Jesus, We Have A Problem
What Does a Good Church Look Like • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Turn to Romans 3. Everyone wants justice. We all want to see wrongs made right. We want the victim to be vindicated and the criminal pay for their crime. We want the idiot driver to get a ticket when no cop is around (we’re never the idiot driver)!
Justice is a universal human desire.
God longs for justice as well, and in the end - on that final day of judgment - when all of creation stands before God justice will be served. But to whom?
We spent a couple of weeks talking about God’s wrath and the need for the Gospel. Remember,
God’s wrath is less about His anger and more about His justice.
Consider the Prophet
The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies.
The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
Not about His anger. It’s about His justness. Just God. Just Judge.
“The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.
Jesus says in
“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.
There is a final judgment and a reconciling of accounts – of how we lived. God will ask each of us, “Why should I let you into Heaven.” A lot of people think it’s because I’m a really good person. Others think all roads lead to Heaven. Some think it’s because I’m Jewish or I’m a Christian. There are 1000 answers we can give and none of them are sufficient except for one. What is it? Let’s
look at Romans 3.
Last week we mentioned that beginning in chapter 2, Paul began using a diatribe. A diatribe is rhetorical hypothetical conversation to provide instruction. Why do we need to know this? Because I said so. Paul uses this literary style in several of his letters. If we don’t pay attention, we’re left wondering who is he talking to and where do these arguments come from? Sometimes hard to track with Paul (e.g. Susan – conversation going one way … no one told me we made turn …). Seeing a diatribe helps us track with Paul and make sense of the truths he’s trying to convey. A little Bible study education.
Throughout chapters 2 & 3, we see Paul arguing with two imaginary people. One says, “I’m Jewish, vat do I have to vorry about, eh?” The other says, “I say dear fellow, I am a good Gentile, what possibly do I have to be concerned with?”
Paul answers, “I don’t care who you are or where you come from,
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,
What does that mean? Last week I challenged us to
Start thinking of salvation (having eternal life) and sin in terms of allegiance, alignment, loyalty and trust.
Think about Adam and Eve.
When they were aligned with God or trusted God, they had eternal life. But the moment they broke their allegiance to God and aligned themselves with the serpent, what happened? Not only did they become separated from God, but they removed themselves from under God’s authority and placed themselves under the serpent’s authority.
In essence, they received a transfer notice from the Boss – they were now under new management.
No longer aligned with the Lord of Life, but now aligned with the lord of death.
The word under in verse 9 technically means to be under the control of a person, an institution, or a power.
So sin is not just about behavior, it’s about being under a power or an authority. And
Romans 3:10-20 describes the Human Condition and what it ultimately becomes when under sin’s authority or power.
Skim through 10-20.
This is bleak and hopeless. So being loyal to or aligned under the wrong god or gods, and under the authority of sin humanity is doomed. It’s wrath, judgment, eternal damnation and separation from God. So, what do we do? This is our problem, our mess and there must be some way we can come up with a remedy to our condition! Well, you would think so, but look at verse
For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Consider
Who can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin”?
What do we do?
Before we answer that, let’s answer the question what does a good church look like.
A good church affirms humanity’s sinful condition (i.e. depravity).
That may sound trivial, but in our culture, too many churches are compromising biblical truth and downplaying the seriousness of sin.
Ultimately, they’re following in the footsteps of Adam and Eve and aligning themselves under the serpent’s authority. We must affirm humanity’s sinful condition according to God’s Word.
What do we do? Praise be to God – even though sin is our problem, our mess, God provided the cure to our condition. Understand, that
Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the dead is not only about forgiving sinful behavior - it is also about curing the human condition and delivering us from the authority of the serpent and sin.
But now 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 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.
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.
For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
To reiterate,
A good church affirms humanity’s condition (under sin) and humanity’s cure, which is faith in Christ Jesus.
Now, at the beginning of the message I stated that just justice will be served. Then I asked, but to whom? Meaning judgment is coming to all people, but some will bypass judgment and enter Heaven while others enter Hell.
So, who gets to go to Heaven? We might say believers in Jesus. I’m not certain that’s entirely correct.
Biblically, belief and faith are not necessarily synonymous.
Demons believe in Jesus Christ, but they don’t get to go to Heaven. So what’s the difference between belief and faith?
I believe in Sasquatch or Big Foot. Every “Sunday” I gather with other Big Foot enthusiasts and watch documentaries about Big Foot. I’ve got t-shirts, stickers (honk if you love Sasquatch). I believe in Sasquatch, but I don’t trust in Sasquatch. I don’t trust that he’s going to do anything for me. He’s not going to save me.
Biblically, there is a difference between believing and trusting.
And those who trust in Jesus and in His death and resurrection will bypass judgment. Our Evangelism Explosion training put it like this –
Saving faith is transferring our trust from self to Jesus.
To put it another way,
Saving faith is transferring our allegiance, alignment, loyalty, and trust from everything else to Jesus Christ.
So,
A good church will encourage people to not only believe in Jesus, but to trust Him.
What is God saying to you this morning?
Admit. Believe (trust). Commit.