We’re going to be in Romans chapter 3 today. We’re going to begin a new series this morning entitled Atonement. We’re going to think about the meaning of the cross for these next three weeks. So if you’d like to come back the next two weeks to hear more about the meaning of the cross, we’d love to invite you to come and participate with us. We’re going to answer the question, you can see at the back of our Sanctuary today on the slides, “What just happened?” What just happened when Jesus died? Of course, what just happened is that God has provided a way for a people who were in slavery to be redeemed, a people who were condemned to be justified, a people who were separated to be reconciled. That’s what just happened.

I want to encourage you before we read the text today, these are sort of like the pre-flight instructions that flight attendants might give about buckling your seat belts. The ride is going to get a little bumpy. I say that just to say that we’re going to take the most serious topic in all of Scripture this morning. It’s the topic of hell. It’s sobering. Let’s just prepare ourselves to receive what God has to say about this matter that causes us to tremble. Yet, it causes us to exult in the cross of Christ because we have a refuge that Christ provided for us from this imminent and terrifying threat. So Romans 3:9-26.

9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” 13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” 14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

What a word! What good news! It’s essential for believers and unbelievers alike to think about the Gospel. Before I pray, I just want to encourage you. If you have not yet placed your faith in Jesus, I would ask that you would seek the Lord today. What I’m going to present to you is the truth from God regarding your life, regarding Jesus, regarding the hope of real life for you. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, won’t you also listen attentively to the Gospel? We need the Gospel every day to continue to worship God, to draw near to Christ, to rejoice in Him so that our singing isn’t sort of dull and apathetic, but our singing really is filled with true internal spiritual joy, that our lives would be an expression of worship. The Gospel is the center of everything.

If you could eliminate one problem from your life this morning, which problem would you choose to delete? Perhaps you would choose a financial problem. That student loan would no longer be. Perhaps you would remove a relationship problem. That painful brokenness in a treasured relationship is healed and all is restored. Perhaps you would remove a health problem. Those chemotherapy treatments would no longer be necessary. What joy! Perhaps you would be free of a sorrowful parenting problem. Your prodigal returns with humility and returns with joy. Perhaps you would choose some emotional problem, some darkness that is invading your soul. If you could choose one problem this morning to delete from your life right now, which problem would you choose to remove?

For some that question is easy. You immediately think of a problem that keeps you awake at night. There is something that is crushing your soul right now. For others that question is difficult. Some of you are in a really good spot and while you have some problems, there is nothing so profound that it rises to the top. Or perhaps the question is difficult because of the opposite concern. You have so many crushing problems that you are asking, “Can I only delete just one? Do I have to choose? I don’t know which one because there are so many that are pounding away at my life right now.”

This Easter morning, we turn in our Bibles to Romans 3 where God shares with us what our greatest problem really is. This problem is universal. There is not one person ever born in the world in the history of mankind that doesn’t experience this problem. This problem is severe. It’s the cause of all our unhappiness. This problem is the fuel of our deepest fears. It is the fountainhead of every brokenness that we endure. This problem is eternally lasting. It’s the only problem that follows us after we die into eternity. The Good News is that God has accomplished everything we need to crush this problem and to end its painful impact in our lives. What good news we have! We’re going to talk about that good news this morning.

In His Book, God uses a specific word to describe our greatest problem. In the Hebrew Old Testament, God calls this problem “chata.” That sounds ugly, doesn’t it? In the New Testament, He calls this problem “hamartia.” The English Bible translates these two terms with the one three-letter word. That word is sin. God so wants us to know our greatest problem that He repeats Himself 812 times in His book, using this word “sin” over and over and over again to tell us that this is central in our life.

The word “sin” causes us to think about our misdeeds, not centrally in reference to ourselves or even in reference to other people, but the word “sin” causes us to think about our offenses and our wrongdoings in reference to God. Only people who see themselves as accountable to God ever use the word, sin. But people who do see themselves as accountable to God primarily use the word “sin” to describe the wrongs we commit. The Apostle John writes

1 John 1:8-10 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Again, over and over God wants us to know that this sin is our greatest problem.

As an aside, parents, if you are not using the word “sin” in your home, you are not proclaiming the Gospel to your children. The word is too central. It’s too powerful to avoid and yet continue to be able to effectively communicate the Gospel. This is God’s term to describe our great problem. When we avoid the terms that God uses to tell us about His salvation, we avoid the heart of the Gospel. We avoid the meaning of it.

You likely have heard about the “slap heard round the world” at the Oscars. Will Smith issued an apology the day after his misdeed. He said, “Violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive. My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions are not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.”

Will Smith’s apology was eloquent as far as human apologies go. It was one of the best I’ve read when secular people publicly admit wrongs. But notice that the word “sin” doesn’t appear. I didn’t expect it to. In fact, I would have been shocked if Will Smith had used the word “sin.”

Why is the word “sin” avoided by the world and so emphasized by God? Sin points out the fact that our misdeeds, our malicious acts, our hostile attitudes are wrong not only because of the harm that they bring to other people, but most of all because of the offense that we give to God. When David became convicted about his sin of adultery and murder, he cried out in repentance,

Psalm 51:3-4 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight,

David understood as he used the word “sin,” that the primary problem that his sin, his hostile actions, his lustful passions brought were not primarily to people, but were primarily first and foremost in reference to God. On this Sunday morning, we open up our Bibles together to Romans 3 to think about our greatest problem and also then to shift over and to rejoice in God’s satisfying solution.

The main idea we’re going to trace through Romans 3 is that God calls us to despair over our own sin so that we can rejoice in the salvation that He secures for us in Jesus. You see, if we never get to despairing over our own sin, we will never rejoice in Jesus. We’ll see Him as something perhaps nice, something helpful. But we won’t see him as something absolutely necessary until we understand what God says about our sin and we begin to despair in our present position. So what is our greatest problem? If you’re taking notes this morning, you might just write

Our Greatest Problem: Our Sin

9 What then? Are we Jews any better off?

We have the commandments. We have the sacrifices. We have the promises. We have the covenants. Are we really any better off? He says

No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin,

We all have the same problem. All of us are under sin. There are no exceptions. This place, being under sin, is where we all started when we were born into this world.

So what is sin? Here’s the definition I offer you. Sin is disobedience to God that flows from a heart that wants to be its own king. So sin is first an attitude of the heart. It’s a rebellion against God’s rule and authority. But then this rebellion expresses itself through specific actions and words and attitudes which are the breaking of God’s commandments. So the very center of sin is an attitude of rebellion against God’s rule. But then the expression of sin is the transgression of God’s law, what He said to do or what He said not to do.

God has given His Law to mankind to govern our words and actions, our relationships, our attitudes. But because we are under sin, we fundamentally do not accept that God has a right to tell us what to do or to tell us what not to do. So we act according to our own senses and our own feelings. We want to be the captain of our own soul. We want to be the decision-maker regarding what is right and wrong, what we think is good and what we think is evil, what we think would be helpful and what we think would be harmful. Sin first and foremost is our unflinching confidence in ourselves. Along with that, it is our rejection of God as the Shepherd of our souls. John makes the point of this expression of sin as being lawlessness or transgression against God’s law in 1 John.

1 John 3:4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

In other words, we break God’s law again and again and again because sin is lawlessness. But then Isaiah gets to the heart of the matter when he says

Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way;

In other words, we see the Shepherd. We see where the Shepherd is leading us and we say, “No, I think I have a better path. I think I know how to guide my own life. God says that is the very root of our problem. We all like sheep have gone astray. We all have decided to go our own way. So Paul says in verse 9,

For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin,

You may ask the question, what does it mean to be under sin? I say, I’m glad you asked. In verses 10-18, God gives an amazing description of this fatal condition. Look at what God says. This is what it means to be under sin.

10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;

Righteousness is required in order to get into God’s heaven. Guess what? None is righteous. You might think that maybe He means most of us aren’t righteous. But no! There are no exceptions. There is not even one exception to this.

11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside;

All have become like sheep. They have all turned aside.

together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

You might say, “But wait a minute! I think I know some people.” No! God says not even one.

13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” 14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

That’s what it means to be under sin. To be under sin means that sin has such a grasp upon our hearts that we want what we want more than we want what God wants. What we want is very selfish and very wicked. Being under sin causes us to suppress the truth that God reveals about Himself and His Son through His Word. We say, “No, I don’t even want to hear that. I don’t have time for that.” Our sin will not let us see that God is great and magnificent because if we see God’s true value, we will see our sin for what it is. We will see that it is a joy robbing imposter. We’ll see that it’s a deadly cancer. We love our sin too much. Being under sin causes us to crave it too much. So we suppress the truth about God’s magnificence in order to hold onto sin. That’s what it means to be under sin. It means we are under sin’s condemnation. It means we are under sin’s control. It means we are under sin’s penalty and under sin’s power. It means we are hopeless under sin and we are helpless under sin. God wants us to know that we are not merely victims of sin. We’re friends with it.

Have you ever wondered why this world is so filled with sorrows and sufferings? I think almost everybody has asked that question. God made the whole of creation and declared it good. He said, “Let there be…and it was good.” God is a good God. He doesn’t create anything that is bad. Yet we look at our world and we say this place is not the way it’s supposed to be. Wars should not kill sweet little toddlers in the streets in which they used to play. That’s basic, isn’t it? We read about what’s happening in Ukraine and we say that shouldn’t happen to these kids! Women shouldn’t suffer the abuse of angry men. Young teens shouldn’t die in car accidents. Cancer shouldn’t emaciate once vibrant lives. So much is not the way it is supposed to be. Why isn’t it the way it’s supposed to be? God says it’s because of sin. Sin brought all this into our homes and into our hearts. Verse 22 says

For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

That’s the problem. I realize that many of us think we have bigger problems than our own sin. We often think that our greatest problem is someone else’s sin. Friends, if we ever find ourselves fixated upon another person’s sin more than we are upon our own sin, we have lost the Gospel. We’ve lost grasp of the truth of God in our lives. Our greatest problem is not that another person is sinning against us or against another group. Our greatest problem is that we are sinning against God! The answer to the world’s problem begins with each person recognizing our great problem and coming to Jesus to receive the answer to that problem. The Gospel reminds us of our condemned condition. We have nothing to say in our own defense other than to cry out, “Mercy! O God, mercy!”

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

The picture is of a courtroom. We’re standing before God and the law is opened up and then our life is opened up. Everything, every hidden thing is laid bare. The thoughts, the words, the attitudes, the actions, everything is laid bare. Everything that we hid, everything that we concealed from others is all laid bare and there is the law of God. In this world, when it’s still being concealed, when the law of God is not so much in front of us, we can start beginning to make excuses and rationalizations, saying, “Yeah, but…” But on that day, he says when the law is opened and our life is opened, the law is going to stop the mouths of everyone. There is not one of us that is going to even begin to speak because we’re going to recognize how foolish it is to begin to make rationalizations and excuses for our own sins. He says the whole world will be held accountable to God. What God is saying is on the Day of Judgment, no one is going to be saying, “Hey, God, what about that guy?” That’s what we do right now. “Hey, what about that person?” On the Day of Judgment, we’re going to look and we’re just going to tremble under the weight of our sin as we see the holiness and righteousness of God.
One day, a newspaper asked readers to send in their responses to the question, “What is wrong with the world today?” There was a noted Christian apologist and writer named G.K. Chesterton who was alive at the time. He wrote a response. What is wrong with the world today? He wrote a response. “Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely Yours, G.K. Chesterton.” He got it right! If you were asked, “What’s wrong with the world?” I think we all would start waxing eloquent about a whole bunch of stuff. We get it wrong unless we come to this answer that G. K Chesterton came to. I am. That’s where I begin. I am.

What are our applications? First, let’s humble ourselves before the Lord. Let us call out to Him for mercy. Today is a day of repentance. Today is a day of confession. Today is a day of recognizing our need before the Lord and of God’s kindness and His provision. Let’s come to Him humbly. Second, let’s be more grieved about our own sins than we are about the sins of others.

Third, let us ask God to root out all the rationalizations and all the excuses, all the arguments that minimize our sins right now. We know that God is going to root all those rationalizations and arguments and excuses on the future Day of Judgment. So let’s ask Him to do it right now so that future Day of Judgment can be happy because all the work of God in our lives has already been done by grace.

Finally, let us show biblical concern for other people’s sins by sharing the Gospel. Let us pray for them. Let us point them to Christ. Let’s not slander or gossip or respond with hostility and harsh words. Let’s pray and let’s proclaim Jesus and the hope that every sinner can find in Him. Amen? (Amen!)

So our greatest problem is our sin. If you’re taking notes then, our grievous condition, and this is where the message becomes even more sober.

Our Grievous Condition: Condemned

God looks at us as sinners and He says we’re guilty of sin. The law requires the punishment be death. You are condemned to the justice of God’s law.

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

If we look earlier in Romans, we read how

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

We just read that there is no one who does righteous, not even one. In other words, all of us are unrighteous and God has already established the wrath of God. That is His response. That is how He describes it. “My wrath will appear against all unrighteousness; every one and every person and every act, every thing.”

Because of sin, God uses a number of terms to describe our condition. Being under sin means that first, we’re lost. That means we’re floundering without the ability to get to the place where we are truly safe and we’re truly loved. That’s the place of the heart of God Himself. We can never find ourselves because lost people can’t find themselves. That’s the nature of the condition. We must be found or we will wander forever and ever and ever in darkness. We’re lost.

God says we also are blind. That’s who we are. We’re not able to see who He is or what He has done for us. We have no ability to understand spiritual realities. We’re blind to what is real and what is true. We’re blind to the reality that Jesus is the treasure of infinite worth. We look at Jesus and say, “Nice. Good.” But He is the treasure of infinite worth. That’s the true reality. We’re blind to seeing Him in that light. We’re blind to the reality of heaven. We’re blind to the reality of hell. We’re blind to the reality of demons, of Satan himself, the angels, spiritual warfare. We’re blind to the reality of a real relationship with the living God.

God looks at us and says, “You’re lost and you’re blind because you’re under sin.” God looks at us and says, “You’re dead. You have no spiritual life in your soul. There is no natural spark in you. You have no ability to create spiritual life, either.” Dead people can’t solve the problem of their own deadness. But here’s the good news. God says, “I sent my Son to die and rise again on the third day, to conquer death and to offer you real life.”

So all of these terms are appropriate to think about when we think of our grievous condition. But here’s the one that I want to spend some time thinking about and unwrapping. It is the word “condemned.” We’re condemned to what? We’re condemned to face God in His righteousness and in His justice as sinners.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death,

The picture that God gives us of our condemned state is so severe that I tremble every time God asks me to speak about it. I feel weak. There is not a time that I prepare for talking about the condemned state and the reality of a real hell that I don’t find myself with tears welling up in my eyes the week prior in preparation and tears welling up in my eyes even as I talk about it. It’s a fearful thing, but it is a true thing. God sets it in His Word so that we would know its reality and we would hear His warning and we would avoid it. Everyone can avoid it through Jesus Christ.

Jesus tells the reality of this condemned state and of the reality of hell as He tells a true story about a rich man and a poor man by the name of Lazarus. He talks about how this rich man had such a great life. He feasted every day sumptuously. He had the best of clothing. His life was sort of made. It was a wonderful life. Outside of his gate laid a poor man. His name was Lazarus. He was covered with sores and the only comfort he had in all of his life was that these stray dogs would come up to him and have compassion on him and lick his wounds. That was the only good thing that he could point to in this present life. Everything else was misery upon misery upon misery. The poor man, died, Jesus says. He was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side.

You see, Jesus is the eternal Son of God and He came from heaven. He came to earth and He ascended back to heaven. He’s coming back to the earth and He is going to take us to be with Him in heaven. He is eternal and that’s why He sees and knows stories like this that we cannot see and we have no access to. But Jesus knows this happened to these two real men. He wants to tell us about it so that we would listen now and hear the Word of God and respond in a way so that we too would receive God’s mercy. He says this poor man had nothing going for him in this present life, but he had everything going for him for all of eternity thereafter.

Luke 16:22-28 The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’

He’s saying, “I’m in a place of hopeless despair and I want them to avoid this place. Send Lazarus. Allow him to come back from the dead and tell them about this place.”

Luke 16:29-31 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

Friends, Jesus isn’t telling a fable here. He’s not telling us a parable. Jesus is telling a true story of two real men who lived real lives like we’re living here in this world and they are living a real existence in the life after, after they die. One guy is in torment. The other guy is just in absolute comfort and joy. He tells us this specifically so that we would not find ourselves in this rich man’s plight of wishing too late that we could make a change.

I want you to think about this. How long ago did that story happen? It was two thousand years ago. Two thousand years ago, there was a real rich man who died and was begging for a couple drops of water. The answer was no. There is a chasm that keeps comfort from being given to those who are in Hades. For two thousand years, this rich man has longed for those drops of water every day. Today he is in Hades and he is longing for a few drops of water to get just some momentary relief from absolute agony and misery. Two thousand more years from now, what’s going to happen? He’s going to be longing for the same drops of water and he won’t receive it. That’s forever and ever and ever without end.
Some may be asking, “Pastor, are you trying to frighten me?” I know I can’t frighten you into heaven. In order to come to faith in Jesus, you have to see His loveliness and want Him. But I pray that some of the terrifying descriptions that Jesus gives about hell will awaken us to start considering our life, considering that we would hear the Word of the Lord, that we would open up our lives to hear what God has to say about our most significant problem and about the satisfying solution that He provides.

Our life in this world passes so quickly and the condition of our soul will be revealed on the Day of Judgment. Every flaw, every worthless word, every careless thought, every disobedient act is made known in the bright light of His presence. If we do not have Christ as our Savior, we will have no place to hide, no safe refuge to which to run. I just ask you, are you ready for that day?

I know some of you perhaps even think ill of me for bringing up this subject on Easter morning. I ask you, if last night at 2:00 in the morning I was walking in your neighborhood and I saw flames just shooting out of the top of your home, would you think ill of me if I pounded with all my might upon your door? “Wake up! Wake up!” At first, you probably would. “Who is this crazy guy waking us up out of a sound sleep?” You probably would be upset with me at first. But then when you realize the danger, you would probably hug me as you ran out of the house because you recognize that you would have been consumed with the house if there were not someone who cared enough to shout out a warning.

Jesus is the one who tells the story because He loves you. He loves me. You say, “What’s your proof? Most people say that there really isn’t a hell. Most pastors that I’ve talked to, most books I’ve read say there isn’t a hell. What’s your proof? Prove that there is a hell.” My proof is Jesus. He is the only one who came from heaven. He’s the only one who returned to heaven. He is the only one who is God come down in the flesh, to come down and communicate who God is. I’m just telling you a story that Jesus told us. So either Jesus is a liar or Jesus is telling the truth. But that’s my proof. That’s the only proof I have. It is true what Jesus says. If you don’t trust the Word of God and you believe that God is a liar about this subject, then yes I understand why you would walk away from it and don’t think about it. But please understand that to walk away from the doctrine of hell you have to say two things. You have to say God is a liar and Jesus is a liar. Those are two things you have to say in order to walk away from the doctrine of hell with sort of a shrug of the shoulders. The apostle Paul says in 2 Thessalonians

2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 …when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

Friends, I realize that the doctrines you have been taught by this world in school lessons and TV shows and movies and songs and political speeches and newspapers and social media posts and even in many sermons, those messages run absolutely contrary to the truth that I have just stated that comes right from God’s Word. Perhaps some of you hear God’s Word perhaps just for these 40 minutes. You hear 40 minutes of God’s Word on a Sunday morning and everything else the world gives is about 4,000 minutes every week that you hear the message of the world. For 40 minutes I hear God’s truth and for 4,000 minutes I’m hearing the message of the world that is absolutely contradictory. What happens? We become overrun by the message of the world. It just floods it. That’s why we need to be in the Word every day. That’s why we need to be careful of the voices we listen to. It’s because we will be overrun by deceitfulness of this world’s doctrines, this world’s teachings.

What is the message of this world? This week I was looking for my next audible book when I came across a book entitled The Coddling of the American Mind. It was written by two authors who are experts in their field, but they’re not believers, at least to my knowledge. But they were exploring the impact upon our culture of what they call three great untruths. I think there are a lot more than three great untruths that are being taught by our world, but these are the ones that they identified. As I read them, I said I had to agree with them. I think God has given them common grace to see some light about the untruths that are just flooding into the hearts and minds of the people living in our country. Here are the three great untruths these authors unfolded.

The first great untruth is our feelings are always right. Secondly, we should avoid all pain and discomfort. Finally, we should look for faults in others and not in ourselves. These authors were describing then sort of the social disaster that comes from a people that believe these three great untruths. There is just brokenness everywhere and we continue to see that happening. But as I thought of this little summary of this book, I thought first of all, this summary has some core components of the message the world is teaching. But then I began to think of these untruths in relationship to the Gospel. I thought of how crafty Satan is to bring to bear first, lies and then to communicate those lies so thoroughly throughout a culture that people believe them. These three lies, if they are believed, they will keep a person from believing the Gospel. These are the anti-Gospel lies. These are not the only ones, but they are three primary ones.

If you believe that your feeling is always right, then you will never submit yourself to the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. This Book contradicts our feelings so often. Either the Book is true or our feelings are true, but we cannot believe both. Secondly, if we believe that we should avoid all pain and suffering, what do we do with Jesus’ call?

Matthew 16:24 …“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

Everyone who wants to be godly in this present world will suffer persecution. Blessed are you when you’re persecuted. Third, we should look for faults in others and not in ourselves. At the very core of the response to the Gospel call is to repent of your sins and believe the Gospel. As long as we’re looking outward at the sins of others and not at our own sins, we will never hear the response that is necessary in order for us to receive mercy.
So what is the application? Friends, let’s ask God to help us feel the full weight of our own sin. I think if we felt just a little smidgeon of it, we would be almost fully undone. We’d be like Isaiah and say, “Woe is me. I’m an unclean man. I’m a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.” We would be undone by the realization of our sin. Let’s take some time and ask God to feel the full weight of our own sin. This is the remedy to so many spiritual infections. It resolves our tendency to judge others harshly. It resolves our bitterness against those who hurt us. It resolves our lethargy and our rejoicing as we give praise to God for His salvation.

Our Glorious Savior: Propitiation

This is a great ray of hope. We’ve had darkness. After darkness, there is light. The light is the Light of Christ. Propitiation is a big word, but it’s an important word. I want to talk about what it means for a moment.

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law,

What we need is the righteousness of God in order to gain entrance into heaven. That’s a requirement. We need God’s righteousness. None of us are righteous and possess the righteousness of God. That has already been established. But this righteous God has appeared. It has been made manifest apart from the law. How is it? He says

although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—

They testify of it. It’s just that they don’t provide it.

22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

In other words, every person born in the whole of the world has access to receive the righteousness of God for themselves because God calls everyone to believe in His Son. Everyone who believes in His Son obtains this righteousness.

For there is no distinction:

In other words, we all need this righteousness.

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

But if we come to faith in Christ, we are

24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation

Underline that word. It’s a big word.

by his blood, to be received by faith.
There are two words to which I would draw your attention. First is the word justification in that text. Then the second is propitiation. God says that those who come to faith in Christ are justified by His grace as a gift. Now, to be justified simply means that God legally declares people who are guilty to be righteous. So God is the judge and the scene is a courtroom. He looks down at the person who all the evidence has been placed against them. They definitely have committed the crime. The judge looks down and he says, “Legally, I declare you righteous. You are free to go.” That’s what it means to be justified. We all have broken the law of God. We all stand before the judge condemned. We’re all guilty and deserving of punishment. But through Christ, God offers us the gift of having Him declare upon our lives, “You are righteous.” What an amazing gift! This gift comes to us not by works of the law.

20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight,

It‘s not by simply working harder to obey more and to sin less. No one is going to be declared righteous by God on that basis. It’s only on the basis of God’s gift, on the basis of what Jesus has done for us.

So when God places His law against our lives and He makes that declaration, “You’re guilty!” God must declare us as guilty. But how is it then that He is able to declare us who are guilty, as being righteous? Is this some sort of fiction? Is this some sort of wink, wink? “I’m doing something, but it’s not real”? No, it comes to the second word. That word is propitiation. It is through the propitiation of Jesus Christ that God is righteous to declare us righteous. One of the benedictions that I pray almost every Sunday is from Jude 1.

Jude 1:24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,

Think about that! He is able to do that. Why is He able to do that? It’s because of the propitiation of Jesus. It’s because of what just happened on the cross. He is able to declare me, who is not faultless by an incredible infinite stretch of the imagination. He says, “Ritch, you’re faultless. There is not one fault in you.” How can He be righteous and say that about a person who is not faultless? It’s through the death and the blood of Jesus. That’s how. Let’s think about this word propitiation.

25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood,

What does that mean? It means that when Jesus died upon a cross, He took our sins, mankind’s sins upon Himself. He took on all of them. Then the Father treated the Son as though the Son had committed those sins. So all the justice, all the punishment that those sins deserve was fully satisfied in Christ. That’s what propitiation means. It means that Jesus satisfied the Father’s righteous response as Judge against sin. He took the punishment in our place so that then He could take all of His righteousness and apply that to us. Now that He has freed us from our sins, He now gives us our righteousness. There is this great exchange that takes place at the cross when we come to faith in Christ. It’s our sins placed upon Jesus. It’s Jesus becoming a curse for us. His righteousness then is granted to us as a gift so that when the Father looks at us, He sees Jesus’ righteousness. He doesn’t see our sin. Through propitiation Jesus satisfies God’s righteous wrath against our sin through the punishment that He endures on the cross.

This is the reason why in the Garden, Jesus sweats drops of blood and He asked the Father to allow this cup to be removed from Him. He knows He is going to become a curse. He is going to be punished by God for sin. He’s going to become sin for us. This is why at the cross, at twelve noon the brightness of the sun is shut in because all of creation couldn’t sustain the response of God against sin. The sun couldn’t hold its glow underneath such an act of the Father, placing all of eternal wrath and the condemnation of the sins of all of mankind upon Jesus. The sun was shut out. It couldn’t shine anymore. So darkness prevailed during those three hours that Jesus was enduring that for us.

It was the reason why Jesus from the cross, the one who is the eternal Son of God in eternal fellowship with the Father and with the Spirit fully satisfied, fully in fellowship, cries out from the cross as He becomes a curse, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” The answer is because Jesus bore our sin for us upon the tree so that we would never endure the punishment that we deserve. That’s why. Isaiah says

Isaiah 53:5-6 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt,

Jesus freely gives Himself as a sacrifice for sin. He’s not a reluctant sin offering. The Father out of love sends the Son. The Son out of love sends Himself to die for us. What just happened? It is a mystery so great that I’ve spent hours and hours thinking about what just happened. I can’t quite get my mind around it, but my heart just lifts up. It first rejoices and then it falls down upon its knees in worship. Thank you God for dying for me!

2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

When Jesus said, “It is finished!” from the cross He says it is paid in full. Every bit of God’s wrath has been drained. There is not one drop left in the bottle awaiting us on Judgment Day. Every drop of God’s wrath has been poured out. He drank it all completely so that not even one drop would touch those who are in Christ. How do we know that the Father was fully satisfied in the death of His Son? How do we know that the justice of God was fully met?

Matthew 28:1-6 Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said.”

How do we know that the Father accepted the full payment for our sin? It’s because He is risen, just as He said. That’s how we know.

I often ask a question and I’m going to ask it of you this morning. I ask it in many personal conversations when I talk to people about the Gospel. If you were to stand before God this morning and God were to ask you, “Why should I let you into my heaven?” what would you say? Think about that for a moment because there is going to be a day when you do stand before God. I don’t know the exact question He’ll ask, but if He were to ask, “Why should I let you into my heaven?” what would you say? There is an old hymn that I think of now every time I ask that question. I share it with the people as they share their answer with me. That old hymn says

My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device nor creed;
I trust the Ever-living One,
His wounds for me shall plead.

I need no other argument,
I need no other plea;

When God asks me, “Why, Ritch, should I let you into my heaven?” I don’t need a whole bunch of arguments. I don’t need a whole bunch of other pleas and to be rolling out a list.

It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.

That’s my answer. If that is not enough, I am lost because it’s the only thing I’m trusting in. But friends, because Jesus died and rose again, I can tell you it is enough. Have you placed your life in the sufficient hands of the Son of God who died for you so that you too don’t need any other argument and don’t need any other plea? You just simply know that Jesus died for you. Call out to Him today. Call out to Him right now where you sit. “God, I know that I have sinned against you. I know that Jesus died for me. I trust in Him as my Savior and my King.”