Today through our worship, we have woven the theme of God’s amazing love and grace. As we continue to worship through the reading and preaching of God’s Word, we want to continue to explore that theme. It really is quite amazing when you think about it. One of the popular gospel songs around here starts, “That God should love a sinner such as I.” That’s grace. What is grace? The grace that we experience as believers comes from the word – GRACE – God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Today we want to look a little deeper at this thing called grace. To do that we want to look at Romans 3:21-4:5. Let me give you a little background to the passage to which we are about to look. Paul tells us in Romans 1:16-17: For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—Jews first and also Gentiles. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, ‘It is through faith that a righteous person has life.’” Paul then goes on to speak to the Romans, first about how God is angry at sin and God’s coming judgment of sin. Paul makes a point that God will punish all sinners. He then distinguishes between the Jews (who had the law and still couldn’t keep it) and the Gentiles. He makes a point in 3:9 “…for we have already shown that all people, whether Jews or Gentiles, are all under the power of sin.” Let’s pick up the action in verse 19: “Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses and to bring the entire world into judgment before God. For no one can ever be made right in God’s sight by doing what the law commands. For the more we know God’s law, the clearer it becomes that we aren’t obeying it.” Wow! So, Paul is saying here that even though the Jewish people had the law, they still didn’t have a chance. So is there any hope for us. There sure is! Romans 3:21 begins:
21 But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight—not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago. 22 We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.
23 For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 24 Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. 25 For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times. 26 And he is entirely fair and just in this present time when he declares sinners to be right in his sight because they believe in Jesus.
Paul reiterates that all of us are sinners; there is not one person who is good. All of us fall short of God’s standard. We are all sinners in need of grace. Sometimes even as Christians we think more highly of ourselves than we ought. We often want to compare ourselves to others, when we really need to be comparing ourselves to God. God is the one who sets the standard not man. We are sinners. This week we are going to begin our 40 Days of Prayer and Fasting. We are going to do it a little different this year. We don’t have a specific program from headquarters, so I am currently working on a series to take us through this preparation for the season of Easter. This coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. I really never paid much attention to this day in the past. I felt it was reserved for those from the Catholic and/or mainline denominations. It wasn’t something that a Wesleyan could benefit from, or so I though, until about five years ago. In 2003, we were invited to participate in a service at the other church in our community. It was the last week in their Lenten services. Pam and I and the family participated in that service and it was wonderful. The next year, I felt that as a community pastor, I really needed to be involved with the whole series of services, so I did and that was the first time I experienced an Ash Wednesday service. It was a unique experience, like none I had ever had before. I was moved at my own sinfulness and by God’s love for us. That year I didn’t get involved with the placing on of ashes, but the next year I did. We really understand our humanness in times like that. It’s experiences like that, that remind us of God’s great love for us and how much grace really was involved in Jesus coming to shed his blood for our sins. This Wednesday, we will be having an Ash Wednesday service. I encourage any who is able to be here on Wednesday night. I promise you it will be a powerful service as we remember the grace of God.
It is this grace that Paul goes on to describe, “and now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty!” That is awesome news, but how, by following the law? No. God has declared us not guilty through Jesus Christ; he has taken away our sins. Christ was the substitute for what we couldn’t do on our own. Christ took our punishment. Christ satisfied God’s anger against us. Only when we believe that Jesus shed his blood for us and sacrificed himself for us we are declared not guilty.
Sometimes we look at the Old Testament and wonder how God could be so patient. He is a patient God! There were many times that the children of Israel deserved Gods punishment but didn’t get it. There are times in our culture today, that we don’t get the punishment that we deserve from God. It’s all because of his grace.
The Greek word for grace is probably equivalent to the Hebrew word chesed meaning “lovingkindness,” a word frequently used by the psalmists to describe God’s character. In the New Testament, the word charis usually means divine favor or goodwill, but it also means “that which gives joy” and “that which is a free gift.” This is a noteworthy occurrence of the word grace, because it was one of Paul’s favorite words for God’s free gift of salvation.[i]
Salvation is a free gift; there is nothing we can do to earn it. Paul goes on to tell us that. Let’s take a look.
27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds. It is based on our faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.
29 After all, God is not the God of the Jews only, is he? Isn’t he also the God of the Gentiles? Of course he is. 30 There is only one God, and there is only one way of being accepted by him. He makes people right with himself only by faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles. 31 Well then, if we emphasize faith, does this mean that we can forget about the law? Of course not! In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law.
We like to try to do lots of things to be accepted by God. We come to church. We sing the music. We pray the prayers. We take care of the sick. We teach classes. We visit new prospects. But none of these are good enough. We can’t do enough good things for God to make him accept us. It is through our faith in Christ and the work that He did on the cross that we are made right with God. That doesn’t seem to make much sense to us. We like to work for things. We like to earn things. Salvation is God’s free gift. Salvation is grace. Salvation is divine favor. Salvation is divine goodwill. As I prepared for this sermon, I was awestruck with this. There’s nothing you or I can do that makes us worthy of the grace of God.
As if we needed anymore instruction on this topic, let’s take a look at four more verses from chapter 4.
4 Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What were his experiences concerning this question of being saved by faith? 2 Was it because of his good deeds that God accepted him? If so, he would have had something to boast about. But from God’s point of view Abraham had no basis at all for pride. 3 For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, so God declared him to be righteous.”
4 When people work, their wages are not a gift. Workers earn what they receive. 5 But people are declared righteous because of their faith, not because of their work..[ii]
If we could work for our salvation, it would not be a gift. While working at Radioshack, I earn my paycheck. There are certain things I need to do to gain a better paycheck. Radioshack doesn’t pay me out of their kindness. No, I need to earn it. My paycheck is not a gift, it is earned, and when I do really well, I can boast about how well I did. Can you see why it’s important that we can’t earn our salvation? If we could earn it, it wouldn’t be a gift. If we could earn it, we could brag about, or boast about how good we are. But we can’t earn it, so we can boast about how good we are and how we did such a good job in earning it.
God’s grace is amazing because we did not earn it. We can only receive God’s grace by believing in Christ’s wonderful gift. In Titus Paul writes, “For the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people. And we are instructed to turn from Godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with self-control, right conduct, and devotion to God, while we look forward to that wonderful event when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed. He gave his life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us his very own people, totally committed to doing what is right. You must teach these things and encourage your people to do them, correcting them when necessary.”
Why do we need to do these things? Because of God’s amazing grace. “…then our God and Savior showed us his kindness and love. He saved us, not because of the good things we did, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins and gave us a new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us because of what Jesus Christ our Savior did. He declared us not guilty because of his great kindness. And now we know that we will inherit eternal life. These things I told you are true. I want you to insist on them so that everyone who trust in God will be careful to do good deeds all the time. These things are good and beneficial for everyone.” What Paul is saying is that the very grace that you have received from Christ, you need to go out and do to others.
To remember this amazing grace that God has lavished on us, let’s stand and sing hymn #85, as we join Christians around this country in singing “Amazing Grace.”
Benediction:
May our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father, who loved us and in his special favor gave us everlasting comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and give you strength in every good thing you do and say.
Footnotes:
[i]Earl D. Radmacher, general editor; Ronald B. Allen, Old Testament editor, Nelson Study Bible [computer file], electronic ed., Logos Library System, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson) 1997.
[ii]Holy Bible, New Living Translation, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.) 1996.
