God? It means that there's nothing between us. It means that there's no debt It means that we owe nothing. It means that we've never sined It means that we've never transgress God's law We've always done everything it requires of us and we've never done anything it for business to do We're absolutely perfect and pure and holy. That's what it means to be right with God and the Bible says That all have Verse 23 Romans chapter three all have sinned and all do what they all fall short everyone None of us means that criteria and none of us is naturally right with God listen to Isaiah chapter 59 says it's so powerfully your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God your sins have hidden his face from you So that he does not hear there's a relational break between us and God because of our rebellion and our sin So that we're not naturally right with God. So there is a righteousness and we need it of that it's certain Romans chapter one I read just details all the ways that mankind is not right with God friend call me this week and we counseled together he's dealing in his church with someone who is a serial adulterer In other words, they don't they're not guilty of adulterer. They're guilty of a 30 or 40 times a year And so we could talk about well they need to read this book. They need to go for this therapy They need to be in this support and accountability group. They need to confess their sin and all of that is Is in and around the problem at the core of human behavior that drives us to be a Driven that drives us to be a workaholics that drives us to be adulterers that drives us to be a critical and angry All behavior that emanates from us that comes out of a thirstiness and an emptiness all at the source all traces back to what? What's it all trace to we're not right with our father and so because of that there's a yearning in our hearts There are certain things we thirst for and we crave for them and if they don't find satisfaction in Christ Then we will often find ourselves behaving in such a way that would disgust us Because we're empty And that emptiness will not be satisfied until we're right with God Okay, righteousness we need it secondly. How do we get it? How do we receive it? How do we receive this righteousness? The good news is the Bible says it's possible. There is a gospel You could actually stand before God have God look at you and say you're utterly pure perfect and sinless in my eyes now How in the world could that be possible? Well, first of all the Bible tells us how it's not possible. It's not received this righteousness is not received by what? By law keeping look at Romans 328 it says it's just so parieta this kind of verse should have marked in your Bible We maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. There is a righteousness It's not a righteousness that will ever produce if you ever stand before God and he looks at you He says I declare you righteous holy and pure it won't be because you've supplied the righteousness that he sees that righteousness We'll have to come from someone else. It'll be a righteousness that's holy alien to you It's a gift. It's been given to you. You don't earn it in any way Okay Now this is what separates Christianity from every other world religion Some of us tell me they were flying out the Utah. They said next to a Mormon They were saying that he was absolutely wonderful just talked about Jesus the whole way Let me tell you something you can meet Mormons you can meet folks involved in Baháá you can meet Buddhist You can meet folks of every world religion of every strife and they all share one thing in common They believe that it's up to them to take the initiative to modify a God by producing righteousness that they can then offer to God and he will find them acceptable and grant them into Eternal rest. Okay, that's every world religion. That's not Christianity
Christianity is is is passionately anti-religious Religion is the problem. It's not the answer People trying to please God is the problem. It's an insult to God The only way we'll ever stand before God is to receive a righteousness that comes outside of us that we don't produce We don't give it to God. He gives it to us That's why Romans ought to just explode in front of you when it says there is a righteousness that comes from God It's not a righteousness that we give to him. It's a righteousness that he gives us That's the only way we could ever possess what we need to stand before a holy God pure and and perfect. I'm reading a book called Religious No More It's written by a missionary to Honduras and he said when I go to the Honduran Church, what I encounter there is People who say if you wear makeup, you're going to hell
Women who say I used to go to church, but then I cut my hair and I was thrown out Can't wear pants, can't wear shorts Can't dance, can't listen to music, can't go to the movies, and the list is good. You have to attend church six to seven nights a week And on and on and on it goes all the rules Now I want to ask you something Where did they get that from? Where did they get that thing they call Christianity from? They got it from Us They got it from us They got it from North American Protestants and Catholics who went there as missionaries Here's what you need to understand if I were to pull this room and I were to ask you are we saved by works or are we saved by faith? 90% of the people sitting in this room would have said well, that's a no-brainer. I got this way back way back when I became a Christian Everybody knows that we're saved by faith not by our own works But the truth is That most North American church going people while they say that are counting on their daily spiritual behavior as to whether or not they have security with God or not. I Believe that it's Jesus' work that makes me right with God. They say for salvation that I go out and live every day utterly insecure Because my life isn't measure of You see and we have spread a religion to the rest of the world not Christianity religion That says there's all these rules and unless you keep them You're not right with God Friends the only way we can be right with God is through the behavior of Jesus not our behavior. I Don't care how pure you ever think you are I don't care if you don't wear pants don't cut your hair wear a head covering to church never dance never go to the movies You are you would be so far from God The only way to be right with God is through the perfect law keeping of Jesus and yet we've produced a a This thing that we call it Christianity where we say it's it's all by grace and not by works But then the but then we're counting on for our daily security our behavior. How do you receive this righteousness? It's not by law keeping Christianity You know in most of the world you go to church where you're taught here's how you can seek God in a gospel church you go to discover That there's a God that seeks you and he's relentless There's a God who seeks you and that difference makes makes all it does make all the difference There's an old him that says come you weary heavy-laid and bruised and broken by the fall if you carry Kill you're better. You will never come at all Okay, we're messed up. We need a righteousness from God to be right with God But we're not going to get it through through our behavior through our law keeping. How are we going to get it? How are we made just with God through What does it say in the passage? Look at it. It's Romans chapter three 21 and following but now apart from the law a righteousness from God has been manifested A righteousness not that we produce a righteousness that God produces and it comes to us through what? Faith in Jesus faith in Jesus. I'm made right with God by By the work of Jesus and putting my faith in what Jesus has done for me that I cannot do For myself I'm gonna rest in that. It's not faith in in general I mean eyes and how our president eyes and how are said America was built on a on a great religious faith And I don't care which one in other words what really matters you hear? This is the common buzz right what really matters is that people have faith It doesn't matter what they have it in as long as they have it Well, that's just another work right that just says that if you can produce this thing called faith then you'll be right with God It's not faith never saved anybody faith doesn't save you were not saved by faith were saved by Christ We're saved by Jesus. It's not faith that saves us It's the object of faith right is putting your faith in the right thing That's what saves us. It's Jesus who saves us. I saw in the paper this week to a little girl to one Contest mischievous county mis-junior, you know teen Priatal lessons interest county or something, you know, and they they They interviewed them both in the paper. They both said we love Jesus. You know, Christ is the center of our life Trust in the Lord will all your heart lean on in your own understanding and all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths and they just talk about Jesus in the article and the headline of the article the newspaper reporter put beauty queens Trust in a higher power That's not what they said They don't have faith in a higher power. They have faith in Jesus Jesus and Jesus only it's faith Specifically, personally in Jesus the Jesus who redeems us the Jesus who Purchases us from slavery with his own blood the Jesus who reconciles us by his perfect life To the Father so that I can stand before God and God look at me and say you know what? I don't find anything Objectionable and you at all I find perfect righteousness because my sin has been transferred to Jesus his perfect life It's been transferred to me. He's fulfilled all the law on my behalf so that I can stand before God and Bearing Jesus record be utterly accepted and welcome into his family his fellowship and his favor Do I find I ask people I've asked this question before maybe you've heard it if you were to die and stand before Jesus and he would say Why should I let you know what would you say you ever heard that question and you know people always say Jesus died for my sin I Want to say you're just parroting to me a Sunday school answer you heard somewhere I Want to say to him so what? So what tell me more you know what there's a lot of people understand their salvation just that they're a pardon They're pardoned that's it. They're pardoned, but that's that's not the whole story What if Lee Harvey Oswald stuck his gun out of Dallas school book depository window killed the president of the United States Jackie Kennedy could have said I pardon you to that man. Is that Christianity?
Jackie Kennedy could have pardoned that man, but I'll tell you what she would never do what people don't do and And this is what the gospel speaks up What if she just said to Lee Harvey Oswald? I don't only pardon you I want you to come and live in my family. I want you to come and be a part of my life I want us to be the tight the tightest closest possible friend I I don't just pardon you for what you did I'm reconciling us in relationships so that we are the dearest closest A personal friend. That's what the gospel said. That's what Jesus Christ does for us. He doesn't just take our sins away He sees that we're adopted and the God's family so that we're right with him Right I mean pardon pardon shmarden, you know you get out of the jail and it's a great thing You're released you're released from jail, but you may never even meet the people you victimized right You might never be restored to relationship with them. You might never that's what Christianity is It's it's not just God taking away our sins. It's welcoming us into his family where he makes us his own children And he says you're precious to me That's the gospel is that is that I put my faith in in Jesus um, I rest on Jesus and what he's done and not what I do or what I contribute Coulson was in India to press conference and the and the reporters there were praising prison fellowship This worldwide ministry to societies throw away prisoners and one of the reporters said we love your prison ministry But we hate your religion We are so offended by your exclusiveist views that say Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation and coulson asked What do you think of mother Teresa And the reporter said we adore her And he said why because she cares for the dying he said why do you think she cares for the dying the reporter said because she's a great humanitarian And coulson said she cares for the dying Because Jesus Christ cares for her It's because of Jesus Christ personal relationship with her It's because Jesus Christ came and rescued me from my sin and reconciled me to a personal relationship with God the Father That we care for prisoners and we care for the dying. It's because of faith in Jesus And only Jesus They got that you want to be right with God To put your faith in Jesus you stop trying to be good You stop trying to keep the laws you stop trying to fix yourself up You stop trying to reform yourself And you realize all that's been done for you by Jesus It's a free gift and you receive it now who's eligible to receive it Who's eligible to become a Christian who's eligible to be made right with God what does the Bible say Romans 3 22 the righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all Who believe there is no distinction Doesn't matter if God does all the work and provides what we need to be right before God it really doesn't matter how flawed we are It doesn't matter if you're really a great person or you're really a scum Jesus is providing the whole picket. He's paying the whole freight So it doesn't matter whether you're penniless or whether you're rich. It really doesn't matter doesn't Everybody's eligible I'm gonna mash something do you believe in your heart believe the gospel can change anyone or have you stopped believing that Now and I'll actually understand we'll say oh yeah God can change anybody But do you really believe you might change your neighbor or your husband Do you really think you might change your parents or your kids or if you're given up
And honest and truth do you really believe the power of the gospel is so great That it can penetrate the hardest heart if Jesus does it all Then anybody's eligible I had a friend who said um He was blundering his way through ministry been a minister 10 or 15 years and nobody's life ever changed And he was perfectly content with that He was matter fact he was in a Wednesday night prayer meeting when When he said God can change anybody's life when a guy stood up and said you don't believe that And nobody in this church believe that we've never seen anybody ever changed here And he was so distressed of course he defended himself Defended the church But he said I got in my car and I drove home that night and I had to ask We know we really haven't ever seen anybody change here Maybe maybe I don't believe that So he didn't go home he drove to the local dairy queen And he um were a motorcycle gang hung out And he walked up to the toughest roughest leader of the gang And he told him that Jesus loved him
six months later He was converted And he married the pastor's daughter and he's a PCA pastor today
I want to tell you something for a good part of my ministry I didn't believe the Jesus could change anybody. Oh, I believed it intellectually. I'm not that dumb I just didn't really act like I believe it
You don't know how hard it is to be a pastor and see other people change to see other people join the church Other people falling in love with Jesus But not seeing yourself change. I want to tell you something that I believe in the power of the gospel I have more confidence in the gospel. I am more excited to tell people about Jesus today than I have ever been in my ministry And it's not because I see him changing other people. I've always seen that It's because I see him changing The hardest heart in the room It's falling under the love of God If he can change me if he can change my marriage Some day I'll tell you that story that he can change anybody And I want to tell you something if you don't want to be changed don't come around here Because it's dangerous Because the gospel is going for us and the love of God will grip the unsuspecting
Now there's a big problem though and we'll kind of wrap it up with this There's a big problem There's a big problem with God looking at people like you and I and saying that we're righteous. What's that?
We're not It's called justice Old Testament God's telling judges don't you dare tell guilty people. They're not guilty Don't you dare declare the guilty righteous don't you dare declare the innocent guilty you must be just Judges and we turn around the New Testament and God's calling people like you and I righteous How can a just God declare you and I to be Pure and holy and without sin Now you might say I don't really care. I just want you know Let me tell you do care You want justice we want justice don't we? Everybody in this room deep in our hearts. We want justice When Bert and manual catches a pass with one minute left in the NFC championship game against the St. Louis Rams And he catches the ball and it's mark a catch and some fozo in the In the replay booth decides that he didn't catch the ball We throw our popcorn ball in the air, you know We wrestle our 30 pound overweight frame off the couch and with all our jiggling we demand what Justice you know up with his head We want justice somebody smashes into your car and they're brought to the judge and the judge says case of Ross
You know, this is a tough world blackout You know, you're not getting a dime We don't want that right somebody takes what's ours. We want justice somebody rates Your daughter you don't want him to go to a judge who says everybody makes mistakes try to do better With all our hearts. We want justice But we also want one Mercy Mercy the courtroom
The judge was sentencing the 20-year-old boy for a heinous crime He was caught he was guilty he deserved it The judge was delivering a stern lecture was about the levies the sentence When the calm of the courtroom was interrupted by the plaintive cry Of the boy's father a father who But didn't see a criminal up there. He saw a toddler that he used to rock to sleep A father who saw you know a little boy who he used to read to in bed at night The father saw a little boy used to play catch with at the ballfield And now his little boy was headed to the penitentiary and so he cried out in pain And the judge respectfully hesitated just a moment while the father composed himself And then he pronounced the harshest sentence possible We want both Dads to be dads don't we and love their kids no matter what And we want judges to be just
So what do we do with God a god who can't just say i'm going to pretend you didn't sin because he's a judge But a god who can't just hammer us for our sins because he's a dad So where do the two meet the justice and mercy of god meet at the cross At the cross where god as judge levies the sentence So that all your sin and iniquity and transgression is punished It all falls on Jesus Don't you dare think that god ever looked at any of your sins and said We'll just let that go The just judge has never let anything go
But he himself bears The punishment for sending your older brother Jesus
He's a loving father He's a just judge he has the just and the justifier
A lot of people say how could god love me look at my sins and god would say what then Do you understand that if you're in price that god cannot judge you It wouldn't be what just Yes What protects you for all eternity the love of god or the Justice of god What protects you from all eternity? Your sins have already been paid for Christ was the propitiation for your sins God's just he can't punish you for what he's already was already been punished and paid for it's already been sentenced the sentence was passed There is no way god can look at you and condemn you It would be unjust and if there's anything that's true about god. He's He's just You're protected eternally by the justice of god
Beautiful thing Now what's all this means When you come to the end of Romans chapter three He says the end result is that nobody if our salvation is something that god does completely for us Nobody can what Verse 27 where then is boasting Here we get the ludicrous notion of a proud christian Where then is boasting if if Christ has done it all what do you have to boast about
Paul says I'm a Jew of Jew I'm a member of the sandhedrin as to the law You know, I am a zealous the keeper of the law is anybody and Paul just recounts all his credentials and then he says what I counted all as All my credentials I counted as Yeah crap that's it. There's another word for it. We don't say that word in church, but that's the word the Bible uses That's what it's worth. That's what all my boasting is worth all mine all that stuff. That's what it's worth He says I counted all as worthless that I might be found in Christ not possessing a righteousness of my own But a righteousness is given to me and received by faith That's what counts. I love the story the little boy is um Trying to fall asleep and it's thundering and lightning on the whole house is shaking And he says to his mom mom would you sleep in bed with me tonight Mom says no, he said why not and she said I've I've got to sleep in daddy's bed When she gets up to leave she hears him say under his breath that big just the Every malady known command is because we are separated from God and because we are separated from God We are frightened and we are insecure and so every person has to come up with a strategy for how they will walk out into the world and function with confidence I will put my confidence in my academic my mind. I will put my confidence in my appearance I will put my confidence in my business acumen. I will put my confidence in my money. I will put my confidence in my personality. I will put my confidence in either in myself or I will rest my confidence in Jesus and that he covers me and I appear before God righteous and holy and pure and acceptable now and forever. Do you know what that does? It allows you to be amazingly authentic before people
Last night I was walking up a preach and I saw an email in my box and I picked it up and I read it from my sister-in-law She told me about a son of hers that's struggling so much. She went and observed him at school this week And because he has some autistic characteristics He's totally outside the circle of all the other kids. He's totally rejected. He's mocked
and and when kids react to him or say things to him His condition is such as that he hears them and in his mind he has a response but he can't get it out So he totally walks up and he freezes up and he's such the object of their mocking That he's withdrawing more and more until himself and it's in And people are said there has to be an intervention soon because he's seeking a sinking into a horrible depression
She said, you know early in his life We fear he had a brain tumor. This is nothing compared to what he's going through now
And then she said the thing that pierced me to the core She said Dean That's her husband. That's my brother Dean experienced this when he was a child
Who do you think he experiences from?
Who do you think didn't want to be around their brother because he was so weird My brother and I were in the same grade from second grade through high school Who do you think did everything to disguise the fact that he was my brother Who do you think mocked? Dean Because he couldn't get his words out
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus You see the gospel makes you begin to be able to admit the truth about yourself That I was the tormentor of my own brother And I gotta go to my brother. I don't think I've ever owned up to that I don't think I even thought about it I've got to go to my own brother and say Will you forgive me? Because I made your child to the hell
There's a refreshing authenticity that comes with the gospel of freedom to start admitting the truth about yourself You know why? Because it's got nothing none of that truth. I just told you separates me from God I'm not right with God because I've ever been good a day in my life. I'm right with God because The righteousness of Jesus is given to me This is the fruit. There's no boasting anymore. You can start being absolutely honest about who you are And one last thing you can It if you realize the righteousness of Christ makes you right with God. It yields the most incredible loyalty
Friend had a dog. It was a German shepherd. It was a grand champion. He got it as a pup I mean, it was sired by a grand the Canadian grand champion There's a regal beast Came home the pup five months old and his head was fallen to twice its size He figured it's Riding on the driveway rush the dog to the bed. He figured it's gotten snas and uh, you know a hornet's nest or something But the bet found the puncture wounds of a copperhead And said this dog will not live. They pumped it with anti-toxins and antibiotics And after a couple weeks this something inside this This purebred dog You know rallied and survived it came to take the dog home and they were not prepared for what they found And the crosses had set in and the dog's face had rotted away They're open exposed sinuses and and and the muscle tissue and the whole thing And they said they set up a recovery kind of room out in their garage the stench of the dog and rotting flesh was so great They couldn't stomach it when they had to put the stab on the dog he said he put the plastic gloves on and get the stab They had to rub on the dog's wounds and he said he would just you know Heave when he would try to do it so repulsed was he by the whole experience And he had two months went by and the dog became well It's face healed over with his leathery black Twisted tissue that rendered this dog truly the ugliest creature But I want to tell you something never a closer bond between man and dog This dog went with his owner hunting when this man went to work He was a teacher a lecturer the dog sat at his feet at the lectern The dog went with him everywhere the dog went to his office and sat with him all day under his death The dog slept in their room at night The the wounded dog had had had a devotion and a loyalty To the one who was able to look through its ugliness And find it valuable Brothers and sisters that dog Out of the eyes We've got tangled up with the snake once a long time ago didn't we And it rendered us ugly and wounded and broken
With somebody with a love soft through it all rubbed the stab of the gospel On our hearts and it ought to produce the people who would like to do nothing but fit at their master's feet That's the gospel you haven't lived Until you're right with God