Romans 3:21–26

[0:00] Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah.

[0:15] ! It is wonderful that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for us that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself?

[0:32] The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, we really, I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the Bible, they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will do what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a non-Christian, checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to send us questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of things that you're really struggling with. So God bless.

[1:12] Let's bow our heads for prayer. Father, Father, you know very well that sometimes your Word comes to us and we don't like it, and we actually think, Father, that it's unworthy of you. But Father, you know the true need of our human condition. And you speak the truth to us knowing that we desperately need it.

[1:43] And so we ask, Father, that you would soften our hearts to both be honest with you about how we feel and how we respond to this. But most of all, that you would open our hearts that we might receive your wise and beautiful, good and healing Word into our lives to form us. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen. Please be seated.

[2:09] You know, sometimes when I talk about things like this, I know that there are people, very lucky, blessed people, who have no idea what I'm talking about because that's not something they've ever experienced, or at least not experienced for longer than about a second. But there are many people in this city and probably many people in this church, maybe even right now today, who labor under and in fact are crushed by anger, anger that condemns. We go through each day with a voice in our head or on our shoulders speaking into our ear, words of very strong condemnation that come with that emotion of anger. And we live our days with that. At times, maybe through alcohol or video games or shopping or something like that or some other activity, it gets a bit silenced, but it's a little bit like my tinnitus, which I have in my right ear, which is always there. I might not always notice it, but sometimes I do.

[3:17] But we go through life day by day or for a very long season under a crushing burden of angry condemnation temptation at what we've done or not done or should have done. And the Bible texts that we're going to look at today, on one hand, in case you're curious, if you're a bit nerdish, many theologians say that the book of Romans is the most important book in the Bible. And those same theologians will usually say that the paragraph that we're going to look at today is the most important paragraph in the most important book in the Bible. But in this important paragraph in the important book of Romans is actually God's profound good news for all sorts and conditions of people, but especially for those of us who have labored or are still laboring under that heavy sense of condemnation and anger. So it would be a great help to me and a great help to you if you would open your Bibles. The text will be up on the screen, but it's good to have your own Bible. And we're looking at Romans chapter 3, verses 21 to 26.

[4:26] Romans chapter 3, verses 21 to 26. And just before we get into it, this book is written around the year 57 AD. There's so many historical references in the book of Acts and other letters and early documents that we can place it to probably being written in 57.

[4:47] So that's 24 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. It's written by a man who is an actual witness to the fact that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. And the flow of the book is he sort of gives some greetings. Then he gives this profound thesis of the whole book that the gospel is the power of God for salvation for all who believe that in it, God makes people right with himself in a way that is always just. And after he's made that declaration from chapter 1, verse 18 to chapter 3, verse 20, he sells the problem. He tries to describe to us what the true human condition is, and that if we understand what the true human condition is, then we'll realize why we need the power of God for salvation that comes in the gospel. That's how the book is flowed. And so this is the beginning paragraph that's going to get into what is the gospel and how is it that it deals with the human condition.

[5:44] Why is it profoundly good news that we can't just receive with our mind, but has to come with God's transforming and transformative power? Why is it that that's what we need? And so that's what we're going to get into. But just before we read verse 21, we're actually going to read verse 20. That's sort of the end of that selling the problem text, and here's how it goes. And we need to do that.

[6:06] You'll see why we need to go there, just to remind us. In verse 20, it goes, for by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. Okay, what is all that theological language? It's very, very simple.

[6:19] Last week, I used the example of a CT scanner because I had had a bit of a cancer scare, a possibility that I had a cancerous tumor in my lung. And when I had the CT scan, the CT scan revealed that the x-rays had been not, they weren't clear enough, but the CT scan, which was clear, showed that I revealed more clearly that I didn't have a tumor. And what Paul is saying here, amongst other things, excuse me, is that the more you get to know right and wrong, the more moral clarity you grow into, the greater your moral clarity, what moral clarity does is reveal to you your true condition. But that's all that it can really do. It's impossible to try to keep that moral law, especially as you come to greater moral clarity, to be made right with God. So the analogy would be, let's say I had gotten the bad news that I did have a cancerous tumor, after there's obviously biopsies, etc. And then if I was to say to the doctor, okay, that's very good. That CT scan seems fantastic.

[7:26] Just keep putting me in the CT scan until I'm healed. The doctor would say, no, no, you don't understand. The CT scan doesn't heal you. All it does is reveal what's going on inside of you, but it doesn't heal you. And that's how we should understand increasing moral clarity just reveals the state of our souls. And that state of the soul is that by doing good things, we can never do enough good things to make ourselves right with God. And that's the bad news. And so now we come to the beginning of our paragraph, verse 21, and it begins with this wonderful word, but. And if I was doing Bible versions, I would make that print double its normal size, and I would bold it, because it's a big but. It's going in a completely different direction. It's don't be depressed, don't despair, because there's hope. I didn't just say all of these things to you so I would leave you down in the dumps for the rest of your life. No, there's hope. And that's what he continues on with in verse 21. But now, but, whoa, now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. Well, what on earth does that mean? It's all sort of more technical language. And what it means is this. When the original people, and this has been translated into English, the people who heard this originally, there's a double sense of righteousness of God. And they would have heard both senses. And in some cases, they might decide it means one of those two senses. But in other cases like this, they would recognize that Paul meant both sentences at the same time, that he chose his words very carefully. So what he's saying is, when he says the righteousness of God, it means two things. He said, I'm going to tell you how the gospel, the good news about Jesus, reveals that God is always right and good and just. Some Christians used to say God is good, and their response would be, that's right, God is good all the time. All the time,

[9:34] God is good, right? And you could all just say that God is just all the time. All the time, God is just. It's the same type of thing. And the gospel is going to reveal. He never stops that whatsoever to deal with making you right with him. But the other thing is that he makes you right. That's the double sense. On one hand, this message of what God has done in Jesus has both revealed that God is just and good and all the time, always. On the other hand, not the other hand, and also at the same time, he has done what is needed to make human beings right with himself. This is something that God does for human beings in the person of Jesus. So it says, but now the righteousness of God, and when it says been manifested, that just means is now seen and actualized, made real. And he says that what this is, is the law and the prophets bear witness to it. So what he's really saying here is, and what I'm going to tell you is, I'm not going to tell you a new moral set of moral rules. It's not in that direction that I'm bringing greater clarity to morality. Although, he says, as an aside, if you go back and you read what our Jewish friends call, sometimes they call it the Torah, the Tanakh, he'll say, all of those things are pointing to this, what I'm about to tell you all of the time. I'm telling you something that has been known to the Jewish people for a long, long, long time, 1,500 years, depending on how you view when the Old Testament started to get written. So what is it? You know, what is it that's, you know, he's implying that it's not a new morality or a new ritual or a new technology. He begins to tell you in verse 22, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. So I have something like sort of stuck in my throat.

[11:31] The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Now, in the original language, that word belief, believe, and that word faith are actually the same word. So he's saying the same thing twice to show you that this is actually very, very important, that God is going to do something to make you right with him, and he's going to do it in such a way that it's right for you, but it's going to be upside down, back to front, and inside out. And it's going to be something that you receive by faith, not by being better at doing good things, but by faith or believing. And what that word means is a type of personal trust, a giving of yourself to trust in something or someone to do something. It's a very human thing. We trust all the time or don't trust all the time. And this is part of the really, really good news. It's not about being able to have a very high intellect, high IQ, being able to accomplish a whole pile of things, that how we receive what God does for us is something that involves us putting our trust into him and into what he's done. Now, here's the thing about faith or trust. What really matters in trust and faith isn't the amount of faith or trust you have, although that matters sometimes, but what you're trusting in. So we all probably in coffee time could tell stories about maybe our daughter or our friend or our kid's friend or our sister or a mother or whatever.

[13:20] And she put all her faith and trust into a man who turned out to be a terrible scoundrel, who ruined her life. Now, she went into that, falling in love with him and trusting him with high faith, high trust, but it was in a terrible person and it ruined her life. And on the other hand, you can have somebody who has a fear of flying and they need to go to Vancouver to see their friend and they have the space between my finger and my thumb. That's how much faith they have that the airplane will actually get there safely. But they get on the plane and it's worth, good thing they had that trust in the plane because they get to Vancouver.

[14:07] You see, so on one hand, what it's going to say is that God has done something to make you right with him and it's not going to involve new morality or new rituals or anything like that. It's going to be something that you trust into and it doesn't really matter so much if your trust is small or big, but it matters that you put your trust in something that God has done for you and that's what's going to make you right with him.

[14:33] And it's going to be upside down in the sense that it involves God coming down to do something. We normally, by our normal way of thinking about how religion and spirituality works, is we think it's all about us achieving or reaching out or accomplishing something going from down to up, but this good news is something that God has done. It comes down to us and it's going to be back to front because we tend to think that if we're going to be made right with God, I need to stop drinking as much and I need to stop maybe doing drugs as much and I need to maybe lose a couple of pounds and I need to try to get my credit card debt down a little bit and then maybe I can go to church and I need to learn a few prayers and we think we do that and then eventually God will be right with God and the gospel message is going to be back to front. It begins with being made right with God and then when you've made right with God, then you're going to start to figure out how to deal with your weight. I mean, by the way, God has no view on your weight whatsoever. I mean, that's one of those things in our culture we get really guilty about. The Bible's silent on what your body mass index should be. That's the world beating us up, not the Bible beating us up, okay? But, you know, whatever it is, you know, money, debt, all those things, you know, we get made right with God and then we go to the front and it's going to be inside out because one of the things Jesus describes this transformation when you put your trust in what God has done in the person of Jesus, it's that you're born again or you're adopted or as we're going to see that you're made right with God or that you've been redeemed out of slavery or something like that and it comes inside and then it begins to move from that transformation inside of you into different areas of your life and how your mind thinks and how your memories work and your affections and your will, but it's inside out. It's something that God does for you. It's going to be something that God does for you and it's not a natural process. It's not a natural process. It's something supernatural that God does. Why? Well, Paul's going to remind us of what he's tried to establish in verses 118 to chapter 3 verse 20. Look what he says in the first part of verse 23.

[16:57] Three, a very, not first, all of verse 23. It's very, very pithy and powerful. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Just before that in verse 22, it says, for there is no distinction. It doesn't matter if you're Jewish, not Jewish. It doesn't matter if you're black or white or Asian or, you know, indigenous or Inuit. It doesn't matter.

[17:25] But your sexual orientation, it doesn't matter about any of those things. There's no distinction. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And it describes two things, and they're both very wonderful. And the first thing is this word sin, which our culture thinks of as being sort of a thing to joke about, you know, about being a sinner and all. But it's actually a very, very wonderful, wonderful, wonderful word because it brings in the personal aspect of us being separated and broken from God. It's that we don't live in an impersonal moral universe, but a personal moral universe, because it was created and sustained by a personal God. And so the laws of nature are impersonal. You get onto the top of this roof and you step over the side. The laws of nature are impersonal.

[18:12] You will fall probably to your death, but if you don't die, to your great ruination of your body. You're completely impersonal. And moral laws are often viewed, when you think of karma, when you think of all of these things, you think of impersonal moral processes. But this is reminding you that there's a personal aspect, that I have told, I have in a sense given God the finger. I tell him to keep to himself. I decide what I'm going to do. I decide what I'm not going to do. I decide what's right. I decide what's wrong. I have violated this primary relationship with my creator, and that's described as sin. Now, there could be some debate about this over coffee. You know, we increasingly, you know, there's more and more movies about AI killing machines and all of that type of stuff.

[19:00] AI will never become conscious. It'll just do whatever its programmers program it to do to look like consciousness. It's just a complicated machine that can do math equations quickly and do algorithms, but it's impersonal. And would you rather run afoul of a machine of breaking a rule or of a person?

[19:27] Now, some of you might say it depends on the person, and that's a fair comment. Some people are really evil. But by and large, if we had a choice between running afoul of breaking a moral rule and that the machine inflicts some type of consequences or a person, we would choose the person. Always choose the person. Because with the person, there's maybe hope of mercy. None with the machine. And so this word sin is a very important and very beautiful word. It's telling us that all of these other things that we do that are wrong, another way to understand them is a breaking of a relationship with a personal God. It's sin. And if it's with God, maybe there is hope. And the other word, the other part of that sentence is really important, not often talked about, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And this is really, really, you know, if Paul was talking about how in the human condition, you can't do enough right things to make yourself right with God. It just doesn't work. And, you know, you might have, if you have doubts, go and listen to my old sermons over the last few verses. But the other thing is this. Human beings were made to inhabit and to drink in and feast our eyes on and drink and breathe glory. That's what we were meant for. We were meant to be filled with the glory of God, to reflect the glory of God, to have the glory of God inhabit our thoughts, to every day breathe in

[21:03] God's glory, drink in, feed on God's glory. And as we swim in his glory, live in his glory, partake of his glory, are filled with his glory, we just want more. And it is the end of our longings, the end of our yearning, and it is unbelievably pleasurable and joyful. That's why the Bible said that there are pleasures at his right hand. And what the Bible is saying is that when we turn from God and ignored him, that all of a sudden that whole inhabiting and dwelling of and partaking of glory left us.

[21:40] And if you think that giving some money to charity will fill you with God's glory, how on earth does that even work? Like on one hand, this is both terrible news, but you know, all of our human longings to have the right identity, to be authentic, and all of those things, those are like a reflection of a reflection of a reflection of a reflection of a reflection of a reflection of this basic understanding that we know that we were meant to inhabit and dwell in and with and partake of the glory of God. That's why I think it's C.S. Lewis who said that if we were to see a person, if God was for a moment, for one who is in the new heaven and the new earth, if that person was to come in here, we would worship that person as a God. Because they're so filled with the glory of God. We would mistake that person for God. So it's not a natural process. It's not a natural process. The natural process means that we sin and we fall short of the glory of God. But there's hope. Look at what he says in that same sentence, verse 24, sorry, 22b to, sorry, verse 24 in the first part of 25, where he says this, and are justified, so what he's going to do now is this, sorry, I should have said this. I'm standing beside these stained glass window pictures. They're from the church that we used to own. There was a very, if you came into the church that we used to own, that would be when you're sitting the pews, that would be what you would see at the very front of the church. And at the very, very heart of the Christian faith is what we see in the middle there, Jesus dying on a cross. And to the people who put him on the cross, it's a sign of their power. It's a sign of the glory of the Roman Empire.

[23:46] It's a sign that they can do what they want. It's a sign of how they can shame people. And it's a sign for Jewish people of how whoever dies on the cross is cursed by God. But we're going to see that his death upon the cross is actually this profound good news that makes us right with him. And what happens when Jesus dies on the cross is a mystery that we will spend all of eternity getting the different nuances and aspects of it correct. And in the Bible, the Bible uses at least a dozen different images that try to capture what actually is happening when Jesus dies on the cross.

[24:29] And so as he's going to go from this, the bad news of our natural processes to once again, what is this God has done to make us right with himself? He's going to give three images, three images or three metaphors of what it is in this profound mystery of what Jesus is doing and accomplishing as he dies on a cross. And that's what happens in this sentence. And here they are. I'll read the whole sentence and then I'll go back. Verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And we're in contrast, we are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. Three images.

[25:19] And the first one is this. The first image is that we are justified. That's the main image I've been using throughout the talk this morning. That we are made right. And it's not just being made right with God, but it's made right with God with a type of declaration by God. It's not a sort of, this is somehow or another, we put our faith in Christ and then we're made right with God and God never gets around to noticing until we die. But it's that, it's sort of a little bit like, you know, the story in the Gospels about the woman who's been troubled by bleeding for all the years and she's become poor.

[25:52] And she says, if I can just touch, if I can just touch the hem of his garment, I'll be healed. And she does. And Jesus knows that his, something has gone out from him and he looks around.

[26:03] And then he says, you know, the woman, how great your faith is. And that's the same type of idea. When we put our faith and trust in Christ, whatever it is that Christ has done to make us right with God comes to us. And it's as if God immediately notices and looks at George and said, well done, you're now mine. You're made right with me. I declare it and I won't change my mind.

[26:25] And that's what's going on in this, this first image of being made right. And we're going to look at that a lot more in the rest of Romans because he's going to really try to show different aspects of that. So I'm just going to not say any more on it right now, but notice it comes to us. This being made right with God comes, what does it say? By his grace is a gift. Both words are really important.

[26:44] And here's what, here's what grace is. So mercy, when somebody shows you mercy, if somebody, if my wife shows me mercy, what she has to do probably every week, at least, if she was here, she'd say, maybe it's every day, George, because I've done something and I need her to show me some mercy. Mercy means I don't get the bad consequences I deserve. Grace means both mercy. I don't get the bad consequences I deserve, but grace means I get a good result I don't reserve, deserve.

[27:13] Grace is greater than mercy, includes it, and it's greater. And so God is going to give us not only what we don't deserve, isn't what we deserve, it's not going to happen to us, he's going to give us something we don't deserve. That's grace. And it's all a gift. It's all a gift. We can do nothing, it's just pure gift. And that's going to be developed farther on. And then the second image is through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. So remember when I said that faith is putting our trust, and when we put our trust into God, we actually enter into Jesus. We're union with Jesus.

[27:51] And one of the things that happens in the union in Jesus, what's happening here, another way to understand this, and we're going to talk about this more in weeks to come because it happens later on in Romans. The redemption is an imagery that somebody pays the price for another person to be delivered from slavery into freedom. Someone pays a price for another person so that they will no longer be a slave but become free. And so for those of us who labor under slavery and bondage, this is a very powerful image that in Jesus you've been delivered from bondage and slavery, from addictions and fears into freedom in him. That's what's being accomplished on the cross. And now we come to the third one, and this is the one that talks about for those of us who labor under condemnation, angry accusations of punishment, and how bad we are, and how we deserve something far worse, and we live with this all the time, every day, and maybe we're in a season of that. So it's very long. Maybe it's as long back as we can remember. Maybe it's happening to us even today, and that's this third image speaks directly to it.

[29:05] Verse 25, whom God put forward, that's Jesus, he put Jesus forward as a propitiation by his blood, in other words, his death is important, to be received by faith. And propitiation is that God has a proper anger and intent in his proper anger to bring a penalty, a judgment and a penalty on the real sin or the real evil that you and I have done. And so that God has a proper anger, anger, and with that anger, there is a decision that a penalty will have to be inflicted upon you for the real wrong that you have done. And propitiation is this idea that all of that judgment and penalty and anger is done till there's nothing left. And God's anger, so to speak, is satisfied. It's proper justice has been done. Now, a lot of Christians go, whoa, this is profoundly unworthy of God.

[30:23] I mean, maybe especially in a day like today, because one of the things that marks North American life today is the algorithms which increase outrage.

[30:45] We live in an age of outrage. We see people just losing it all the time.

[30:59] And so when we hear this, we think, whoa, okay, George, this is really dangerous stuff and unworthy of God, because we immediately start to picture God being overwhelmed by anger, and then how could he be God, God, and driven by anger, and then how could he be God.

[31:14] But as I said before, if you think about it, would you rather be judged by a machine or by a personal being? And we'd all pick a personal being, unless that being was very evil. So, what I want to say, I'm going to give you an image to understand why this is actually a very, very important doctrine.

[31:33] And the longer I've been a Christian, the more beautiful and necessary I've seen it be. And God is never overwhelmed by anger, and he's never driven by anger.

[31:46] And he never loses it. He's never overwhelmed by any emotion or driven by it. But God, it's, by bringing in this idea of human emotion, it's helping to emphasize that there's a personal judgment which is being made.

[32:00] And God sees the wrong that's been done. He knows there's a need for a just punishment. And his anger describes not just his decision to do it, but in a sense that emotional reaction to evil.

[32:12] And you know that he's going to do it. And here's how we can maybe begin to enter into it. This is a version of an image I've used before. Imagine all of a sudden, God shows up in a very different, very obvious way.

[32:26] And I become frozen. And we have one of those moments, it's like an eternal moment, where we all become, in a sense, a bit frozen in time, suspended in time. And all of a sudden, as I'm frozen, up on that screen, begins to be listed and imaged all of the wrong things I have ever done in my life.

[32:44] That includes the things that I've actually done, and also the things that I should have done that I didn't do. All of them. And as it begins, it begins with just us here in the room.

[32:55] But as it goes, it begins to build. It goes back to the people I wronged when I was a child, and as a teenager, and in my 20s, and my 30s. It includes maybe some comment, a throwaway comment I meant about people, a comment that I made about people that I disagree with politically.

[33:12] And all of a sudden, they're in the room. Maybe it's something about how I judge drivers. And every driver that I've been judged, that I've judged, they appear in the room. And everything that I've thought, and everything that I've said, and everything that I've done, begins to be shown on that screen.

[33:26] And we're held in suspended animation. And we see, on and on and on again, every single thing that George has ever done and failed to do. And I'm completely stuck here.

[33:37] And we have this sense that the room grows and grows and grows and builds. And before you know it, because I've made disparaging thoughts in my mind, and hateful thoughts in my mind about all sorts of groups of people.

[33:48] And there's not just thousands. There's maybe hundreds of thousands of people. And you start to see all of the things that I've done and said. And you also know that here I am, a pastor, standing on my hind legs, respected by this congregation.

[34:01] And at first, you just say, well, that's not a big deal. And then you go, well, that's a big deal. Like, that's a big deal. Like, how dare he? That's really wrong. He thought that about me? He thought that about me again, again, again?

[34:13] And the anger of the room will build and build and build. And you will increasingly want to be saying something should be done to George. And George needs to pay for those wrong things that he has done.

[34:24] And the room will become more and more filled with a type of just, proper anger at what George has done. And George is standing here completely and utterly humiliated and defeated.

[34:38] And know that as all of these things go up, that even if I was to list some of the good things I do, then God will have merely shown the good things I did and the reasons I did them and how I thought about it afterwards.

[34:51] And I just become more and more unmade. And the anger in the room and the desire for justice becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And I just stand there hoping that it will finally come to an end and I will be put out of my misery.

[35:04] And finally, I think it's coming to an end and it still goes on. And it goes on and on and the room is filled with the anger. And then I finally realize that there's silence for a moment and the blow is about to fall. And I stand here completely and utterly stuck for the blow to fall.

[35:23] And I wake up. And I open my eyes. And I'm in a beautiful garden. The beauty of the garden takes my breath away.

[35:35] And I realize that the sun is just the perfect temperature. And the light is beautiful. And I realize that somehow or another the light actually seems to not just be beautiful but actually coming into me.

[35:51] And I feel a gentle breeze. And I start to realize that that gentle breeze is not just something that's so deeply pleasurable. But it's also somehow going in me. And I start to have a sense that that breath and that breeze is not just a breeze.

[36:07] But it's the Holy Spirit on my body and in my body. And that the light is actually the gaze of God, the Father, resting on me and going in me.

[36:20] And then I realize as I take my eyes away from the spectacular, gobsmacking beauty of the garden, that I don't wear any clothes. And that for the first time, people can see me as I really am down to the very depths.

[36:35] And for the first time in my life, I feel no shame and no guilt. And no condemnation. And I realize that I'm not just in a garden, but there's this sense of love.

[36:52] And I realize that for the first time in my life, I'm experiencing of the love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Holy Spirit and on and on this dance of love. And I finally turn to the side and I see the tree of life.

[37:10] And I also see the cross of Christ. And then I see him walking towards me with a smile, with the wounds still visible.

[37:23] And I know I'm home. And that rumbling sound that I would hear off and on is actually the God, the voice of God coming as a type of music that fills me and both fulfills the longings of my soul for beauty and goodness and makes me want evermore and know that there will be evermore.

[37:50] And I know, I know, I know. That that blow of condemnation that should have come on me went on him.

[38:04] And now I am home. Who does not need that? When you hear that, if you're here outside of Christ, don't you now wish that that was true?

[38:21] I'm here to tell you, it is true. That's why Paul's writing this. He saw the resurrected Jesus. It is true.

[38:32] And it's for you. And it is for me. Some of you might say, oh, and just here's, I'm going to talk a little bit about Jesus.

[38:44] We'll just finish the rest of the text, okay? Look at verse 25. Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, his justice, and his making right, because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins.

[39:01] What it means here doesn't mean that he forgot them or ignored them. He just, it's, he had patience with them. Verse 26, it was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and justifier of the ones who, of the one who has faith in Jesus.

[39:16] So what all of that means is this. This happened in the year 33 in early April, just outside of Jerusalem. That's when that happened.

[39:28] It happened in time and space and history. But because he is not only the new Adam, but God, the son of God, it's also an eternal and transcendent act that went back in time and forward in time and is accessible, imminent to every person.

[39:48] And so when we go to this new heaven and the new earth and we meet, we meet Deborah the prophetess. She's been made right by that act.

[39:58] When we meet King David, he's been made right by that act. When we meet Adam and Eve, they've been made right by that act. And if Christ tarries and God is kind to us and in heaven we meet our great grandchildren, they've been made right by that once for all act on a cross outside of Jerusalem in the year 33 in April.

[40:28] What shall we do? If you could put up the one, the first point, that would be very helpful. You need to receive the gospel and then preach the gospel to yourself and others.

[40:39] I mean, there's no better time than right now to say to God, the A, B, C, D, acknowledge that you need what Christ has won for you on the cross. Believe that he is able to give that to you.

[40:53] Consider that if you ask him to come into your life to be your savior and Lord, he really will and he's going to start changing your life. It might mean you lose some friends and you're going to gain some new ones.

[41:04] But consider that and then decide to do it and say right now, Jesus, I've never heard such beautiful news. I need that. I want that.

[41:15] I trust you. Be my savior and my Lord. And thank you that you've taken me. You need to receive the gospel and then preach the gospel to yourself and others.

[41:27] And what does it mean to preach the gospel to yourself? If you could put up, there's three things, A, B, and C. A. See, it's not just about thinking about this. Preaching your gospel to yourself involves like three sort of steps.

[41:40] The first one is that in your prayer time or maybe a quiet time or maybe go for a drive, you say to God, God, I've just heard this story about Jesus is my propitiation and I come before you, Father.

[41:54] I live under anger all the time. And I have to confess some of the reason people are angry at me, I have done wrong. I deserve it. And there's other things I don't even know what I've done.

[42:05] But, Father, I come to you because I know I've done some things wrong that creates this anger. And there's other things I don't even know. But I want to come before you acknowledging that I have, in fact, done these wrongs.

[42:17] And then the second thing is if you put up B, so A is confess your sin and your fear. B is thank Jesus for what he accomplished on the cross for you in terms of your sin and fear. So to say to him, so, Father, Jesus, Father, I know that I labor under this still.

[42:34] And I know I've done some things to make people deserve this. And I just can't get it out of my head. And I come to you. Thank you so much that all the anger and all the punishment that I rightly deserve fell on Jesus.

[42:48] And that in Jesus, you have no wrath at me. You have no condemnation of me. That's not something that you do. Father, help that. And this is number C. Ask for his help to live as his child.

[43:00] So, Father, now that I remember and claim again that in you, in Jesus, all of this is put away. There's no anger from you and judgment of you. It's all been dealt with by Jesus.

[43:11] There is no condemnation for me now in Christ Jesus. And, Father, I ask that you help me to live out of this as your child. And, Father, if there's things I need to do to apologize or to ask forgiveness or to make amendment for life, Father, help me to do that.

[43:28] And you apply the specific doctrine to the state of your soul. Or you tell another in counseling that same thing. I invite you to stand.

[43:47] Bow your heads in prayer. Father, we thank you that when we put our faith and trust into Jesus, that we enter into union in him.

[44:03] He takes us into himself and he enters into us. He remains him and I remain I. But I am now in union with him. He is my Savior and my Lord.

[44:15] And I give you thanks and praise that he, Father, in his death upon the cross, that he is my propitiation. And that in him, there is no condemnation of me from you, the one that matters.

[44:33] It's not there anymore. It's gone. It's gone. Forever. And, Father, I ask that you help me to believe this in my life, to live out of it, to have the emotional security and the intellectual fortitude that I might confess those things which have brought on some of the anger that I face in my life or the shame or the guilt that I face in my life.

[44:57] And if, Father, it would be good for me to do restitution, that may I have that emotional and intellectual security in you to make amendment of life.

[45:08] But, Father, may this wonderful truth of the gospel form me. May it day by day become the way I think, the way I act.

[45:21] Not to be insufferable, but to have an ever more tender conscience when I do wrong. And a passion for justice. May I ask these things in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior.

[45:36] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.