Romans 3:9–27Scripture
Today I'm taking a brief detour. There is relevancy to what I'm going to be sharing today, particularly in light of where we're going in Exodus. Today's assignment was Exodus 22. I'm going to pause for a moment, and I want to move to Romans chapter 3, and I'll give you a little bit of a reason of why I want to do this. I do feel like it helps set precedence and remind us where we are on our journey, our Exodus journey, as we see the nation of Israel being delivered. And now we have seen, one, a God who saves, and now we are seeing a God who sanctifies his people.
And so it is with a lot of celebration that we understand that God's work is not just getting us a ticket to heaven, but he has a sanctifying work he is doing in our hearts and lives. But the means by which he does that is through the Spirit of God, and we are looking back at a time when we do not see the Spirit of God in the hearts of men. Jesus comes to make a way for that. And so one thing we need to do, not just in contextualizing Exodus but also understanding the greater story of what is happening: sometimes when we compartmentalize the law, particularly as we look at the law and see how God is
Point 1The Spirit sanctifies, not our law-keeping
Sanctifying the people, we tend to take the law and say that's how he sanctifies, through his commands. That is not necessarily the purpose of the law. The law demonstrates that he is righteous and he is holy and he has expectations, but it is not the means by which he sanctifies men. And so then if you look at the law and you go, now I'm going to take this and I'm going to do this... And we should obey his commands, amen. But the means by which he does it is not your obedience; it's by the work of the Spirit in and through your lives. It's the Spirit's work.
If it were your work, then we wouldn't need the Spirit. If you could save yourself, we wouldn't need Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 2:11
And so let us not too quickly forget: although the law is a standard, although we get to see a part of his character and his attributes because of the law, let us not then turn to works, that we may boast in our own salvation. Oh, and I find us tiptoeing there in conversation in our small groups, and we just must be careful. And so I want us to be reminded in Romans today what the point of the law is, and then the graveness of what the law reveals about you. I think that's going to help us as we navigate through some of these law pages. I'll just make this statement, and this is what I hope to aim and accomplish today: for you to realize that every single person on the earth, all have sinned, and every single person in here today and on the face of the earth stands guilty before God. You're guilty. The law reveals that about you. You have a you problem. You have a sin problem. And so then the call for us, because of our sin problem, is to repent and to trust not in your works, but to trust in Jesus Christ alone for our salvation. That's the key. That's the key. It's amazing, because on both sides of this conversation there are two types of people. We should all celebrate that we should trust alone in Jesus Christ for our salvation, because there is no way when it's your way. But there are some people who will ride on that, and their life becomes a middle finger to God, and they don't care. And you know why? Because they don't fear him. And then there are other people who will go, well, because I love him, I'm going to work to earn his love. And that's wrong too. Oh, it is a dangerous thing to be in the hand of a holy God. Romans 3, and I'll just read part of it, and we might back up a bit. Romans 3:21–27 says this: "But now the righteousness of God," not you, "the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and 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. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance," listen to this, "he had passed over former sins. 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." He's just, and he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus, not the one who does everything he says. "Then what becomes of our boasting?" Since you can't trust in you and what you do, it's him that does it. What becomes of your boasting? Oh, let us not too quickly turn back to boasting as we work our way through the law and say, if I do this, then he'll do this. No, he only did this because he's good, not because you did anything. What of the if-then statements? If-then, he's awesome. If-then, you're not. Are you with me today? You're not good. You're never enough. What is he saying then by all of these things? What is he saying? He's pointing us to our hope, and he's pointing us to our depravity and the lack of hope we find in self.
There is no hope in you; there's only hope in him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 7:12
That's the point. "Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith." That's the point of the gospel. So as we back out and we see the greater story, it helps then frame an understanding for what we see in 22 and 23, Exodus 22 and 23. Are you with me? The greater story, the macrocosm, should help us see the microcosm of that verse, and it should frame our understanding. By understanding the greater story, what is the greater story? Our hope is in Christ alone. The greatest theologians and preachers in the history of the Christian church feel that this text, this Scripture, Romans 3:21–27, is the Acropolis of the Christian faith. The word Acropolis refers to a fortified city, a protected city, a valuable city, a key place. I believe they're correct in that assumption. If I could only reserve one part of Scripture, this would be the one I would preserve. It says the whole story. In it we see the gospel of Jesus Christ. We see the inner workings of the gospel and the mind of God. We see his heart for his people in spite of them.
To not understand this passage is to not understand the gospel.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 9:06
And how quickly we lose sight of the gospel as we journey through Scripture, and as we see the deliverance of the people in the exodus, when we move into the law, how quickly we forget that our hope is in Christ and not in ourselves. How quickly we forget that everything in Scripture, even in Exodus and Deuteronomy and Leviticus, should be framed by the gospel. Yes, you can understand the gospel in a very simple way, and it still be a saving way. A child can understand it in just a few words, and yet you're not called to be children. You're called to be mature believers who walk in faith. Parrots mindlessly parrot, and I'm afraid today we have preachers that parrot what they've heard with little understanding of what the gospel is. I pick on preachers because it's hard when I pick on you, because then you cry about it. But I'm just saying, you have problems too, because many of you parrot what you've heard with little understanding of what you parrot.
The gospel is not something to be parroted around lightly, panhandled like some little thing.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:37
It's life-changing, lifesaving, or an improper gospel is life-destroying. Be careful, little mouth, what you say. And if you do not have an understanding of the gospel, it's best to stay and stand and sit in silence, because your life, your tongue, your parroting either brings life or death to those that hear it. Do you know you were created in the image of God? Well, that's good news, right? You are to know and understand what you have heard and to speak it with clarity. Some of you need to grow in your understanding of the gospel. Some of us need to grow in our understanding of the gospel. We need to continually grow in our understanding. And you, I'm going to do this today: I'm not going to say "us" and "we." I'm going to say "you," because too much we try to soften it up. We move the application of Scripture beyond ourselves to everyone, and it dilutes it to the fact that I don't have to change. But this is coming to you. Whenever I give an instruction to the family out in the ethos and I say, "Somebody take the trash out," nobody takes the trash out. So today this word is for you. The call is to you. It's not to Pastor Bruce, and it is to Pastor Bruce. Are you with me? For Ebony, this is not to Pastor Bruce; this is to ebony. And it's to Pastor Bruce. It's to everyone. The call is to everyone. Some of you need to grow in your understanding of the gospel so you might better proclaim it. You can parrot the gospel and know it intellectually, academically, and not savingly. The issue today is there are multiple gospels being parroted, because we have not been instructed by his Word but rather by men who parrot what they've heard, by people who do not know the gospel. It's a problem. You don't have to scroll very long on Instagram or Facebook or any of those things of media that you do, Twitter, whatever, TikTok. I don't know what they are anymore; they just keep changing. Well, whatever they are, you don't have to scroll long to hear that people don't know the gospel. They simply parrot it. Yes. And the more they parrot it without saving knowledge of it, the more people love it. Some say this country has been gospel-
Point 2All have sinned and fall short
Hardened. I would say that it's gospel-ignorant. It's a problem. Most preachers are gospel-ignorant. All men are sinful. That counts you. Romans 3:23–24 says this: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." All have sinned and fallen short. Does that terrify you? I mean, like, strike fear in your hearts? Do you tremble at the sound of those words coming out of my mouth when I read them? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The reality is, we've heard this so often that it's lost its weightiness. Its impact fades into mere noise. There is a book by C.S. Lewis called The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and in it he tells of a ship sailing into an eerie darkness, and suddenly the crew hears a scream, a bloody scream, from the midst of the water, and they pull a man aboard, his face twisted in terror, screaming and making unintelligible sounds. And they ask him, "Man, what would frighten you so much that you would scream like this?" With wild eyes he gasped, "Turn the ship around! Flee while you can! Leave now! Turn the ship around!" "But why?" And the sailors, all the brave sailors, are asking him why. "We're not afraid of a little storm. We live out here. This does not scare us in the slightest. We're used to this type of weather. We live in it. It's not a big deal to us." "You fools, turn back now!" "What dangers lie ahead?" The sailors ask. The man's voice trembles: "This is the place where all your dreams come true." The sailors laugh and say, "Isn't that a blessing?" And the man retorts, "You just don't get what I'm saying. Not your best dreams. All your dreams come true here." I'm afraid that's the way the gospel hits us, and that's the way this Scripture hits us. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We live in a culture that hears "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," and they laugh and they mock, and they think little of the consequences of that sin. We have people that come to church who have committed their life to Christ, and they laugh and they sneer, and they're not even fazed by the fact that they live like hellraisers in the shadow of their life, and they care not how this offends God. It is nothing to them, the offense that their life causes to the cross of Christ. They don't care. They do not know the one against whom they've sinned. And as we read through Exodus, in chapter 22 and beyond, as we continue to hear the standard of God, what he demands from people and what he demands from our life, we see his standard, and it should strike fear into your hearts, like the man they pulled aboard. They do not know, I'm afraid, the one against whom they've sinned, because very little today is preached about the attributes of God. Yeah, Jeremiah says there is no preeminent knowledge beyond the one thing: to know God. We are ignorant of the one true God, and it's deadly.
Even the church is ignorant of the one true God, because it's not being proclaimed.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 19:05
We hear about how you can have your best life now. We hear pragmatic sermons. We come to church and get pumped up, and then we wind down through the week like a little toy soldier, and come back the next Sunday so we can get wound up again. And the extent of our Christian faith and our walk with God is to be wound up, to wind down, and to be rewound up again. But how much do you know about God? Not how much can you be pumped up about self.
You're not the main course today, amen? He's the main course.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 19:59
You didn't come so you could be salt and peppered today, so you could taste better, so you can taste and see that you are good. He's the main course. "Taste and see that I am good." God is good, amen? He's the main course. When you read Scripture, you're not the main course, and if you were, you'd be the rotten dish they pulled out of the trash can that no one wants to eat. Are you with me today? Because all have sinned, and all are rotten, and all have flies, and all have maggots, and all are broken. You're not the main course, and if you are, yuck. That's the gospel. "But Shawn, that's so negative." But there's hope. There's hope. There's hope for you in your broken state. His name is Christ. The God of the Bible is the God Isaiah knew when he said, "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: 'Holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!' And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: 'Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips,'" I'm broken, oh, I'm a sinner, "'and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips,'" just like me, "'for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!' Then one of the seraphim flew to me,"
Listen to this, here's your hope, "having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: 'Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.'" Oh, that we would preach a gospel like this. Not that you're good just as you are, but you got a sin problem and you need atonement for that sin. See, when people hear "all have sinned," it's not really that severe of a matter.
What you need to understand is, you have not sinned against the mayor of some small town; you sinned against the Lord God Almighty.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 23:38
And that's what Exodus 22 and 23 and beyond is trying to help you understand.
Your sin requires reconciliation, and it is no little thing, and there are no little sins.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 23:50
Listen to the list, if you will, as we go through this, and be overwhelmed by your sinfulness. That's the point. That's the point. You've sinned against the Creator of the heavens and the earth. This is the God who told the stars to sit in place in the dark sky and worship him, and they did. This is the God who made the mountains be lifted up and the valleys be cast down, and they did so with obedience. He told the planets, you'll move in these orbits, and you will not tilt a nanosecond too fast or spin a nanosecond too slow, and you will not leave your course. And the planets said, amen. He told the raging sea, you will come up to this spot, and you will not come any further. You will not venture any further beyond this point. And the sea obeyed.
He looked at you and said, "Come,"
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:03
And you said no. And that's why on the day of judgment all creation will stand and applaud when God casts this type of soul into hell. Is this God too much for you? Because this is the God of the Bible. It's serious when you do not obey him, and all have disobeyed him. Where is our hope? Christ Jesus is your hope. Oh, if you read the law and you try to find hope, you are doomed. The law is pointing you to an answer beyond yourself, beyond your works, beyond your ability, beyond your strength. Oh, where does our help come from? Our help comes from Jesus Christ our Lord. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Are you afraid? You should be. I know what modern preachers tell you about falling short of the glory of God. They say things like, "God loves you, he has a wonderful plan for your life now. Don't miss out. Don't fall short of his wonderful plan for your life now." This is not a proof text for your best life now. To fall short of the glory of God means this:
You were made for God. You were made to worship him. You were made to carry out his will, and to do anything else is vanity and emptiness.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:59
You will find yourself restless in anything other than being hidden in Christ. All have sinned, and you need help. Number one: all have
Point 3All men are corrupt to the core
Sinned. Number two: all men are corrupt. Let's back up a bit. Romans 3:9–18 says this. Listen to me on this: "What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all," who? All, "both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: 'None is righteous, no, not one.'" What's the point of the law? To show you that none are righteous. "Well, I did that, and my ox didn't hurt somebody or trample somebody, and I took care of the widow, and I did this, so I'm good." Just wait. You're doomed. Your ox might be good, and you might like widows. Your time's coming, baby. You broke it somewhere. You broke the law somewhere.
And guess what: if you broke it in one part, the Bible says you broke it in every part. You're doomed. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
But our doom turns into triumph when we discover Christ Jesus.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:02
That's the hope. "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God." No one. No one understands; no one wants him. "All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." No, not one. "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." Sound familiar? None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. And sin is not merely external acts, but it's internal corruption. Listen to it, in case you missed it: "All have turned aside; together they have become worthless."
It is not simply what you do; it is who you are.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 30:22
Let not the world tell you that what you do is separate from who you are, because what you do is who you are. Track with me, because if you can separate it, you don't have to be burdened by it. All have turned aside. Sin affects every aspect of human nature. Track with me: "All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." Their throat is bad, their tongues are bad, their lips are bad, their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. It's amazing to me how much corrupt talk comes out of church people. All have sinned, and we don't fear him because we don't know him.
We don't know him, because the more you know him, the more you fear him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 31:36
The more you know him, the more you know your life is an offense to him. "Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known." Sin affects everything about you. And then last: "There is no fear of God before their eyes." No fear of God. I believe that is the root of all
Point 4The law exposes sin and silences boasting
Sin, to not fear him. So what is the purpose of the law? Romans 3:19–20 teaches us this: "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. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin." The primary purpose of the law, as we go through Exodus, is to expose your sin. It is amazing how quickly we will shift to trying to do good things for God because we love him. You know why we do that? Because we don't want to dwell on our sin.
But your works don't save; your acknowledgment that you need him does.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:25
And you avoid your salvation by avoiding the truth that you aren't so suchy-muchy, right? Can I be honest? Preaching the gospel as it was written is a hard thing when you love the people that sit before you. It's hard.
But sometimes loving people is doing the hard thing in spite of the way it makes you feel.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 34:03
Are you with me today? And sometimes doing what's right for your children is the hard thing, but you do it anyway because you love them. It's hard when you know people have had a hard week, and they've got to come in here and have a hard Sunday morning for an hour. But God loves you too much to let you stay in your sin, because it kills. It kills. The law silences all boasting. The law exposes your sin, and it silences all boasting. The moment conversation in our small groups begins to go to "you, and you can do it," it gives room for boasting; you might be off track. It is the job of the law to silence your boasting, not give you room to do it. This will help you: the law exposes your sin, and the law silences your boasting. You read the law, it tells you you're a sinner and that you need Christ. You read Proverbs, it tells you're a fool and you need Christ. The job of a preacher is not to make you feel safe or to feel good about yourself. The job of a preacher is that of a mason and a steelworker. The preacher lays a concrete floor 20 feet deep, and then the preacher puts up bars of steel on the right side that are impenetrable, and bars of steel on the left side, and bars of steel in front of you, and bars of steel behind you, so there is no way of escape, and the only way you can look is up.
You are condemned, and there is no way of escape, and the only way out is up.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 36:26
The purpose of the law is not to call you to meritorious work, that you may be declared righteous before God and earn his love and mercy. The purpose of the law is to drive you into the merit of Christ, your only way of escape. There is no other way. "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight," it says in Romans, "since through the law comes knowledge of sin." No flesh, in other words, will be held as legally right before God. No, not one.
Point 5The righteousness of God comes in Christ
And then finally, the righteousness of God in Christ. The law points to that. All the Law, all the Prophets are pointing you to your need of a Savior.
That's the point of Exodus 22 and 23. You need a Savior. Can I say this? And you're not him. You're not him. You can't save yourself. Listen: even the curse given to the whole world because of Adam and Eve is an act of mercy. Every time a woman has pain in childbirth, and every time a man comes home from work mindless, by the sweat of his brow, and just striving, striving to earn and work, it's vanity. And every time this happens, God is calling out to you, saying, "Fallen. You're condemned. Turn to Christ." It's amazing, because the first thing that men say when they introduce themselves is what they do. But what they do is a curse, because no amount of striving ever achieves that thing they hope they will attain. And the purpose is that we would look beyond what we hope will satisfy ourselves to where our hope comes from, which is Christ. The more we work, the more we feel we are not accomplishing anything, and it points us to Christ. Christ is the answer to your sin problem.
Christ is the answer. Christ is not, track with me here, Christ is not all you need. Christ is all you have.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 39:52
55:08
49:20
54:12
51:05
39:27
1:02:21
1:05:55
1:08:37
1:14:26
56:32
48:06
1:00:59
50:25
59:35
40:20
49:20
45:24
47:29
40:57
47:59
32:41
38:34
40:34
36:34
28:51
40:09Now playing
53:10
44:36
47:32
29:24
39:47
44:44
51:20