Breaking News

We are standing in that gospel that we've been singing about. That's what we're gonna be hearing about in God's Word today and I am really excited to get into it with you.

We're going to be in Romans 3 this morning. And the title of our series that we've been in is called "Good News." Now, if you've been here the last few Sundays and you've heard the last few messages that Pastor Eric has preached, you might think maybe we misnamed the series, we messed that up in our staff meeting by calling it "Good News," because there's been a lot of bad news these last few weeks, a lot of bad news about ourselves and about our sinful condition. But today, finally, there is some breaking news, and that is the title of this message.

You know, very rarely does "breaking news" live up to the hype. I was thinking about it this week. You watch the news and they're like "breaking news," and then they cut to something and whatever they have to say really isn't that significant. It doesn't really matter that much. However, last night we really had breaking news that was breaking news. So my family was eating dinner, and I got a text, "Did you see what happened?" We turned on the news. Probably all of you turned on the news quickly last night. You saw breaking news that took place and, I mean, we could talk a lot about that. I think that was emblematic of the human condition that we've been talking about on an individual level, and on a cultural level, a societal level. So we're praying for our leaders, our country. So that was big breaking news that we all experienced just last night.

But as we're walking through the book of Romans here, I think we get to Paul's big breaking news. It comes in kind of out of nowhere this morning. And we're gonna begin in Romans 3:21. And here's the deal: against this very, very dark backdrop of the bad news that Pastor Eric has been preaching about--our depravity, our need before the Lord, all that has to be firmly established deep down in our hearts before we're ready to move on. That's why pastor has preached the sermons that he's preached. He's done the hard and the challenging work of holding up the mirror to us, holding up God's word to us, and showing us ourselves and showing us our hearts, and showing us our need. He's done that hard work so that I can preach the good news. That's very emblematic of our friendship and our partnership, brother. Yes. That's right. I can't imagine the self-restraint you're using to not preach this this morning.

And so that's why pastor has done what he's done the last few weeks. That's why Paul has spent so much time in the first three chapters of Romans. I mean, he's spent a lot of ink on this bad news. And the reason is because we have to realize before we jump in no matter who you are today, no matter what you've done, we all have the same terminal condition. We received it from our very first father, Adam. It's passed down generation to generation to generation, every man, every woman, every child, we are born into sin. I hate to say this out loud, but I have children at my home, and I'm telling you it is a true reality, right? We were born into sin. I love you all dearly. But it's true. And we have a disease. We all share a disease that we're sick with. It's called sin. It's not just the sinful stuff that I do out here, all the stuff that I do that is sinful. That stuff is just symptomatic of a deeper heart level issue that I have. I have it. You have it, we all have it. It's a disease called sin.

This is very evident to see on our worst days, when we fly off the handle and we say things that we regret, and we do things that we regret. I mean, we just know that was a bad day. It's very evident on those days that we have this disease. Now, on our best days, it can be a little harder. Even when we wake up early and we read our Bibles, and we commune with God, and we spend time in prayer. We pray for other people, and we discipline and love our children, and we go to work and we work hard as unto the Lord, and we treat other people the way that we want to be treated, and we share the gospel. I mean, you wanna talk about a red letter day. You just check every spiritual box that you could possibly check. Even on your best days, we do not have the righteousness that is required to stand before a Holy God. It's been the message that we've been hearing about. On our worst days, on our best days, we're not nearly as righteous as we think we are. And we're not nearly righteous enough to stand before this righteous God.

Now again, that's not a very palatable message, particularly not for our world. Our world does not want to hear that about itself. But even for us, we don't really want to hear that about ourselves. But this news that we've been hearing about, it does not ultimately come from Pastor Eric. All Pastor Eric is doing is preaching God's word. This is what the Bible says. This news ultimately doesn't even come from the Apostle Paul. He's the one who wrote the letter, but he's doing that under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This news that we've been reading about, it comes from the very top. It comes from a very reliable source. It's really important in news that the source that you're listening to is reliable and trustworthy. You can trust their account of the story. And guess what, God is the maker of our world. He understands our world. He understands us because he created every one of us in this room. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows what's wrong with us. He knows why we're broken. He knows why the world is broken. He understands all that. He also knows what the cure is. He knows how to heal us. He knows how to make us whole again in the gospel that we're gonna be talking about this morning. But we would be wise to receive that honest evaluation that God has been giving us of ourselves because he knows. He knows better than we know. And that's what God's Word has been doing the last few weeks.

So look, that's the final pitch there. We're done with the bad if you have truly received that bad news about yourself. My name is Jeremy and I have a problem. I have a sin disease in my heart, and I can't cure it with my performance and my good works. If you're in that place too, then we are finally ready to receive this breaking news that Paul gives us. This good news of a new righteousness that does not spring from ourselves. And so we're gonna look at that. Now. It's a long intro. But if you will turn in your copy of God's Word or you can look at the screens, we're gonna be in Romans 3 beginning in verse 21.

Now, if you're looking in your Bible, these verses probably have the same font as all the other verses. But these verses should really jump off the page. They should catch your attention because it is "breaking news." If you were to put a headline over what we've been talking about so far in the first three chapters of Romans, you could say this, "All of humanity under sin and the wrath of God!" "All of humanity under sin and the wrath of God." That's been the headline up until now.

But there's a new headline right here. Breaking news! Y'all, "Righteousness is now available to all in Jesus." Righteousness is now available to all in Jesus. This is breaking news that can actually change your life. These verses right here, this news, it has been changing the lives of countless people throughout centuries who have come to the end of their selves, and their own self-righteousness, and their good works, and found that this is actually in the Bible, and that they can have this righteousness that is not theirs. And it has changed their life! It has changed the trajectory of their life, this new righteousness that Paul is talking about.

Now what is this righteousness?

It's anticipated in those first words in verse 21: "But now!" So often in the Bible, that little word, "but" is really important, because it signifies a transition that's happening from the way things were to the way things are. That moment is when God is intervening, and making a way, and changing something. And so that's what we see happening here. Now, what is this righteousness that Paul is talking about? This is the righteousness of God that has been "manifested apart from the law."

It's been manifested. That means it's come about, it's been anticipated, but now it's here. And it happens apart from the law. So up until this point in biblical history and human history, if you wanted to be righteous, the way you became righteous, the best you could, was by obeying the law. Well now there is a righteousness, Paul says, that is not contingent with how well you obey the law. It's not contingent based upon the law. It is apart from the law, does that make sense?

This is a new righteousness. This is a new way to be made right with God that is not determined by personal performance. This is very radical news. It was very radical news when it came on the scene because here's the deal: no other religion knows anything like this. Every other religion in the world is based off personal performance. How well I do for my God. But this right here, now the righteousness that God demands, is now going to be the righteousness that God provides.
 
We also see that it's anticipated because at the end of verse 21 he says, "although the law and prophets bear witness to it." Now, when he says "the law and prophets right there," he's talking about the entirety of the Old Testament. So even though the Old Testament gives us the law at Mount Sinai through Moses, we also see all kinds of prophecies in the Old Testament that seem to, from afar, see this news that we're talking about today. We see it in full color. They only saw it from far away. That's how Isaiah could write that striking chapter in Isaiah 53 that we read basically every Good Friday, "He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. By his wounds we are healed." How could Isaiah have seen that? How could he have known that from so far away? God gave them glimpses of this righteousness that would come that was not gonna be their own righteousness. Man, it was longed for. It was anticipated because the people of God throughout Old Testament history, they knew that they did not have nearly enough to stand before this Holy God. They could never atone for their sin with the sacrifices that they offered. So there's this longing and there's this anticipation. The Old Testament is anticipating the day when this righteousness would come onto the scene, when this news would erupt. And it's finally here! Right here.

And this is very good news because the Old Testament Law wasn't able to make anybody righteous. It wasn't able to do that. So it's an anticipated righteousness.

I've got you sci-fi nerds hooked right now. It's an alien righteousness. And I don't mean from another planet. That is what Martin Luther first called it, an "alien righteousness." And when I say that what I mean is that it is alien to me. This righteousness that Paul is talking about, it's not located inside of me. It's located outside of me. Well you say, where is the righteousness? If it's not in me, where is the righteousness located? You could pull out your GPS and try to find it. The location of the righteousness that Paul is talking about, it's where? It's in Jesus Christ. His righteousness out there, Jesus's righteousness, is now being offered to me in here. So in that sense, it's alien to me. It doesn't start with me. It's his, it's not mine. He chooses to give it to me. This is an alien righteousness, it's not mine.

And when I realize that my righteousness is alien, then so is my hope. I have an alien hope. Some of you can't get past the word alien probably. This is a hope not in myself, but it is a hope in someone outside of myself.

Now, just to try to illustrate how this might work: Crystal and I love to try to do home projects. And you probably know that about us. And when we go to launch into a home project, I mean, I have some degree of confidence that we'll get to the finish line with the desired result. I have some degree of hope, between the help of Youtube, and a lot of you friends out there that we've consulted throughout the years on various things, and you know, basically just the sheer grace of God, we normally get it across the finish line.

However, sometimes home projects rise way above our pay grade. "There's no ability to do that." And everything changes dramatically when there's a knock at the door and Stan Gray shows up at my house. When Stan Gray shows up at my house, things change dramatically. Or when Jeff Conaway pulls in with heavy machinery in my driveway, the equation changes dramatically. Because the hope that I have in this project getting accomplished or this thing getting fixed, it's not in myself anymore. As we're working on this project, (I say together, I'm really just kind of handing them the tools or whatever, you know, trying to be there), I am supremely confident in those moments of the outcome. But it's not because I know how to do it. It's because someone with a lot of skill and a lot of know how, who's very dependable is applying that to me. You see what I'm saying? This hope is alien to me, but I just rest in it. I know it's gonna get done. I'm gonna hand them the screwdriver, eventually it's gonna get done, and it's gonna get done right. I have confidence in someone outside of me. And that is a very small scale illustration.

How much more comfort and hope should we draw from the fact that our righteousness is in someone far more dependable even than Stan and Jeff? It is in Jesus Christ. It is very secure. We don't have to worry about it. How much more comfort should we draw from that? Every other religion, again, we've said this, but it is based solely on what I do what I can do. But Christianity is not about what I do. It's about what Jesus has done. It is alien to me. Does that make sense? I hope it does.

So, this alien righteousness that we're talking about that is not mine, that is Jesus', that is the core of the gospel. I mean that's why Pastor Eric would have such a hard time not preaching this. This is the core message of the gospel. If you were to take the gospel into the science lab where we normally have Sunday School as young adults, and you were to try to dissect the gospel, you would cut it open, and this is what you would find: His righteousness is now mine.

If you were to take the gospel and look at it under a microscope, at the cellular level, this is what you would find imprinted on every cell. His righteousness is now mine. It's this "Great Exchange" that happens that Pastor Eric talks about all the time where amazingly, Jesus gets my sin, my shame, my guilt, all that stuff, every word, every thought, every deed that I've ever done that is sinful. It is now given to him and he gives to me his perfect record and his righteousness so that I'm able to stand before God in his righteousness. I'm clothed. I'm dressed in his righteousness. Is that not amazing news? That is this great exchange that happens. And that is the heartbeat, that is the core of the gospel, this alien righteousness.

It's what's sparked the Protestant Reformation, the purity and the clarity of that. Let's not distort that at all. There's nothing I can do. It's only what Christ has done--that purity and that clarity of that gospel. That's what sparked the Protestant Reformation! By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone! Let's just keep it simple. And that message is so important for us. It provides the believer with such great assurance. I mean, I think you can understand why.

Each day that I walk with God, my standing with Him is not dependent upon how well I performed for him. Whew. That is good news. But even as Christians, we can slip into performance based righteousness very, very easily. I do that myself. When I realize in the morning, the righteousness that is given, it's the same. My standing with God is fixed. And it's in someone who's far more dependable, and his name is Jesus Christ. The work is done. It is finished. That is what we're talking about this morning. So it's an anticipated righteousness. It is an alien righteousness. And it's also:

Look at the back half of verse 22. It says this, "for all who believe," "all" means all there. It's frustrating if you pull up the Walmart app, or the Amazon app, or the Lowe's app, and you type in the item that you're looking for and it pops up, and it says "item unavailable," "currently out of stock," "27 available in Corinth." I'm sorry Camron if you're out there somewhere. I shop at Lowe's a lot. All right. So it's frustrating when the thing is not there that you're looking for: "out of stock." Y'all, this righteousness that Christ gives, there is plenty in stock. There is plenty and it is for anyone and everyone, everyone in this room today. There is enough for all of us. There is enough for every person on the face of the planet who calls upon the name of the Lord to be saved. There is plenty for all who believe and that is very good news because it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what you've done. No excuses. You can come to Christ today and receive his righteousness. It is available for all who believe. Does it make sense?

All right. So that's the kind of righteousness that we're talking about. That's the headline, that's big news. That was big news at that moment in salvation history. It's big news for us in the midst of this series.

And Paul gives us this vocabulary in the back half of verse 22 through verse 26. Now, maybe you're one of those people that just has to know how stuff works. So you say, "man, that is really great news. I'm excited to hear that, but you gotta tell me more... like how does that really work? I've got some questions."

That's what verses 22 through 26 are all about. Paul provides this thorough explanation of how a just God can justify guilty sinners. How can God still be just while simultaneously justifying guilty sinners? That's the question that we may be asking. How can a righteous God declare sinners righteous? And so, he uses this vocabulary of words, this group of words that we don't use all the time in common speech, these words like redemption and propitiation. Some of your versions may not even use those exact words. They might try to define them for you because they know they're not as common of words. But those words, they become very precious to us when we understand them, because they make sense of, they explain how God can do this very thing.

Now, the first word that we're gonna look at is the word: 

So let's backtrack into verse 23. It says this: 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. Now, what does justified mean? What does it mean to be justified? That is a term that is borrowed from the courtroom. Now we all love high profile court cases. We watch them for entertainment. They are wildly interesting to us when we see that happening. We need to realize that in this little courtroom scene that we're looking at right here, we are actually the defendant that's on trial. We are the defendant and it is our fate that hangs in the balance when we enter into the courtroom of God. So just picture yourself as the defendant, the guilty defendant, by the way. We are all guilty.

And we come in and the prosecution rises up. It's the things that we've been talking about. And the law goes first and the law says, "Yep, I gave my commandments. He knew the commandments. And times without number, he failed to obey the commandments that I gave to him. The law rests, and then the moral conscience rises up. Each of us has a moral conscience and it testifies to us all the times that we knew the right thing to do and we just didn't do it. We knew the right thing not to do and we did it anyway. Our moral conscience condemns us. And then our very own judgments, the words that we've spoken out of our mouth that we've talked about, that invisible tape recorder that has heard every time we've said, "Man, I can't believe she would do something like that. I would never do anything like that." All those judgments that we passed on everyone else, and those are played. And all the times that we've done that very thing that we said we would never do. And then after all that, all the religious rituals that we've been a part of, the services we've attended, back when you went to that DNow in 1999 and you heard all that truth. I mean, you could play that out. All those religious rituals we went to when we were exposed to God's truth and yet our hearts weren't transformed. All those things rise up and they give this case against us. And the case is airtight. We are guilty. The prosecution rests.

The verdict that we all deserve at that point is guilty. That's what verse 22 is talking about. "There is no distinction. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It's probably a verse that you've memorized on the Roman road. It's foundational. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." So it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter if you're dressed up today and you're wearing a tie, or if you're in street clothes. It doesn't matter if you have brown hair and brown eyes like me, or blonde hair and blue eyes, or no hair and green eyes. It does not matter. That was for Don Croom, but he's not here. It doesn't matter if you're 21 or 43 or 67 or 85. It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter if you're red, yellow, black or white. It doesn't matter if you have a past with a lot of baggage, or if you've been able by the grace of God to live a pretty cleaned up life. It doesn't matter which of those spectrums you're on. It does not matter. We have all fallen short of the glory of God. There is no distinction! Paul is obviously talking about Jew and Gentile distinction, but we can apply that for us. We are all in the same boat here. You with me? Verdict we deserve: guilty.

We are in the courtroom of God. He is the judge. Do you think God is a pretty good judge? He is a God of perfect justice. Perfect. And Psalm 9 speaks about this judge. I was reading it this week. Verses 7-8 say this, "But the Lord sits enthroned forever. He has established his throne for justice. And he judges the world with righteousness. He judges the peoples with uprightness." That's the kind of judge we're dealing with here. Everybody wants a fair trial. Everyone wants an impartial trial. Everyone wants the judge to rightly punish evil and lift up good. We want a judge who is righteous to do that. And because God is holy, according to his holy character, he must punish evil. That's how God works. But the breaking news is that now, for sinners who have received the righteousness of Jesus, when God looks at us as the judge and us as the defendant, he will look at us and He will declare us not guilty, justified, righteous, because he will see the righteousness of his son, Jesus, given to you, imputed to you. And when He looks at you, he will see the righteousness of his son Jesus. And He will declare you not guilty. He will declare you justified. Has that become one of your favorite words, "justified?" I'm a justified sinner! Justification. I'm justified in God's sight!

It's important to say that's not like a one time clean slate though, where you're justified and now, "leave this courtroom and do better from here on out." What's gonna happen? You're gonna go back out and stumble into sin again. So this verdict over your life, it's not a one time clean up. This verdict over your life is total. Once you are in Christ, once you are a saved believer, the verdict over your life is justified. Today, tomorrow, December 4th, 2026. You name the date. You're gonna wake up that day and if you're in Christ through faith and belief, you're gonna be a justified Christian. Does that make sense? That is really good news. Wow, that's what fuels everything. That's what makes us wanna sing songs about the gospel. That's what makes us wanna live for Christ. We'll talk more about that, but we're justified.

We're justified. But how? 

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift. Now, grace is a word that's much more common to us. It's probably the most popular on the list, but grace can still be hard to define.

Grace is a gift. It's getting what you don't deserve. You couldn't earn it. You couldn't work for it. It was just given to you. Paul will say, I believe next week, that when you go out this week and you do your job, and let's say you get paid Friday, when you get your paycheck, you're not gonna get your paycheck and then go profusely thank your boss for your check. Because you expect to be paid for the work that you do. You expect to be compensated for the work that you've done.

Grace is not like that. Grace is a gift that is undeserved, that you can never work for, that you can never earn. All you can do is receive it. I had a birthday a couple of weeks back. And these brothers that I work with, they know the way to my heart, ok? Or at least somebody knows. They know the way to my heart. And they went out and they bought me a birthday present. It was very sweet. And I came in, they know that I've begun to love gardening. I know... just take it for what it is. I'm 33, but it is what it is. You gotta have fun somewhere. Ok? And so I open up the the presents. It's got a few sheets of tissue paper, maybe like three. One-two-three. That's it. That's all the work I had to do. I pulled it out and inside this gift (some of you are gonna be excited, some of you are gonna shake your heads), there was beautiful pruning shears, ultra sharp hedge shears, and to top it all off, a no-kink water hose. Can I get an amen? I've enjoyed that. I've enjoyed that with the attached nozzle and all the settings. It was a wonderful gift, wonderful gift. It made me so happy. I didn't work for that. I couldn't earn that. All I did was show up and it was given to me. Grace is a gift like that to be received with thanksgiving. It originates in the generous heart of God. He did not have to give anybody grace, but he chooses from the overflow of his love and his kindness to bestow grace upon whom he sees fit. We don't need to get that twisted. He doesn't have to show grace to anybody. We all could have just been left in our sin, but God chooses to shower his grace upon whom he wills for his glory. And we praise God that we're the recipients of grace that we do not deserve. Thank you for my gift, God. Thank you for my gift.

But it turns out grace isn't cheap. It costs something. That's where our third term comes in. That's:

So, "it comes through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Now, what is redemption? Redemption has its roots in the Old Testament. So if you accrued such a debt that you could not pay it back, you would have to sell yourself into slavery, to work for the person that you're indebted to until you could pay it off. And that might be for the rest of your life. And you're probably familiar with the terminology of a "kinsman redeemer" who could come and purchase you out of the debt that you owe to set you free from the slavery that you were in. That's a picture of what redemption is in the Old Testament.

So, redemption is when a person purchases another person out of slavery with the intent of setting them free. Now, how does that apply to us? We think of ourselves as sinners who have a massive sin debt that we cannot pay back. The Bible says that we were, before Christ, we are slaves to sin. We're slaves to sin and the way that we are purchased out of our sin is Jesus dying for us. But how could he afford it? How could Jesus afford my sin debt? How could he pay for that?

I was thinking about that parable that Jesus tells this week in Matthew and he says that there's the servant who's forgiven that great debt and then he goes out and demands that everyone else pay the debt that they owed him. You remember that? The servant who's been forgiven that won't forgive others. And Jesus in that story, I mean it's just a parable, but he says the debt that that man owed was was 10,000 talents. 10,000 talents. So, just looking at the footnotes again, correct me if this is wrong, but one single talent is 20 years worth of labor for a common laborer. So we're talking about 200,000 years worth of work to pay back this debt. Is that big or little? That's a big debt that Jesus uses. I think Jesus uses that amount for a reason. This is a debt that we could never pay back. It's a debt we could not pay back.

But it turns out that Jesus has something infinitely valuable. Like how could he pay for this? Y'all, his currency, it ain't money. His currency is his blood. It's precious, his precious blood that we sing about all the time. Jesus shed his blood, that our debt would be forgiven and wiped clean. And it is amazing that Jesus did that for us. But he shed his blood, he redeemed us. And when he did, when he paid our debt, we are now released from the slavery that we've been in to sin. We are no longer slaves to sin. We are redeemed, we are free. Is that good news? We've been redeemed by the blood of Jesus!

"Whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood." Now this is probably the least known word. And it doesn't appear in every translation. So yours may not say that, but propitiation, it's not as popular to talk about God's wrath. Is God really that wrathful? But the truth of what God's word says is that I deserve God's wrath. You deserve God's wrath. We all deserve God's wrath for our sin. It's the consequences of a holy God coming into contact with a sinful human being. We deserve the wrath of God. But the wrath that I deserve, that I should have to bear, Jesus has propitiated it. He has appeased it. He has taken that wrath that I deserve and he has bore it upon himself on the cross. Every sinful thought, every deed, every word, every motive, every sinful attitude, all the wrath that I deserve for all that, it's been borne by Jesus on the cross. And I don't have to bear it anymore. I don't have to bear the wrath of God because Jesus has borne it for me.

Now, he gets on into verse 25, and he begins to talk about how God has been patiently overlooking former sins, passing over former sins. He's exercised great forbearance. And what we see there is that propitiation of God's wrath, it's not only over us as New Testament believers, the cross doesn't only work forward, it also works backward. So that Old Testament believers, Old Testament figures, (I think we're gonna talk about this next week) God is applying that propitiation to them even in the past. That is what allowed God to patiently overlook, to pass over former sins. He was waiting for this moment in salvation history when Christ would come and bear the sins of the world. So that's what we see happening here.

Now, all those terms, that vocabulary of words, it leads us to this final verse here. All this answers the question we started with, which was, "How can a just God justify sinners?" It's kind of a problem. How can God be just, and at the same time extend us his grace? And that's what all these terms are trying to answer. Verse 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.

So often our culture frames the dilemma like this, "How could a loving God send people to hell?" That's a question that you might hear out in culture. But the Bible, God's word, kind of flips that dilemma on its head here. And it's more, "How can a righteous God send sinful people to heaven? That's the dilemma. That's the real dilemma biblically. You can take it or leave it. That is the biblical dilemma. That's God's perspective. And that is the situation here.

And the answer is the cross of Christ. That is where Jesus propitiates God's wrath. He redeems us from slavery with his blood, all flowing from His grace, so that we can receive that "justified" verdict. God is just because He punishes his son in our place. So God is just, but he is also the justifier. Justice is served through the punishment of his son. But so is God's grace. And we get that end of the deal. So that's how God can be both just and justifier.

Now, we'll end with this"

Paul anticipates a few questions to this news. This is radical breaking news. And the first one that he asks is in verse 27. He says, "then what becomes of our boasting?" What becomes of our boasting? And I love this answer that Paul gives. It's one of the simplest, most direct, most wonderful answers in the Bible. What of our boasting Paul? It is excluded. Nada, no more, no more room for boasting. After hearing all that news that we've just talked about, about our sinful condition, about what Jesus has done, his righteousness given to us, what room left over is there really for any of us to boast about anything? Like what do we have to boast about in and of ourselves? Our boast is Jesus.

Look, you may be the best student in the class. You may be the best athlete on the field, whatever field you step on, you're the best. You may have the most money. You may have the nicest yard, (I envy you. I'm coming with my shears. I'm coming for you). You may be the most beautiful. You may be the best parents with the best behaved children (more envy there, I'm coming for you). You may give to the most charities. You may have the best church attendance. If we went and pulled up the files right now, you'd be number one. You may have read more of the Bible than anyone this year. You may have spent more time in prayer for everyone else this year. You may come from the best family. You may have a seminary degree. You may teach Sunday school, or sing in the choir, or preach sermons, or you may serve in all kinds of ministries all throughout the week. You may keep your life free of all kinds of sins that everyone else indulges in. You may have all those things. Many of those things are wonderful, wonderful things, but those things are not where we make our boast. We don't make our boast in those things.

And in fact, if we're honest, we often have an outsized view of ourselves anyways. I know that I do, our accomplishments, our abilities, our performance. Just the other night, I was playing a church league softball game. They called me off the bench. I was excited to get to play. I went out there and I finally hit one that landed in the grass. Jonathan, it's been rough. It's been rough. The batting average is abysmal. It's fine. I finally hit one that landed in the grass and it was a stand up triple. I ran in, it was close. I wasn't gonna slide but he dropped the ball and I was safe. And I saw the ball rolling to the dugout, and he just kind of nonchalantly turned toward it, and I thought, "Oh, this is my chance. He just kind of turned like he didn't think I could run on him." And so I took off in a dead sprint to home plate. And as I was running the throw got to that red microphone and I was still right here. Ok. I was still four or five steps away from even touching home plate. And it turns out, I don't have the agility of that Tennessee baseball player in the College World Series. If you know, you know. I could not avoid the tag. It was just a tag and I was out. And that was the end of the situation. And in that moment I told Crystal, I said, "yeah, I'm just not as fast as I thought I was actually." It's really embarrassing, and Jonathan can tell you about that.

But it's just an outsized view of self. I mean, that's a silly example, but we all have that in so many ways. I've laughed a lot. God's given me many opportunities to share with you this week. I'm not proud of this one and this is confession time. It's good for the soul. Earlier this week (was it Tuesday?), I spilled an entire cup of coffee on the church copy machine. I did that. Yep, I know. And Pastor Eric was in his office. It was very embarrassing. He had to come out and he helped me and we cleaned it up. And I think it's working. I had to do some things yesterday and today it didn't look great. So we'll deal with that tomorrow. If your paperwork smells like Dunkin' Donuts "Extra," that was me. Ok, All right. That was just a moment where it felt like this out of body experience. What was I even thinking?

Also this week I, I left the pool pump running on the wrong setting for entirely too long. I got a call from Wayne Baugus about that. Just a big ol' mistake. Now, those are all silly blunders that we all (well maybe it's just me), but we all commit. But not only am I particularly prone to those kinds of things, I'm also just a sinner. I'm also just a sinner. And that is more and more evident. the older I get. It's very evident in my home as a husband. It's very evident as a father. It's very evident as a music minister, as a pastor, as frankly, just a human being. I am not very godly. None of us really are. I am a sinner who desperately needs grace.

This gulf that is between God and us, sometimes we think that we start off with this justified status. And then we are sanctified, sanctified, sanctified, sanctified. We're getting holier and holier and more like Jesus. Maybe I'm close enough now to God that I can just kind of swim across the gulf. That's not how it works. The, the gulf is really, really wide. The chasm is really really wide. If I went out today and you told me I had to swim across the Tennessee River over to the west side, I like to swim, I might could get there. You know, swim across to the other side. On the fourth of July, Crystal's dad, we got on a boat on the Mississippi River. It was kind of horrifying, but we fished on the Mississippi River. If you told me I had to swim across the Mississippi River, that would be a little more sketch, a little more touch and go. If you took me down to the beach and you said, "take off big boy," and I had to swim across the Gulf of Mexico, not happening, not happening. The Gulf between myself and God is more like that Gulf of Mexico, only times like a million. The Gulf is really, really large. And I can never perform my way to get to God. God had to come across to me. Let's not get it mixed up in our growth as Christians that we're getting close in some way. The Gulf is really, really big.

And when we finally realize that, that our best achievements that we have, they're not nearly enough, like that point system that we've been talking about at the pearly gates with Peter, we realize, "man, I don't have nearly as much as I thought I had. I thought I was doing pretty good. I don't have what I need myself." Then I stop trying to get God to respond to me. I stop trying to get God to respond to what I do. And I just start responding to what he's done. That's a really good place to be. I stop taking credit. I stop boasting. Paul says, "no more boasting in self. My best works are rubbish. That is a really graphic term in the New Testament that means totally worthless. "No good, to be thrown out and trampled on. That's my best works," Paul says, "so that I may gain Christ and be found in Him." That's what I long for.

So what will you do with this breaking news? Let's bring it to a conclusion. What will you do with this breaking news? What will I do? This isn't my news. This is God's news in his word. What will we do with it? There is no work to be done. There's no work to be done. The righteousness of God now is apart from the law. It comes through faith in Jesus Christ. It comes through faith. And that's maybe another term that we didn't talk about: Faith. Faith is not a work, ok? It's not the one thing that I do as if God does all this work, and then I do faith, and then boom, I'm saved. Faith is not a work. Faith is simpler than that. It hears all this news that is available, this righteousness that is available, and it says, "I want that. I believe!" And you just hold up empty hands. And you say, "Lord, I'm not bringing anything to this equation. But I want the gift of God. I want the gift of Jesus Christ. I want the gift of His righteousness."

So I just want to implore you. If you've never been saved, this is what this message is for, that you might be saved, that your life might be transformed. That the righteousness that God is extending to all the world through his son Jesus might be applied to you both today and tomorrow and in eternity, so that when you stand before God, you do not stand before God in your own merit, you stand before God in the merit of Jesus Christ. That is the news. That's what "gospel" means. That's why we're calling this "Good News." Gospel. Gathering under the gospel, growing in the gospel, going with the gospel. We talk about the gospel. Gospel, gospel. Gospel is good news. It is a proclamation. It is an announcement to all the world. It is to everyone, for all who believe. Anyone can call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. So if you've not done that, be saved! Let this news come into your life and change you and transform you and be saved.

And if you are a believer, then I think a huge application for us is to stop looking at ourselves. We spend so much time looking at our own performance. Stop dwelling on all the mistakes that I make, all my failures, all my regrets, but also even all the really good things too. Stop staring at my own personal performance. I want you seriously, you don't have to close your eyes, but you can if you want, I want you to just think about your eyeballs right now, physically being fixed on you and your performance. And I want you to take them and I want you to move them away from yourself towards someone else, whose name is Jesus Christ. And I want you to stare at him, and realize that that the work is done, that he is righteous and his righteousness is now given to you. Man that changes everything. When I wake up in the morning and I realize that my standing with God is not based on how well I performed yesterday. It's not going to be based on how well I perform today. It's going to be based on the finished work of Jesus Christ that is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And when I really get that in my head, when I really live in light of that, then I can go and I can do good works. Go do 'em. Go do good works. But not to perform for God, just out of the overflow of thanksgiving for what he's done in your life, for that justified status over your life. That's the way to live the Christian life. That is the fuel for true sanctification. If you try to earn it on your own, ironically, you're not going to get there. But if you rest in your justified status with God, that is what makes you want to sing. That's what makes you want to share the news. That's what makes you want to live for God. That's what makes you want to transform your life and see sin put to death, and see the things of God manifest themselves in your life. You have a great motivation to do it. And it's what God has done for you.

I've tried to keep song lyrics to a minimum this morning, because I quote songs too much when I preach. But this song that we've been singing in church, in big church, (I promise I'm almost done), called "All Sufficient Merit." We sang it the last two weeks. The last verse of it says this:

All sufficient merit, firm in life and death /
The joy of my salvation shall be my final breath /
 
(Like when I take my last breath, I can know. I don't have to be afraid. I'm in Christ).

When I stand accepted before the throne of God /
I'll gaze upon my Jesus and I'll thank him for the cross

The simplicity, the purity of the gospel, "Jesus, thank you. Thank you that I don't stand before God in my own works, but I stand before God in Christ. That is very good breaking news. And let's let it fall on our hearts today and receive it, be saved by it, be changed by it, go deeper into our awareness of what Christ has done for us, what he's done. Let's pray.

Sermon by Jeremy Isbell
Worship Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church