Our Sin

Introduction

There are three types of people in the world. Those that are good at math and those who aren’t. If you’re good at math and particularly good at fractions, then you know today we are three fifty seconds into this year. In some sense, that’s remarkable to think that time has already passed by that quickly. That we’re three Sundays into this new year, and if we’re three Sundays into this new year, we’re three Sundays into our new family focus. 2021 has brought us this theme, found from Colossians 2, verses 6 and 7, that we’re to be rooted and built up. We’ve talked about that, the importance of being established and abounding in the word of the Lord. That’s been our theme. And coinciding with that theme has been our reading program.

And pushing and pushing this reading program. I want to encourage you, if you haven’t started already, it’s not too late. By the way, we’re only three fifty seconds into the year. You can get caught up in your reading plan. Pick up one of these on your way out of the building this morning. If you’re watching online, this is available on our website. Go under the resources and you’ll find the Bible reading plan. And you can view and print out your own Bible reading chart. One last time, I promise to explain this Bible reading chart, and then the rest of it’s just going to be up to you. You’re probably familiar with Bible reading plans. You’ve done those or tried to do those in the past. It’s been my experience that many Christians begin in January a Bible reading plan, but somewhere in March are in the book of Leviticus, we end up getting behind and discouraged and we give up.

This Bible reading plan is a little different in two senses. One is that we’re just reading through the epistles, just through Romans to Jude. And we’re just reading basically two chapters. Sometimes there’ll be three, but for the most part, two chapters a week. That has two grand advantages. Number one is you can get caught back up very quickly. In fact, if you haven’t even started, you can get caught up today by just reading six chapters. You can do that. That’s about a 20 minutes, maybe not even 20 minute read. But it’s not just a light Bible reading plan. That’s not the purpose. The purpose is really for it to be a deep Bible reading plan. Since you’re just reading two chapters a week, those are two chapters that you can spend some time in.

Read them. Reread them. Meditate on them. Study them. Make some notes in the margins of your Bible or in a notebook somewhere of what jumps off the page at that week’s reading. We can share those thoughts together, and we’ve been doing that. We’ve made audio recordings available. In fact, today on our website, Romans chapters 5 and 6, which is this coming week’s reading, has been recorded for you by one of our brethren, and you can listen to that reading in addition to reading it yourself. And so if you’ve done the Bible reading program through the first two weeks, today starts the third week. First, through the first two weeks, we’ve gone through Romans 1 through 4 in your readings. And again, if you haven’t started that, I want to encourage you to start that today.

Read Romans 1 through 4, and then sometime this week, read chapters 5 and 6, and you’ll be on plan. And again, don’t just read them. Spend some time in the Word of God. And so what we want to do to encourage you and to enhance your reading is we want to present some lessons from time to time. It won’t be possible for me to do a lesson every Sunday on our past readings, but every once in a while, we’re going to look at some of the portions of Scripture that we’ve just read and draw a lesson from it. And so we want to do that this morning. And so I want to encourage you to go back to Romans. Romans chapters 1 through 4, where we’ve looked at our first two weeks of readings, and we want to draw our lesson from that, from the book of Romans.

And we’ve entitled this lesson in this section of our reading, Romans 1 through 4, simply Our Sin. Even a cursory reading of the book of Romans will tell you that the emphasis in Romans is on faith. The emphasis on faith as a system of salvation, a system of faith includes the provision of forgiveness. The forgiveness of our sins, because we’ve all sinned.

In it is the means of remedying our sin, then the counterargument, the other argument in the book of Romans is, is that a system of works, which was that of the old law, is not the means of our salvation. Romans, the author of Romans, the Apostle Paul, puts before us two different systems. The ancient system, the system of the law, that required perfect obedience, and did not inherently within it have that provision or a means, at least, of removing the sins that were committed. Versus Jesus Christ system, the new covenant. It’s a system of faith that did include forgiveness and a provision for our sin. That’s really an oversimplified, but that’s the theme of the book of Romans. I want to make three points from Romans chapters 1 through 4 this morning, really about our sin.

1. The Depravity of Sin

He starts in chapters 1 and 2 in talking about the depravity of sin. The depravity of sin that if man pursues a godless life, this is the ultimate eventual, and we might even say extreme result of that. Look with us in Romans chapter 1. Begin reading with me in verse 18. Paul has just said that he wasn’t ashamed of the gospel, for it was the power of God to salvation, famously in Romans 1, verse 16. But people don’t know they need salvation until the need has been established. And so now he sets about to establish the need in there in our hearts. Why do I need the gospel? Why do I need this thing called salvation? It’s because of sin. And he introduces us not just to sin, but to the depravity of sin, the horror of sin, of just how repugnant and ungodlike sin is.

And so Romans 1 verse 18 says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

Salvation because of the wrath of God. That’s what we’re being saved from, the wrath of God. And the wrath of God is there because of our sin. And it is a sin that he says that regardless of your condition, regardless of your birth, regardless of your geography, that it is a condition that is completely inexcusable. They are without excuse. Now, in this first section, he’s talking to the Gentiles. And what I want you to imagine is this was written, as you know, to the church in Rome. And the church in Rome was a mixed congregation. They had some Jews and they had some Gentiles. Now, for our imaginary purposes this morning, bear with me. I realize their meeting places would have looked very different than our meeting places, but for our purposes this morning, I want you to imagine that they had a building much like this.

And I can imagine from what we read in the pages of the New Testament and in history of the first century in the Roman world and the how’s this for an understatement? The disagreement between Jew and Gentiles. That if they had two sections, just like this section right here, that maybe the Jews would have sat on one side of the building and the Gentiles would have sat on the other side of the building. Paul was trying to solve that separation. But don’t you imagine that for the most part in many of these congregations? That’s probably what it looked like. Jews would sit over here and Gentiles over here. And so Paul, if this letter was a sermon, Paul turns his attention to the Gentiles in the audience.

And he says, This was your condition before the wrath of God was dealt with by the propitiation of Jesus Christ. But you’re without excuse. Because even though you were Gentiles and you weren’t given that codified law in the sense that the Jews were, God has still revealed Himself to you. And the standards may have been different. What was required of you, in other words, the Gentiles weren’t required to make annual pilgrimages to the temple. They weren’t required to serve God through the priest at the tabernacle in the temple. But God still demanded something of them. And a demand for their obedience that corresponded with his revelation to them. And so God has revealed himself to even to the Gentiles through creation, the creation of the outside world and the creation of our inside world, the inner man.

And so that you were without excuse, Gentiles. And notice what he goes on to say of this godless life. Verse 22, pick up in our reading. Professing to be wise, they became fools. And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four footed animals and creeping things. Don’t you think? Surely he has in mind the idea of idolatry, which was common even at that time in the Gentile world. For generations, the Gentiles had bowed down to some graven image that looked like a man or looked like some kind of animal, or in some way or another, worshipped some form of the creation. They professed to be wise, but that was just foolish. Therefore, verse 24, God gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever, amen.

They worship the creature. Was that in idolatry or was it in the present day sense in which we worship the creature that is man today, the Gentile, the unchurched world today is bowing down to the image of ourselves in the mirror. We worship God. We have become our own God. I decide what I want to do. I decide what is right and wrong. I decide my standard of morality. We worship the creature rather than the creator. Verse 26. The depravity of sin. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust for one another. Men with men committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of the error that was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. Being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and evil-mindedness. They’re whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful. That is the depravity of sin. God has revealed Himself to you as the creator, and in his role as creator alone, he has every right to number one, be worshipped, and number two, to dictate our moral conduct. But the depravity of sin takes man to vile, depraved, and corrupt lings. Paul’s been preaching to the Gentile side of the congregation. And again, if this was a sermon rather than an epistle, I can imagine during that section, there would have been a lot of amens coming from the Jewish section.

2. The Reality of Sin

But then Paul turns his attention to what we might call the reality of sin. Here was the extreme depravity of sin in chapter one. Beginning in chapter two, he deals with the reality of sin. And we know the famous conclusion, don’t we? In chapter 3, verse 23, for all have sinned. And now he turns his attention not just to those who have taken sin, or we might say, allowed sin to take them into the extreme depravity. But to those who were, they were okay. They didn’t do all those horrible things. Isn’t that true of a lot of people in the world? You probably know somebody who is that, of chapter one. Who has those vile passions and the depraved? But you also know a lot of people, non-Christians, who don’t do those things.

That are generally pretty good people. Well, what about them? Well, look beginning in chapter two. As he addresses those type of people. Chapter 2, verse 1, therefore you are excusable, O man, whoever you are who judge. For in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourselves, for you who judge practice the same things. Now there’s some debate about scholars as who’s being addressed here. Has he turned his attention to the Jews? Or is he talking to what sometimes are called the moralistic Gentiles? The good Gentiles. Chapter 1 was the bad, the depraved Gentiles. And so maybe he’s talking to those people who are kind of setting in the middle here somewhere.

But they’re generally good people. And they may have joined in with the Jews in the chorus of amens when Paul was excoriating the extreme depravity of sin among man. But Paul says, now wait a minute. You’re inexcusable, you who judge another, because in whatever you judge another, you condemn yourself. Kind of echoes the language of Jesus in Matthew chapter 7, doesn’t it? The idea of the beam in your eye while someone has a speck in their eye. He’s not saying that it’s not right, that it’s improper to say someone else is wrong. He just did that in chapter 1. But what he’s saying is, it’s wrong to applaud when somebody else is getting condemned and fail to make an application to yourself and to see the beam that’s in your own eye.

You’re inexcused, O man. But we know, verse 2, that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. Or do you not think, O man, you who judge those practicing such things and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God. Is Paul’s audience listening? That as these either more, what we might call moral Gentiles or even the Jews, who are saying, yeah, Paul, you tell them about what did he say? The sexually immoral, the wicked, the covetous, the malicious, those who are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil minders, the whisperers, the backbiters, the haters of God, the violent, the ones who are disobedient to their parents. Paul is saying, now wait a minute. Have you done some of those things yourself?

He goes on to say, read with me, continuing in chapter 2. Chapter 2, beginning in verse 21. You therefore, chapter 2, verse 21, you therefore who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? What Paul is talking about here is there is a double, a religious double standard. That we can stand up here in our nice, washed and pressed church clothes, and we can look down our holier than thou noses at the world who are doing these things and saying, God, the wrath of God is going to come upon you. But I get a pass because I’m the teacher’s pet. Because I’m a Jew. Or because I’m a member of the church. God’s going to let me get by with it.

You who say it’s wrong to steal, do you steal? Does Paul mean this in a literal sense where they’re Christians stealing? Probably so. Now I don’t imagine maybe what the they were saying it’s wrong to see. It’s wrong to smash a window and break into a store and take something that’s not yours. It’s wrong to take a gun. Well, you can wear a mask in the bank now, can’t you? But you can’t wear a mask and a gun and go in and say, stick them up, give me your money. That’s wrong. But is it also wrong to cheat on our taxes? Is it wrong to withhold something that someone else is really entitled to? You who say it’s wrong to steal, do you steal yourself? You who say, verse 22, do not commit adultery.

Do you commit adultery? I can’t believe those people are practicing in chapter one, those people are practicing homosexuality and sexual immorality. And they’re in these nasty, idolatrous love feast or these orgies where they do all of that thing. Now, my little sexual affair that I’m having with someone that’s not my wife, that’s okay. Because I’m not doing that.

Was it possible that they were first century Christians who were going to church every Sunday and singing and praying and partaking of the Lord’s Supper? Who had the proverbial skeletons in their closet and were unfaithful? Sure it was.

Verse 23, you make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? The reality of sin is that we don’t have to be in the depths of the depravity of sin to have sinned and to incur the wrath of God. And so he famously says in chapter 3, verse 23. For all.

And scanning the entire assembly. And looking everybody in the eye, Jew and Gentile. To the worst idol worshiper there was.

3. There Is a Remedy: Jesus Christ and Our Faith

Both Jew and Gentile. And so he says, yes, sin can take us to depraved places. And sin can cause us to be hypocritical. For all have sinned. But then he says, there is, and this is the point of the book of Romans, there is a remedy for that. Whoever you are. So many times we preachers, I’ll blame us. We like Romans 3, verse 23, don’t we? For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But what we failed to point out to you, and you’ve already noticed it yourself, is that verse 23 doesn’t end with a period. That’s not the end of the story. That was the end of the story. The Bible would have ended it, Genesis chapter 3, wouldn’t it? The sin of man.

But yes, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but verse 24 continues, being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Remember, he had said in chapter 1 as he began this treatise, he began by talking about the wrath of God is revealed. Because of the depravity and the universality of the reality of sin, he says, God’s wrath is poured out. Poured out to everybody. Because all have sinned. But now the other side of that equation is here in Romans 3, verses 24, 25, and 26, when he says, but Jesus became the propitiation.

That’s the answer to the wrath or the remedy to the wrath of God. The word propitiation just really means the idea of appeasing the wrath of God. An offering that would satisfy the judgment and the wrath of God. A price had to be paid to appease the wrath of God. And God set that price himself. And that price was the blood of his only begotten Son. So that he could become just. A price was paid. Sin wasn’t just dismissed and ignored. But he could also become the justifier of those who have faith. And so the remedy to the reality and the depravity of sin is Jesus Christ. And our faith in him.

Abraham, the father of the faithful. And again, don’t you imagine that Paul, to his Gentile and Jewish audience, that when he says, our Father, he wasn’t just looking at the Jews, who saw Abraham as their fleshly father, but he would have turned to the Gentiles as well and said, Our father. He may not have been their fleshly forefather, but he was their spiritual forefather. Because Abraham’s children, his descendants, his spiritual descendants are those who come to God in faith. And those Gentile Christians and those Jewish Christians, faith would really exceed the faith of Abraham, because their faith, as strong and prototypical as the faith of Abraham was, the Christian faith is greater because our faith is in Jesus Christ and him crucified. And so he says, What is Abraham, our father, found according to the flesh?

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. If Abraham was able to just earn his salvation by a good moral life and never having sinned, he’d have something to brag about. But even then, not before God. But what does Scripture say, verse 3? Abraham believed God. And it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as dead. But Abraham fell under that all-encompassing umbrella of 3 verse 23. All have sinned. And so even Abraham couldn’t be saved by his perfect obedience, perfect works. Abraham needed faith. Faith in God. We need faith. Faith in Jesus Christ, who is the turning away of the wrath of God for our poor, pitiful spiritual condition.

Conclusion

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But being justified freely by his grace through redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Paul says sin is real. And it can take you further than you want to go. And we’ve all committed it. And we’ve all incurred the wrath of God. But thanks be to God, we have an answer. We have a remedy. Jesus Christ and our faith in Jesus Christ. Would you come to that remedy this morning? Would you believe, have that faith that Abraham had in God, the faith in Jesus Christ? Would you believe in him, repent of your sins, confess your faith, and to be baptized this very morning? Knowing that those actions won’t be works that you can boast about, because we’ve all sinned.

They’ll just be your faith response to the invitation of God. Would you come to him and receive the remedy for the reality of the sin that is in your life? Would you do that right now as together we stand and sing?

And so I came to Holy.