Sin: The Savior

Evan Puig

We Need to Talk About It • Sermon • Submitted 2 months ago • Presented 2 months ago

Romans 1

Freedom

Sin

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Intro:

Have you ever heard of a sin-eater? To be clear I am NOT talking about the dementors from Harry Potter. No, sin eater was a role that some people had in the 18th/19th century in England, Scotland and Wales. Generally, it was by poor people who were desperate to make a few dollars and eat food to survive. But it was a practice (NOT CHRISTIAN to be clear) where when someone died, they would bring food and drinks to the dead body and either place them on the body or hold them over them and believe that the sins of that person were absorbed into that meal. Then, the sin-eater would eat the meal and essentially absorb the sins of that person. Their hope was that by paying a sin eater to absorb the sins of the deceased those people could move into the afterlife and not be stuck on earth to haunt or torment that town. This is no longer practiced today but they did find the last known sin eater’s grave, it was a man named Richard Munslow. What’s odd about Richard Munslow is that he wasn’t poor or starving. So why would he become a sin-eater? Well, his children all died very young and he was so concerned about their souls that he became a sin-eater to ensure they were taken care of in their afterlife.

Richard Munslow believed he was sacrificing himself for the eternal life of his children. Again, this is not Christian or Biblical in anyway. But it does show us one big thing- people realize they have done wrong things and that those things deserve some sort of punishment and atonement.

Unfortunately, our world gets this concept wrong in all sorts of ways. We may not practice sin eating anymore, but people go to many other extremes to try to handle the guilt they feel for their sins, or to judge the wrongs they see in the world around them.

People medicate to numb the regret they feel about their mistakes.

People will try their best to be a “good” person and try to make up for all the bad they have done with good deeds. I mean the idea of karma as a whole shows people’s thought that if they do bad they will experience bad, so they try to do good things to experience a better life.

People protest and cancel others in the world for things that they consider unjust or corrupt.

Humans have no problem with the idea we are sinful.

But what they don’t realize is that Jesus is the only source of salvation.

Series Recap

As we’ve talked about the last 2 weeks-

We said sin is serious and we must take it seriously! Sin deserves judgement form God because it brings nothing but death. It brings death to our relationship with God and people.

And last week we said all of creation is broken because of sin! Creation longs for redemption and thankfully it has the future hope of full redemption in Jesus’ return.

Tonight we will say one thing clearly,

We always, only need Jesus.

So, we’ve seen the problem of sin and the full impact of sin in our world.

Now, we must talk about the full salvation that is available in Jesus.

Turn with me Romans chapter 3.

Context

The passage we are going to read tonight is considered by most christian pastors, theologians and writers as one of the most important in the Bible when it comes to our understanding of the work of Jesus on the cross.

Reformation leader Martin Luther said that it is “the chief point, and the very central place of the Epistle, and of the whole Bible” (in Morris, Epistle, 218). Morris says it “is possibly the most important single paragraph ever written” (Epistle, 173). New Testament scholar C. E. B. Cranfield rightly calls this passage “the center and heart” of the whole letter (in Longenecker, Romans, 391). Mike Bird calls it “the epicenter of [Paul’s] gospel” (Romans, 110).

Paul is going all in on clarifying the impact of Jesus dying on the cross for humanity. For some context before we begin in verse 21, Paul up to this point has been focused on the big problem of sin for humans. He has been clear that it didn’t matter who you were, where you were from, even if you were Jewish- we all have a sin problem that separates us from God. Just before this verse Paul ends this train of thought by focusing on Jews who thought that they were right with God because they followed the law- he says NO ONE is Justified by the works of the law. The OT law simply brought us knowledge of sin but didn’t have the power to save us from that sin! It’s there that Paul transitions by saying BUT NOW… things are different. Read with me in Romans 3:21.

Romans 3:21–26 CSB

But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.

This is extremely dense and full of all those big church words you always hear pastors say but never really explain. So, tonight, the way we will work through this passage is by looking at those big words and what Paul is teaching through them.

We are going to learn about 3 big things that Jesus provides for us on the cross.

First,

In Jesus we have:

Justification.

Paul says in verse 21- the Righteousness of God has been revealed and anyone who believes in Jesus can have the righteousness of God.

Later Paul says we are justified freely by God’s grace. Justification and righteousness go hand in hand.

But what in the world do they mean.

Justification: to be declared righteous.

Righteousness: in right relationship with God and his law.

To be Justified: means that Christians are declared to be righteous.

These are actually legal terms that bring to mind the picture of a courtroom scene.

Sinners stand condemned, guilty, in God’s court, and yet he declares believers “not guilty” because of Jesus’s work on the cross.

Remember week 1 we said sin deserves judgement because God is holy and perfect. He can have no part with sin and he hates sin because it brings death to His good creation meant for life!

But Jesus going to the cross offers us Justification- through bringings us BACK to a right relationship with God because of his sacrifice on the cross. Our sins are paid for and forgiven by his sacrifice. So we can have right relationship with God. Paul even tells us how. This is important. Because we don’t achieve or earn justification by our works, actions, prayers, or behavior.

V. 22 says we have righteousness through FAITH in Jesus Christ.

Faith: active trust and belief displayed through obedience.

Not just about knowledge or belief alone- but full surrender to someone or something. So, it’s not just knowing about Jesus’ as Lord or even saying yes, I believe Jesus is Lord- but genuine faith results in also turning and following him as your Lord out of that belief. Faith leads to action, action displays our faith!

The bottom line for Justification is that God is the only one who is right! His character is perfect and there is no sin in him. So, in order to be in right relationship with Him we needed Jesus to come and offer us his own righteousness when we put our faith in him and his work on the cross. So, in jesus we have justification with is being counted righteous in God’s sight through Faith in Jesus.

2. Redemption.

We talked about this idea last week that creation is broken and longs for redemption. Paul here says in verses 23-24

Romans 3:23–24 CSB

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

So, all have sinned, all need to be justified, by grace- not by anything we can do but by God’s undeserved kindness and generosity.

And this happens because we have redemption in Jesus.

Redeemed: freed from slavery by payment, delivered from trouble.

What? This picture has its origin in the release of prisoners of war with the payment of a price, and it included the freeing of slaves through a payment. So, if someone was a slave in biblical times, usually that meant that they were a servant to that person because they owed a debt. So, if you wanted to free them, you had to pay their debt.

When we sinned against God, we became slaves to our sin, and on top of that the wages of sin is Death, meaning the price for our sins was death. But Jesus paid the price for our sins on the cross through his death. The death we owed for our sins, Jesus took in our place! He paid our price so that we could go free.

In 1 Corinthians Paul says we were “bought at a price” (1 Cor 6:20; 7:23). We have freedom from our slavery through the death of Jesus, the Passover Lamb.

This is what we mean by saying Jesus can redeem our brokenness. It’s the idea of him setting us free in all areas of our life from our slavery to sin. So, we may still have brokenness and we may still struggle at times but there is redemption in Jesus now and forever when Jesus returns.

We have justification in Jesus.

We have redemption in Jesus.

Finally we have:

3. Atonement/Propitiation.

Now, you may be a little confused because many translations have different words in this verse. What we read says God presented Jesus as the MERCY SEAT. So what is happening here?

All these phrases are all related and getting at one idea from the old testament.

Most literally the word refers to the Mercy seat- the top of the ark of the covenant- which represented God’s presence with the Israelites. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest would sprinkle blood over the ark to atone for the nation. By this ritual they were symbolizing that the sins of God’s people were forgiven, and God’s wrath toward them because of that sin was being wiped away and removed by that blood of the sacrifice. But human sins could not literally be atoned for by the death of animals. “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb 10:4). That ritual and the sacrifice was given to them as a reminder of the death sin brings and their NEED for atonement. So, Jesus came to accomplish what no priest slaying an animal could ever hope to accomplish: full satisfaction of God’s requirements for atonement. God presented his Son as an ultimate atoning sacrifice.

By means of Jesus’s blood—his sacrificial death—God’s holy wrath against sin was appeased, and the sins of those who place their faith in Christ are taken away. (-Tony Merida)

Atonement: fixing what was broken by sin.

That’s not a perfect definition at all but its a simple reminder of all that atonement actually means.

Atonement is tied to redemption in that- in order to deliver us from our slavery and price we owed, Jesus fixed what we broke in our relationship with God.

I know we don’t like the idea or even the phrase God’s WRATH. But it’s important.

God’s wrath towards sin was poured out on Jesus instead of us. To be clear, this isn’t a picture of an angry God who wants to kill people- it’s a holy God who is Just and must punish sin. If God doesn’t punish sin he isn’t a GOOD God, he is a corrupt God who tolerates evil and lets it go unpunished.

No, God must punish sin and because he loved you and me so much he gave his own son to take on His wrath instead of leaving us stuck in our sin to receive his wrath ourselves.

Tony Merida Puts it this way:

“We have offended the King of the universe, and He will punish sin. The good news is that Jesus satisfied the Father’s righteous wrath on our behalf. The Son of God died to save us from the wrath of God.”- Tony Merida, Exalting Jesus in Romans, ed. David Platt, Daniel L. Akin, and Tony Merida, Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2021), 54–55.

Propitiation: Jesus took God’s wrath so we wouldn’t have to.

This is the heart of atonement, propitiation and the mercy seat.

This is a lot of big theological study, but again the bottom line is simple:

We always only need Jesus.

Jesus is the only savior, the perfect savior, and the final savior for all of humanity!

Having the proper view of the cross and what God did reminds us we always only need Jesus to be saved and walk in new life.

Now, most of us know this, so why cover all of these big church words tonight?

Because it is important to be able to put into words the core of our beliefs.

And because this does change how we live daily.

3 big practical take aways from having this deep theological understanding of the Cross:

We can rest in the grace of God.

No more striving, or struggling to be good enough. We never need to fall for the lie that we must DO something to earn our salvation, or do things to keep our salvation. Our salvation is freely given to us by God when we turn to Jesus and put our trust fully in him to save us!

We don’t work for salvation, we now work from salvation. Because we’ve been saved, we can walk in new life free from sin. Not to earn or keep our salvation, but BECAUSE we have been saved from sin altogether!

This is the idea of sanctification- another church word- which means being made holy as we follow Jesus. We get to constantly grow to become more and more like Jesus- not out of an exhausting burden trying to be and do good enough. But resting in our salvation and growing in the right relationship we now have with God, free from our old life of sin!

2. We can rejoice in the work of Jesus.

WE can daily wake up in the joy of our savior. We personally know God because Jesus saved us on the cross! We are no longer slaves to sin because Jesus set us free. We can worship and walk in eternal life because Jesus is LORD! We can joyfully walk in a new and holy life because Jesus earned that new life for us on the cross and gives it to us freely as we follow Him!

So we don’t need to ever be afraid or anxious about the things we face in this life because the work of Jesus is greater than it all. Everything we need is always found in the completed work of Jesus on the cross.

Finally,

3. We can retell this story to the world around us.

Everyone, everywhere is trying to save themselves from their sins. They put their faith in themselves, their works, this world, social justice movements, or whatever else trying to save themselves. But only Jesus is worthy of anyone’s faith. Only Jesus can save them from their sins and give them a new, free, whole life as a child of God in His kingdom!

We have experienced this salvation and new life- we MUST tell the world about it. In the face of the suffering, evil, and brokenness of this world, we must tell the story of Jesus who offers salvation through his life, death on the cross, and resurrection from the dead! Like he brought you and me to life, he can do the same for every single person around you!

Let us reach the world with this good news.

There is justification, redemption and atonement for anyone and everyone who puts their faith in Jesus!

Let’s respond in prayer now.

First- if you are here and have never put your faith in Jesus, let tonight be the night for you. You heard the gospel all night. All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. Later in Romans says- the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus! If you’re here and you know you have been striving to be a good person, to be good enough to get to heaven, to get right with God by your own efffort- listen, you can’t do it. You will burn yourself out trying to be good enough and you’ll still be separated from God. Tonight, stop putting your faith in yourself and put your faith in Jesus who lived a perfect life, died on the cross in your place and rose from the dead to give you a brand new life! Is there anyone here who needs to put their faith in Jesus tonight?

Christians, we must respond to this truth about the work of Jesus on the cross-

Would you ask God to reveal any ways that you still try to earn his love or relationship. Confess those things to God and someone else here tonight.

Ask God to help you rest in his grace and rejoice in Jesus’ work on the cross!

Pray for God to lead you to those around you this week that need to hear about the saving power of the cross! Ask god to give you the boldness and words to share the Gospel with them.