Romans #6 - Crazy Grace Bad News for “Good” People

Romans #6 - Crazy Grace Bad News For “Good” People - Well, are you having a good day? - [Audience] Yes. - I'm about to ruin it. We're in Romans 3. We're going through a great book of the Bible. We're in Romans 3 and in Romans 1 and 2, Paul tells us that God's evaluation of the human condition is that we are sinners that we're fallen, that we're the problem, and we're not the solution. It's a bit like going to your doctor and your doctor being really honest with you. I'll give you an example from my own life. Some years ago, I wasn't doing well physically, I had allergies and I was getting bloody noses and I couldn't sleep, and I had heartburn and I was just not well, I had a nervous eye twitch because I was stressed, everybody in the church thought I was flirting with them. I wasn't, I was just a little freaked out. And what happened then was, one of my kids, looked at grace who was in the third trimester with one of our soon to be born children and looked at me and said, "Daddy, are you having a baby too?" And I was like, "No, I'm having an ice cream baby. I need to make some lifestyle changes." So I go to the doctor and the doctor says "Okay, you need a heartburn medicine, you need sleep medicine. You need anxiety meds, all of these medicines. And so then you do the terrifying thing where you look at the potential side effects. And you're like, "It's worse than what I have. The side effects are worse than what I have." So I go to another doctor who was kind of rude, a bit direct. It reminded me of myself. So now I know what you feel like, this doctor said, "Well, you know what your problem is?" I said, "What is that?" "You are your problem." I didn't pay for this, I can get this for free. So the doctor said, "No, no, you are wrong in the way you think and in the way you live and you are your biggest problem." He said, "So you need to change. You need to accept reality and change." I was like, "Oh boy." So now I've got two doctors. So I've got two choices. The first doctor was we'll give you a bunch of medications to mask the problems. The other doctor was you need to make some drastic changes. So I got a burrito and prayed about it. And then I thought, you know what? I'm gonna go with doctor number two. So I did everything that doctor number two said, I started changing my diet. I started eating well, taking my vitamins, doing all the things I was supposed to do and guess what the diagnosis was correct. But I needed to accept that before I could receive the remedy. And I'm happy to report years later I just had a big annual checkup, perfect health, everything is good and fine. The point is at first what that doctor said, seemed very unloving and a bit harsh but it was his way of bringing me to reality because there was hope for me and things could be improved if I was willing to accept reality. Similarly, the God of the Bible is called the great physician. And what we see in Romans 1 and 2, it's the human checkup. It's the human condition, knowing that we're not gonna like the diagnosis that we're sinners, that we're fallen, that we're rebels that we're the problem, not the solution. Then the apostle Paul here in Romans 3, he answers four common objections. In the same way that I argued with my doctor. My doctor was telling me, "You need to do this." "I don't know." "You need to do that." I'm not sure I agree. And then I had an excuse for everything. He answered my objections. Here, Paul is answering our objections. And so we're gonna look at objection number one, In Romans 3:1-2. And this is people who are outside of the church, peering in on those of us who are in the church coming to this conclusion. There's no benefit to church involvement. And the basic argument is okay, "I should go to church. I should read the Bible, I should pray." But I've met some of those people, They're are no better than me. If it doesn't work for them, why would I try something that isn't working? What advantage has the Jew? He's talking there about the person who grows up in faith, grows up in church, grows up in prayer, grows up in scripture. There's a familiarity with the God of the Bible or what is the value of circumcision? This was their external demonstration of an internal transformation for us. It would be our equivalent today of something like baptism. It's publicly recognizing who your God is, much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. And what he's talking about here are Jews and Gentiles. These were racial cultural groupings in that day that had conflict. Much like there are racial cultural conflicts in our day. One group thought we're the good people, and they're the bad people. The other group thought, "No, no, we're the good people." They're the bad people. God says, "You're all the bad people. Jesus is the good person." And so that's how God sees history and humanity. And what he's saying is this that ultimately they did get a blessing and the blessing was the word of God. And the word of God is what God blesses. God doesn't bless people or races or nations or cultures. God blesses His word. And if you come under his word, you're in the place that He blesses. And if you leave the place of blessing, blessing does not follow you. Consider it this way, the Bible says that God is a father. I've got five kids. If my kids are trying to do the right thing I'm going to help them. If my kids are trying to do the wrong thing I'm not going to help them. God is a father. For those who seek to obey Him, He will bless and help them. For those who rebel, He will not. And the point of the Bible is twofold. It's to improve your life and to grant you eternal life. And so if you believe the Bible and you obey the Bible, it actually makes a difference in your life. And the point of the Bible is to introduce you to Jesus Christ, to be your savior as a sinner so that you can receive eternal life. Whether or not you meet Jesus and go to heaven. If you obey the Bible, there still are benefits for this life, not the ultimate benefits but there are benefits in this life. I'll give you one example. When I was growing up, I grew up Catholic and my mom knew the Lord. I did not. I didn't have really much interest in God, but even sitting in church, they would read from the old and the new Testament. And just hearing scripture gave me some guard rails that really did improve my life even though I did not yet know Jesus, "okay, don't get drunk. Don't have a kid out of wedlock, certain things, don't steal, don't kill anybody, some real basic guard rails that kept me out of a lot of trouble. So there are benefits to knowing God's word. And there was a study that was recently done by a group called Back to the Bible, they did a national survey of 400,000 people, looking at their Bible reading habits. And they came up with something called the power of four effect. And that is if you read the Bible, one two, three days a week, minimal change in your life. Four days a week, radical change in your life. As soon as God's word becomes the majority of your week, your week begins to change. They saw that those who have God's word on the majority of their days during the week their emotional life improved, their depression went down, their anxiety lifted, their addictive tendencies and self-destructive decisions decreased, their hope for the future increased. Literally it was a radical transformation. And when Paul here is talking about the Oracles of God, he's talking about ultimately the word of God. And so you being here is a real blessing. I love you. It's good to see you. And I want God's word to be a blessing to you. And when it comes to God's word there are really only three ways to view God's word. I could just briefly summarize a lot of scholarship. Some people think that this is perfect and it's ultimately from God. That's what I believe. That's what we believe, amen. That's what we believe at the Trinity church. The other view is that this is not from God, this is about God from us as a result, it's not perfect, it's imperfect.

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