Justified by Grace

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I'm going to ask you a couple of questions, and I just want you to answer them in your own head. These are some questions to think about as we begin. Would you describe your life with God as joyful, or would you describe it as drab and dreary, or perhaps somewhere in the middle? Do you feel like you are unforgiven? The experience where your past rises up and overwhelms you. Maybe you wonder if God really does love you, or at least loves you as much as people like me are always on about. They're good questions to think about. I want to say to you, the Bible passage tonight speaks directly into those questions.

We are looking at Romans chapter 3:21-26 in particular. I'm going to read it again for you:

"But now a righteousness from God apart from law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice because in his forbearance He had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus Christ."

There is a commentary on Romans written by a scholar whose name is Douglas Moo, and he devotes 225 pages to this little passage. We only have a few hours together tonight, but I'll do my best in those hours.

The Black Cloth and the Jewel
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I want to think about this passage under two headings. The first heading is the black cloth. And the second heading is the jewel that's called grace. What am I talking about? I was walking through Martin Place during the week, and I walked past a store called Cartier. You know it, it's a high-level jewellery store in Martin Place, George Street in Martin Place. I noticed as I walked past, there was a queue outside the door. I thought, that's unusual, isn't it? I figure that there is a bit of a waiting list to shop at Cartier. Maybe it's one of these shops where they don't like a lot of people inside, so they keep the crowds outside, and they just let them in one by one. But traditionally, it's the custom to place the jewel against a black cloth background. The reason people do that is because the jewel looks more beautiful and more lustrous against a black background.

In chapter 1 to 3 of Romans, Paul is outlining what I'm going to call the black background. Because in chapters 1 to 3, he concludes that no one is right before God. This is not a pleasant thing to talk about, but we need to talk about it. He says, "No one is right before God". No one. And what the apostle is doing is he's bush bashing his way through a legal argument. And in that, he says, there are four groups of people that are on the wrong side of God. Four groups of people. The really unnerving thing is that each of us fit into one of the categories.

If you look at verse 9, he says, "We've already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are on the wrong side of God.". The modern-day Gentile is the person who ignores God. Modern Australia is full of people like that, just ignore God. It's not that they disagree with him necessarily, it's just they don't really think too much about him. So if you are someone who would call yourself an agnostic, in chapter 1:18-32 over the page, Paul is dealing with this person. The person who says, "I don't know God, so how can I be expected to believe in him?". Paul says, "You got plenty of information. You can see, you can hear, you can smell, you can taste, you can touch the world around you, and God has his stamp all over it.". In fact, the apostle says, we hide from God. We ignore God. The knowledge is there. God's given the knowledge, and that's very kind of him to do that. But what we do is, we'd rather ignore it or turn away from it. Maybe you might think to yourself, that's not such a big deal. After all, God is God, and He should be big enough to deal with that. However, if God is a person, that is, He is personal, then it's a big deal. If God is a person, and He is God, and He's given us plenty of information about himself, then we are going to be in strife if we just ignore Him because He's given us all the information we need. So that's the first person.

He also talks about the Jews. The modern-day equivalent of the Jewish person that's being spoken of here, I would say, is the person who tries everything they can to be right with God via various religious systems. If you're the person who says, "Look, I'm better than most people, I do my best,". I think that person is covered by chapter 2:1-6. I'm going to summarise it for you. The person Paul is speaking about says, "I'm better than most people, I do my best.". And God says, "You don't even reach your own standards, let alone my standards. Your own standards condemn you. You live by your conscience.". Well, that sounds very good, but who does that perfectly? Who honestly lives by their conscience? We can always find people worse than us. You see these people on the news all the time, and you think, "Well, I'm not as bad as that.". But Paul would say, your standard is too low. You've lowered your standards. If you're the person who says, "I'm quite a religious person. I don't steal, I don't lie, I keep the commandments.". It's like he would be saying, "What parallel universe are you living in?".

The law that's being spoken of here, and he talks about the law. The law is like a mirror. It's meant to hold up to you what you're really like. When you look into the law of God, you're meant to see yourself and realise that you need help. That's what mirrors are like. You get up in the morning, stumble to the bathroom, look in the mirror, and the mirror says, "You need help.". It can't shave you, it can't wash your face, it can't do anything like that. It just says, "You need help.". And that's what the law of God is meant to show us: that we need help. We can't keep it. God's standards are meant to cause us to say, "I can't do this.".

Well, they're the first three types of people. And if you think you've escaped so far, the final group is the whole human race. So as long as you're in that particular set, then this is true for you. Paul brings it all together in chapter 3:19, which is the beginning of that passage that was read for us. It goes like this. Verse 19, halfway down page 114: "Now we know that whatever the law says it says to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.". In other words, he's saying that the whole world is accountable to God. The person who thinks that one day they're going to meet God, and they're going to give God a piece of their mind, and they're going to tell God exactly why they never believed in him, and why they were never a Christian, and why they did what they did. He says that those people, like all people, will be speechless on that day. And everyone will agree that God has done a perfect job. And no one will stand up and say, "That's unfair, you're being unfair.".

And that means that God is not going to pat me on the head and say, "There, there, it doesn't matter.". He's not going to look at my life and say, "Well, you tried hard, but there, there, it doesn't really matter.". Because if He says it to me, it doesn't really matter, to be fair, He's got to say it to everyone, Hasn't He? He can't just say to me, "Well, it just doesn't really matter." He's got to say, "It doesn't matter," to everyone. And that is a horrible thought. Because if He says, "It doesn't matter," to me and to everyone, then it means that nothing really matters. All the terrible things that you've heard about and seen done in the world, they just don't matter. Auschwitz and Birkenau doesn't matter, and the Ukraine doesn't matter, and Kashmir doesn't matter, and Gaza doesn't matter. Nothing matters if he can just say, "Don't worry about it." Nothing matters. We know that justice is often not done in this life. We know that there are people who seem to do awful things and just get away with it. We know that's true in this life. But if justice is never done, that's a terrible, terribly horrible thought. But God will uphold justice because that's what God does. He will uphold justice. Right and wrong means something to God. That's the backdrop. That's the black cloth.

The Jewel of Grace
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But God has acted. And this, my friends, is the jewel. This is the jewel of grace. See verse 21. "But now a righteousness from God apart from law has been made known". The righteousness that we can have comes from God. See verse 21, "a righteousness from God". And then verse 22, "this righteousness from God". In other words, God's solution is to give us right standing with him. To give it as a gift. It's freely given. That's what it says. God gives us right standing. He says, "This person will be treated as right with me, and God will declare it.". Says in verse 21, it's been made known. See the second half of verse 21, "It may not have been known before, but now it has been made known".

And then verse 22, "this righteousness from God comes through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ". In other words, Jesus Christ does for us what we can't do for ourselves. He gives us the righteousness that belongs to him, and he gives it to us. He gives it to all who believe. He gives it freely. So it is a gift.

And the heart of it is in verses 23, 24, and 25. Have a look at those. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". That's us, that's the summary. "But verse 24, they are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in His blood.".

There are three words there that are crucial. Justified, redeemed, atoned. Justified, redemption, atonement. I'm going to try and make it simple and summarize it. Imagine you come home late one night, and you start looking to see what's on TV. You don't want to watch anything in particular, just everything in general. You sit there, and you start changing from channel to channel, and you see different bits of different films or shows. You change to one channel, and you come across a picture of a law court. There is the judge. He's about to bring down a sentence on the person who is there. Then you change channels, and you're taken back to a slave market, and there is a person there who is chained and is about to be sold into slavery. And then you change the channel again, and you go to the temple, and you see someone who's about to pay in their own blood. Pretty grizzly picture.

Now imagine yourself, you're in that film, you're in those scenes yourself. It's you there. You're there in the law court. Plainly, you are guilty. You know you're guilty. Everybody knows you're guilty. The case has been made against you successfully. And you're waiting for the perfect judge to say, "Guilty," and sentence you. And then all of a sudden, Christ steps in and says, "I'll take your place". And he goes into the dock, and you go free, and the sentence falls on him.

And you're in the slave market, and you are there, and it's a particularly awful scene, and you're about to be sold into slavery. You're chained up, and Christ steps in and says, "I'll step in for this person". And he's chained up, and you go free.

Or you're in the temple, and you're about to pay in your own blood. And Christ steps in and says, "I'll give my life". And you go free.

And the Apostle Paul says, he gathers the three pictures together. He says, "At the cross, Jesus paid for it all. Jesus achieved the rescue at the cross. You who is clearly guilty goes free. You who are a slave to sin goes free. You who has to pay with your own life goes free. Can you see what a jewel this is?".

Receiving the Gift
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How do you get it? Are you just born this way? Some people are born into this experience? No. Does it come to you through church? No. Do you work for it? Of course, you can't work for it. How do you get this? It's through faith.

I want to say something about faith because a lot of people misunderstand faith. Some people think of faith as some gland in your body, and some people have a lot of it, and some people don't have much. Some have overactive faith, and some are underactive. But faith is nothing like that. Faith is just an empty, weak hand that is grasped by a bigger and stronger hand and carried through. Faith is a little boy trying to cross a deep river, and he's carried over. If I could describe it in one synonym, it would be dependency. It's depending.

And it's not even a very religious word because we exercise our faith all the time. When you came in here tonight, and you sat in the seat, you didn't have to look to see, "Is this structurally sound? Will this hold me?". You didn't check to see whether it's strong enough. You just sat on the seat. You exercised your faith in the seat. You said, "This will hold me.". When you're driving home tonight, and the light goes red, you put your foot on the brake. You know the brake will stop you. You don't think to yourself, "Will it work or not?" You know it will work. You exercise your faith in the brake pedal. When you get sick, you go to the doctor, and the doctor says, "You need to do this and this and this," or, "Take this medication," and you just trust the doctor because you have faith in the doctor. You know the doctor is a good doctor.

Faith is only as good as its object. If it's a good object, then things are going to work just fine. And it's the same with Christ. Having your faith in Christ is not blind. It's not silly or stupid. It's completely sensible. If what he has done on the cross is dependable, then your faith is well-placed. And it's a gift. It comes freely.

Can you imagine being given a gift and not actually taking it or not unwrapping it? Someone gave me a 1 kilogram Easter egg. I'll tell you what, I had that unwrapped very quickly. Can you imagine getting a gift and not unwrapping it? I mean, it's crazy. It's sitting there under the tree. "What did you think of it?" "Oh, I haven't unwrapped it yet." "Wait another week." "What do you think of the gift?" "I haven't unwrapped it yet." If you never actually unwrap it or take it, what's the point of receiving it?

Let me ask you, have you picked up the gift? Well, how would I do that? Seems to me from this passage, it's by expressing your faith in Jesus Christ. How would I do that? Well, you might say to him, "Thank you for what you've done for me. From now on, I'm going to depend on you. I'm going to depend on you and what you've done for me in dying and rising."

Have you picked up the gift? You'd be crazy not to have picked it up. But for those of us who have picked it up, can I just ask you for a moment to reflect on the fact that in God's eyes, it's as if you've never done anything wrong. In God's eyes, you are completely right with him. So rejoice in that. Turn it over in your mind. Revel in it in your quiet moments. Ponder what this means. Go home tonight knowing that wherever and whoever you are, God sees you as perfect, a perfect person in Christ. And when you hear that voice in your head that says, "Well, that can't be true for you. You're such a hypocrite. How can you say you believe these things?" Don't listen to that little voice in your head. Listen to what God says to you. Because God says you are right in his sight.

You are pure. You're in the right with God because of what Jesus has done. You are totally acceptable to God. Can you imagine turning up on that last day and turning up into heaven, and the voice says, "What are you doing here?" And you say, "Well, I've got a certificate here." "Oh yeah, what's the certificate say?" The certificate says, "The bearer of this certificate is right with God." "Oh yeah, where'd you get the certificate from?" "I got it from the Lord Jesus Christ." "Okay. Well, if he's given it to you, that's okay by me. How much did it cost you to get it?" "It didn't cost me anything." "Oh well, if he wants to give it away, that's his business. Come on in."

Have you picked up the gift? You'd be crazy not to pick it up. If you have, reflect on what it means. It's an absolute treasure. Absolute jewel.

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