The sermon by Scott Brown on 'Rejoicing in the Cross of Christ' delves into the theological center of Romans, emphasizing justification by faith alone. It outlines the two great exchanges in Romans: the exchange of the glory of God for a lie, and the exchange of our guilt for His righteousness. It underscores that justification is a judicial act of God's grace, separate from the deeds of the law, that all have sinned and fall short of God's glory, and that righteousness is donated by God through faith in Jesus Christ. Brown cautions against modern movements that threaten the doctrine of justification, such as the seeker-sensitive movement, the emergent church, and the New Perspective on Paul, which undermine the traditional understanding of salvation. The sermon calls for believers to apply this doctrine in their lives by forgiving others as God forgives, recognizing that human righteousness is insufficient for salvation. It concludes with a call to embody the grace and mercy of Christ in personal relationships and warns against self-righteousness.

We pray Lord that you would bless Scott today as he comes up and shares the word with us from the book of Romans. Lord, we know you inspired Paul with these words. We're thankful Lord for the mercies that you show us every day. We're thankful for the mercies that you show us every day. We're thankful for the mercies that we don't even know about.

Lord, please reveal to us the things you want us to know. Help us to question the things you want us to question in our lives. Please continue, Lord, just to rain down your grace on this body. We're thankful for Hope Baptist Church. Lord, we pray for all the other churches in the area that are celebrating You today, they're praising You.

We pray for the hearts out there that desire to repent of their sins. And Lord, we just pray that today, as it is written, that therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 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 his righteousness. Because in his forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Or is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then make void the law through faith?

Certainly not. On the contrary, we established the law. Heavenly Father, thank you for these words. There's so much meaning in here that we probably read multiple times and do not fully grasp. But we pray today, Lord, that these words will be brought to life, that they would pierce our hearts, and that we would walk out of here anew with a greater and deeper love for you.

In Jesus' name, Amen. The words of this text have just been read with prayerfulness, with precision, with honor, And these words are treasures here. Each individual word, every single word on this page is more precious than silver and gold and rubies and nothing you desire can compare with her. God has given us many words in this text. The most important words in Christianity are loaded up here.

They're just piled on one after another and Paul just goes from one word to the next to devastate the works of the devil in our lives. I've always, particularly in recent years, been so amazed at words. I'll often catch myself when we're singing, looking at the screen, at the words of the hymns, and taking each word and just soaking in it, just looking at each word. My sin, not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more." I've caught myself many times just loving the words to see them spelled out there on the screen to look at them and just I just want to grab them I almost want to say stop. Let's don't go on.

Let's let's just hang on this word I bear it no more Can we just stop and sing that 50 times so that we can understand what that means for us? Well, Paul here is loading up beautiful treasure in words for us. This is an expression of the beautiful doctrine of the perspicuity of scripture, that scripture can be understood, that God has given us words, He speaks to us, in ways that definitions can be formed, we can know with some precision what He's talking about, what He's saying to us. God is so kind to us in that way. You will see the word justify or justified in this passage of scripture repeated over and over again.

Then you will see the great doctrines of the faith summed up in one single word played out before us. When we began our study in a series of in a series of Romans, one thing that was said at the beginning was, this passage here is the theological center of the Bible. We are now here at the theological center of the Bible. The words here spin you out into the entire Word of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. And you can find testimony, example, command that correlate to every one of these great words that define this faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that we have.

We are in such beautiful ground, we're walking on diamonds and pearls and rubies and This passage is wonderful for us. I'm so grateful that we're here. The passage begins with the term, therefore, in verse 20, do you see that? Therefore, indicating we're now at a turning point in the book of Romans. And then in verse 21, do you see it?

But now, again, we see there's further evidence that there's a shift in the argument. And up until now, we've been confronted with the terrible reality of who we really are and who the world is and how polluted all that there is among mankind. That sin rules and reigns. We have been getting one dose after another of the depravity of man. Paul has spent much time up until now to explain the problems of the world and the problems of my heart, the problems in my home, the problems in my business, the problems in my church, the source of them are all explained in these first words that He has given to us.

So we've been taken, we've been taken up until now, right up to the footsteps of the gates of hell. And now we're being taken to the foot of the cross. And Romans 1 through 3 has given us a context for God's design for sinners. And it includes an analysis of the problem, and it gives a remedy. And this remedy is so wonderful.

And that's why the Apostle said in chapter 1, for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God and the salvation. So the problem of mankind and the solution have been summarized by what I'm just going to call the two great exchanges. First, we exchange the glory of God for a lie. But the second exchange is even greater, and it counteracts and makes wonderful all of the tragic darkness of the other exchanges that we've made. And that is that there is an exchange of the guilt of our sins for His righteousness.

Those are the two great exchanges in Romans as we are up to the context at this point in the passage of scripture. The argument here is that God clothes sinners with righteousness, that He justifies them by a judicial act, and He provides, it tells us how God provides grace for his people how he saves his people if anybody wants to know how to be saved it's right here in this passage of Scripture it talks about the utter helplessness and hopelessness of our own condition to secure our own salvation. It speaks of the smallness of our righteous deeds and how much they should be considered in our salvation story. It tells us that evangelism begins with unrighteousness and moves to the righteousness of God. You don't start evangelism with Jesus.

You start evangelism with sin and the law and judgment. And then you move to the righteousness of God. And then you move to the righteousness of God, and then you move to the Lord Jesus Christ and His blood that was shed on the cross. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." Now that is amazing, that in Him we would be the righteousness of God. And this testimony is all over scripture.

There's the blotting out of our transgressions in Psalm 103. In Isaiah 43, there's the casting of our sins into the depths of the sea. In Isaiah, he speaks of your sins being separated from you as far as the east is from the west. In Micah we read about the forgiveness of sins and in the book of Hebrews we read, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. We read in 2 Corinthians that Christ was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and that the Lord has laid the iniquity of us all upon him.

So this passage of Scripture is vast, and I would like this morning to take it from this perspective. I would like to give us 12 reasons to rejoice in justification, 12 reasons to give thanks for the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then I want to sum up with three particular or four particular applications of this doctrine that I trust will touch every area of our lives. So let's begin with the first reason to rejoice, to boast in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. The first reason is in verse 20, the deeds of the law are powerless for salvation. We can give thanks to God, we can rejoice in this truth that the deeds of the law are powerless for salvation.

He says, therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Now, you can be sanctified even from a boy or a girl. You can receive Christ at age five, like some of you have. And you can be in your 50s like me and have attempted with all your heart to walk with God all of your life. And even if you're as old as Methuselah, all your sanctification won't get you anywhere toward your salvation.

Zip, nada, zilch, zero. Your righteousness is zero in terms of your salvation. It doesn't secure it. The law opened our eyes to sin, But the law and obedience to it can never cleanse us from sin and make us justified in God's sight Augustine explained it like this the law was given in order that we might seek after grace Grace was given in order that we might fulfill the law. But the fulfillment of the law does not figure into salvation at all.

And so the Bible says that our deeds are powerless to secure our salvation. Number two, righteousness is apart from the law, verses 21 and 22. But now the righteousness of God, apart from the law, is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. So he says, but now. Let's catch that.

Don't miss those two words. But now indicates a contrast. And it's the contrast of our depravity that there are none righteous, but now, but now there's a new historical reality in play. But now God has done something that we could not do on our own. We've tasted our depravity, but God has done something wonderful, and it's the righteousness of God through faith in Christ who believe.

It says that He is a donor of righteousness. You've heard, you perhaps, some of you maybe even are organ donors. Well, God is a righteousness donor. And He donates His righteousness to us so that we would not die in our sins. If he did not become a righteousness donor, then there would be no salvation.

We would be lost in our sins. It says that this donor of righteousness was to all and on all who believe you see that in verse 22 to all and on all I think that means it's comprehensive that it's complete This is why Paul said to the Ephesians, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is a free gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are as workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. And this righteousness is to all and on all by a judicial act of God. And it's not according to our righteousness.

Number three, God has applied his righteousness since the beginning, verse 21a, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. This is a really interesting statement. In other words, grace is not just a New Testament idea. It's wrong to say that there is the judgmental, angry God of the Old Testament, and there's the loving, gracious God of the New Testament. That's a heretical idea.

Many believers say that. They believe that, but they do not understand what the Bible says about law and grace and righteousness and judgment. Here we learn that the law was witnessed in the law and the prophets, that righteousness was. And so the law and the prophets, what is that? Who are the law and the prophets?

Well that's code for the whole testimony of the Old Testament. That's what the law and the prophets are. There are a number of examples. There are many of them in the Old Testament. Habakkuk 2, 4 says, The just shall live by faith.

That's the Old Testament. Psalm 4-1, we read this in our family devotions this week, where David says, Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness, You have relieved me of my distress, have mercy on me, and hear my prayer." David understood that God was his righteousness, and it was in his keeping of the law that his only Hope was the righteousness of God applied to him. Paul said in 1st Corinthians 1, No flesh, that no flesh should glory in his presence, but of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us the wisdom of God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that is in Christ whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness. So, the law discovers the disease, the gospel gives the remedy, but the grace of God has been available from the beginning of time. And we can rejoice that God has applied His righteousness from the beginning.

He always works the same way. There's not a God of the Old Testament and then a God of the New Testament. Now God has instituted more for us, but He has contradicted nothing that He has already done in the Old Testament. And then we can also rejoice in this, and you might wonder why we can rejoice in this, all have sinned, verses 22 and 23. For there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

I think we should take that as encouragement that all have sinned, that there are none who have not sinned, that as we're walking around with our brothers and sisters in this world, we can know who one another are. All of us are sinners. All of us have fallen short of the glory of God. All of us miss the mark. And this should do a number of things for us.

It should destroy our judgmentalism. It should destroy our pride. It should destroy our sense of inferiority or anything like that. Because it says here that we have all missed the mark. We have all lacked.

To fall short is to lack. To not have enough. Some have explained it by this idea of missing the mark. You know, you shoot an arrow and you miss the mark every time you miss the mark. Isn't that interesting?

Every time we miss the mark because we're born in sin, because our unrighteousness is complete. It fills our whole being. But we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And there are two elements of sin. There is sin, which was given to us by Adam.

And then there are sins, the things that we commit in the day. And these are the two problems that we have. But all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Isn't it interesting that sin robs us of the glory of God. Sin always just steals glory in the world.

It always downgrades every experience. It removes joy, it removes truth, it removes every good thing. Sin always destroys the glory of God. Now we are told that we will be received in glory, that he whom he justified, he also glorified. There is glory that will be recovered.

But we have sinned and we fall short of the glory of God. You know how blessed it is to live for the glory of God, not for ourselves, because we end up introducing more of His glory into this world. But whatever glory it might be would always be an imperfect glory. It's never as pure as the glory of the Son of God. It's always a glory that is falling short.

And this is good news. All are the same. There is no difference. And we all stand as sinners before one another. You know, whenever we are in one another's presence, there are at least two things that we need to understand very clearly about ourselves and about the one that we're with and even here in this church these things should be prominent among us.

First of all when we are with one another we need to understand that we are in the presence of an image bearer, someone who has been made in the image of God. Every time we stand with another human being, we are with a miraculous being that has been created in the image of Almighty God. Now that's amazing. You look into one another's eyes and just think about that for a minute. That you, we are all image-bearers.

We are not like the cows and the dogs. We are very different. And we bear the image of God in a particular way. And the second thing that we must know is that we are all sinners and we need to understand that it goes both ways. Lest we become proud, lest we become judgmental in an unholy way, lest our self-righteousness overtake us and our anger destroy all of our relationships.

We're going to talk about this later when we get to the application. But if one does not understand his great depravity, he may go through life judging unrighteously those around him and find himself self-righteous and doing great harm to the love of God in this world. So all have sinned. This is good news. It's good news in that we can look at one another and recognize, whenever we're together, the great mercy and grace of Christ.

Whenever you see a weakness in your wife or your child or your friend or your boss, then it should remind you that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But it doesn't stop there, does it? There is a justification, there is righteousness applied to sinners, and this is the blessing of sin in the world that it is atoned for, that it is dealt with by Almighty God. So we can rejoice that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And then fifth, we can rejoice because we are justified by His grace.

In verse 24, being justified freely by His grace. Now it's too bad that we don't have one hour to speak of these three very important words, justified, freely, and grace. Those three words are so beautiful and rich. Again, if we could just stop on them and hang on them for a while. Well, we'll just do it for a short time here.

This is a judicial act done for us. It's not progressive, but it is done in a moment of time. This is one aspect of the doctrine of salvation. There are many attacks on the doctrine of justification today. We'll talk about that later.

But one of them is on this one point, that there is an act of salvation. There's a moment of justification where one passes from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of heaven. And there is something that happens in time that changes everything forever. And that's so important for us to understand in our salvation, lest we become overcome with discouragement over the sins that we might experience after our time of justification. But this is a legal judicial act that happens in time, freely.

I love that. Not stintingly, but according to the riches of His grace. We were justified freely by His grace and He is rich in His grace toward us. Think about that for a minute. Here we are in this church together.

All of us are in different places. All of us have had different experiences this last week with sin. Different problems and things like that. But here's the net of it. Grace has been applied freely toward us.

We have been lavished upon by grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, God calls us to lavish grace on one another as well. He sets the example, and then he asks us to go off and do the same. But here is a, is a, the principle of free grace. We have a dear friend in this life, Jeff Pollard, who publishes a publication called the Free Grace Broadcaster.

Wow, I love the name. The Free Grace Broadcaster. Well that's what he's talking about here. And they send it out to thousands of people, and you get it. And it is a free grace broadcaster.

And on the front of it, its purpose is to destroy the pride of man and to exalt the glory and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the purpose of it. But there's nothing more health giving in a person's life than to be lavished with grace. And I trust that in all of our child raising, we would be lavishing our children with grace, that in all of our doings, with our spouses particularly, as we know them very well and they know us very well and have said many things that they should and maybe shouldn't have said. That there must be a free grace broadcasting of the goodness of God.

And we, in our relationships with our spouses, must emulate the glory of God. And as we live in a covenant marriage, we need to understand that there is an element of justification that we must grant. It's not the same exactly as the way God has given us, but we must think like God in all that we do. And we must justify freely by grace those that we live with, both in our homes and in our churches. That doesn't mean that we don't confront and deal with sin.

That doesn't mean that we stop disciplining our children. That doesn't mean that we stop teaching our wives and our wives, you know, stop helping us, you know, see things more clearly. Doesn't mean that at all. But it does mean that in the midst of all that, it's all surrounded by this atmosphere of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we can rejoice that we've been justified by His grace.

Sixthly, that we have redemption in Christ Jesus. In verse 23 we read that this all happens through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Here's one of those great words. You know, we've already hit the word grace. We've hit the word justified.

We've hit the word falling short, and now we hit the word redemption. This is one of my favorite words in scripture. When I was a young man in my teens, I was captivated by this word. I love this word because When I first heard it preached, I was told that it meant that I was bought off the slave block by a sacrifice, that a purchase price was paid for my soul. And the Lord Jesus Christ shed His blood as a payment.

And I was unshackled, I could vividly picture being unshackled on the slave market and being set free on the way to a terrible cast master. But no, unshackled by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and set free. I love this word redemption with all of my heart. And it's found all over scripture. Peter says, you know, you are not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold from your aimless conduct, received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

We have been redeemed by something very precious, the precious blood of the Lamb, And it was an exchange, a price given to set us free. And number seven, we can give thanks, we can rejoice, we can boast them across, because the wrath toward us has been satisfied by the blood of Christ. The wrath has been satisfied by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, whom God, verse 25, set forth as a propitiation by His blood. This is another wonderful word, propitiation. It implies wrath towards sin.

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth of unrighteousness. That's me. And what about what's going to happen now? I deserve wrath, but something happens to propitiate that wrath. What does propitiation mean?

Now, all of you young boys and young girls need to understand what the word propitiation means. And after we're done, I'm going to make it a point to ask, particularly you smaller ones, what does propitiation mean? Are you ready? Do you hear that? So be ready.

I'm going to ask you at lunchtime what propitiation means. Propitiation means to satisfy the anger of God. God is angry with us because of our sin. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven. But something has happened to make God's wrath stop and to be made happy toward us.

And it was the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the blood of Christ that stopped the wrath of God toward us. Not anything that we did. It was the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is interesting.

This word here, propitiation, is the same word that's used in the Greek Old Testament for mercy seat. Remember, on the Day of Atonement, the priest would go in, he would kill the sacrifice, take the blood, and he would pour it on the mercy seat to make atonement for all the sins of Israel. And he would do that and it was a symbolic act of atonement for the sins of Israel. And God was angry with Israel. It was only blood sacrifice that would cause the wrath of God to be quelled.

And so there's this idea of propitiation. Here's what propitiation is all about. John Owen gives us four marks of propitiation, and I'll give them to you right now. One, an offense is taken away. One, offended at you is no longer offended.

Number two, the person offended needs to be pacified. Number three, the offending person is guilty. And number four, a sacrifice or some other means of atonement is necessary. And it is the blood that is necessary for our atonement, for our sins. So the next reason that we can give thanks, number eight, is that we have salvation through faith.

Again we come across one of these amazing words, faith, that it is faith that has become the instrument of our salvation. Now, our faith doesn't save us, okay? It's not the act of our faith that saves us. Faith is the instrument that unleashes the work of the blood of Christ. That's what saves us.

It's not of ourselves, it's of Christ that we are saved. Our faith is an instrument, though, that connects the love of God with our sins. And our salvation is secured through Faith. So faith is the instrument of our righteousness. Now, this word is used all over the place in the New Testament.

But It's a great reason to rejoice. Now, faith, faith makes this difference. Either your sin is lying on your shoulders, or it's lying on the shoulders of Jesus Christ. There are only two places sin can be, on yours or the Lord Jesus Christ. And if sin is lying on your shoulders, if it's on your back, then you are lost.

But if it's lying on the back of the Lord Jesus Christ and He's carrying it and He bore it on the cross then you are saved. That's what faith is all about. It is faith as an instrument that releases the ministry of the blood of Christ toward us. And then ninth, we can also rejoice at this, and I think we should really rejoice in a big way over this. Number nine, Forbearance is the reason he did not destroy us in our rebellion in verse 25 It says that it happened because of his forbearance He passed over the sins that were previously committed God put up with our sins before our conversion.

Well, he still does. He still has forbearance toward us. Imagine those unbelievers in your life. What's God's disposition toward them? Well, There are two dispositions.

There is wrath, but there's also forbearance. Isn't that interesting? You have to take both. It's not just one. And those that we know who are not saved need to understand that God is forbearing toward them.

It should be something that we should speak of with them. That God, in terms of their sins being committed, God is patient with them. And he is actually passing over their sins. Now there will be a day when all sin will be dealt with. God will make right every account.

He will take every act of lying. He will take every broken commandment and he will deal with it. He will take care of every abuse of a child or anyone in this world. He will take care of all political wrongs, he will do justice for everything. But for now, he has chosen to forbear, And God gives us time to repent.

Now maybe some of you here are in your sins this morning, and God is forbearing of your sins. You sin and He is forbearing, but There will be a day when there will be no more forbearance. It will be up, it will be over, there will be no opportunity. And so don't test the forbearance of the Lord. There might even be a child who is here who is saying, oh, I think I'll wait until I'm a little bit older and before I come to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Don't do that. God is forbearing your sins but He will stop His forbearance at some point. Let the terror of the Lord fill this place this morning. Do not Wait for more forbearance of the Lord. Turn to Him and repent of your sins and receive salvation through faith.

God has not destroyed you in your rebellion. He's forbearing now. He's giving you an opportunity. But don't test that opportunity. Call Him by name.

He's passing over your sins. Come and repent of your sins if you have them. Take those sins that are on your shoulders and put them on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ where they belong. And then the tenth reason to rejoice and boast in the cross is that, is the reason that he did not destroy us was to demonstrate his righteousness. Now, this is interesting.

He's forbearing so that he will demonstrate his righteousness. He desires us to come for praise going toward Him, to demonstrate how good and wonderful He is. God desires to stop all of man's boasting in themselves and to turn their mouths to boast in the Lord and to declare his righteousness. He desires to demonstrate his righteousness. And then 11, all sinners can be justified, verses 28 through 30.

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law, Or is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also. Since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised by faith. So this just abolishes all distinctions between people.

There's only one way to God. There's only one kind of person in the world, the sinner, and God does not concoct different ways of salvation. There's only one way of salvation for all of mankind. He doesn't concoct the way of salvation for the Jews, and another for the Greeks, and another for the Hindus, and another for the religious Protestants in America, and another for the Muslims. There's not one way that leads to all the gods.

No, there's one way that leads to one God. And God does not concoct different ways for different people. Whether you're circumcised or uncircumcised, whether you're Jew or Gentile, there's only one way to God. This is the exclusiveness of the Gospel. It is good news.

We can rejoice that God has not made 50 different ways to figure out on your own how to get to God. No, he's revealed that salvation is in his Son, that there is one name among all the names in heaven and earth by which we must be saved, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And as Jesus said, no one comes to the Father except by me. And that means that there's not one way for the Hindus and another way for the Muslims. There is one way for all of mankind.

There is one mediator between God and man, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And then there's a twelfth reason to rejoice, And that is that faith establishes the law. So what do we do with the law? Salvation is through faith. It happens by justification.

God imputes His righteousness toward us. He gives us his righteousness, replacing our unrighteousness. So what's the role of the law? Well, he answers that here. He's saying this to correct the idea that even many people have today, that the law means nothing.

The Old Testament is nothing. He says, may it never be. I'm not saying that at all. Whatever it means to be freed from the law, it doesn't mean that we set it aside. It doesn't mean that we ignore it.

It doesn't mean that we nullify it in our own way. No. It's nullified in terms of salvation only. But here he says, no, may it never be. Certainly not.

We do not void the law through faith. You know, there are people out there who, they read one verse of scripture and they say the law doesn't apply to us anymore. But they don't read the rest of scripture. They don't read this that says, no, the law is not nullified at all. It is established by faith.

It's not set aside by faith. And what we know about Scripture is that the New Testament is hidden in the Old, and the Old Testament is explicit in the New. One verifies another. They cross-reference and complement one another, and they speak to one another. If you look at the ministry of the Lord Jesus, He is constantly bringing forth the law and the prophets and the Psalms unto himself to use it for teaching.

We should do exactly the same thing. The people who set aside the Old Testament, the people who believe that one third of the Bible is inspired are wrong. They're desperately wrong. And you should correct them when you run into it. When people say, well, I used to be under the law and now I'm under grace and I can do whatever I want.

We need to come against that vigorously because it leads to many, many terrible things in their lives. Now, he says here that we establish the law through faith. We come to Christ in faith. He instructs us by his word and we establish the law. We become a living picture of the law of God instead of rejecting it or ignoring it.

So whatever Paul meant by saying that we are dead to the law, it doesn't mean that the law is irrelevant. All you have to do to understand that is read the book of Acts and see how Paul used the law and how the other apostles did as well. They applied it. They applied it very carefully. You see many applications of the law in the pastoral epistles as well.

Well, okay, so there are many reasons to rejoice for us in justification by faith alone. It's interesting that we're in this passage just right after our celebration of the Reformation because here we find all of the doctrines of the Reformation just kind of jammed up into one little block, text block here. And it's really amazing. Okay, so let's move into some application. The first application of all this regarding justification by faith is this and I want to bring a stern warning to this Church today on this subject.

Beware of the various movements afoot to destroy the Gospel of justification by faith alone. There are three dramatic, powerful, and popular movements that work in the church today that contradict the doctrine of justification by faith Contradicts every word we've just read they reinterpret it now I'll give you three there are three movements which are threats to this doctrine The first is a movement that has been in motion for about 25 years, and it's a movement that has attempted to declaw the gospel and modernize the language of the church so that we're not so offensive on the one hand and not too boring on the other. It is, it's the seeker sensitive movement, it's the mega church movement that has attempted to engage thousands and thousands of people at one time. In the process though, to take away the language of the Bible and to use the language of culture. It's to accommodate for the purpose of entertainment and engagement of people.

And in these churches, the cross, the blood, righteousness, sin have been pushed down into the lower echelons of priority. I'm not saying that these things are never spoken of, but I'm just saying that they've largely been replaced by modern psychology, principles of successful living, your best life now. We could name a number of books. We could name a number of principles out of this whole movement. But it defames and reduces the ministry of the gospel.

It doesn't want to talk about sin. It doesn't want to repeat the words of the Bible that are there it wants to modify it in order to grow great churches and You know we have we have this movement was actually born. I believe out of embarrassment for the gospel, one of the primary leaders of this great movement said that he began to conduct his church in this way because he was embarrassed when he brought his friends to church. They did not understand these Bible words. They didn't like them.

They didn't like the songs. They weren't hip enough. They weren't contemporary enough for them. And so, he created a religion where you didn't have to say anything, do anything, or give anything. He created a religion that had the words of the gospel stripped out of it.

Not completely, but largely. And people came and heard sermons about how to be successful, and how to have a great marriage, and things like that. These are good things. It was interesting. I was speaking to one of my friends who listened to a sermon by one of these leaders.

It was actually Joel Olsteen. And he said, the fascinating thing about this sermon is that I could not find one single thing that I disagreed with. I agreed with everything he said. He said, you know, cheating on your wife is bad. Stealing is bad.

Lying is bad. I couldn't disagree with that. But it was what he didn't say. He didn't bring the words of the Gospel. He didn't bring the Word of God to bear to every area of life.

He was just saying things that everybody could embrace. And so There are tens of thousands of people who enjoy that kind of message. But this kind of Christianity that's created out of poles in the neighborhood is not Christianity at all. And it's a threat to the doctrine of justification by faith. Because people cannot be justified until they repent of their sins, and they know that they're lost in their sins, and that it's only God and His righteousness alone applied to their sinful hearts that will save them.

Shining up their marriage does nothing. Becoming a nicer guy at work does nothing for their eternal destiny at all. And yet, All these sermons are just about getting better and better about this or that. And it's a great threat to the doctrine of justification by faith. Now, something has happened as a follow-up to this movement.

It's an extension. It's the application of this movement. And you've probably heard this term, the emergent church. The emergent church movement is a movement that rejects the categories of historic Christianity. It rejects everything that we just said about the doctrine of justification by faith.

It says we don't really understand what those words mean. We don't really, they're confusing to us. But what's not confusing to us is modern culture. And so there's this, for instance, one of their leaders, Leonard Sweet, is calling for a postmodern reformation, meaning we must think like postmoderns in order to reach postmoderns, and that means the church will be postmodern. It will think, it will think unbiblically, it will speak unbiblically, and it will create a church full of people who have no idea what God has said.

And they're taking it to the next level. It's actually just another step in the process of liberalism that's at work in the church today. It started with trying to please everybody. Now it is moved into hyperspace and while many of the proponents of the secret movement weren't rejecting Bible doctrine patently, they just weren't emphasizing it. Here, It's a bold-faced rejection of it.

And so you have men like Brian McLaren writing books like A Generous Orthodoxy, who's arguing that we need to have a new understanding of the Gospel that's inclusive. And it's revisionism. And you know, here's what it is at its heart. It's a rejection of penal substitution. It's a rejection of the doctrine of justification by faith.

It's a rejection of Christ's righteousness applied to sinners. And So there are these threats at work in the church today. Well, there's another one. It's known by the term the New Perspective on Paul. It's known by the Auburn Avenue Theology.

In 2002, a pastor's conference was held, and this New perspective on Paul was presented, and it caught fire. A brilliant New Testament scholar by the name of NT Wright, a very urbane, perhaps one of the most important New Testament scholars in Europe, has presented this doctrine. Here's what he says. We were wrong in the Reformation. The Catholics were right.

I'm just summarizing this. I'm really oversimplifying this. But you have an attack against a number of things. One, against the doctrine of justification. You also have an attack against imputation of righteousness.

Here's the problem with that. If you reject that Christ imputes his righteousness To you completely for your salvation, and that's the basis of your salvation. You have a whole nother problem Because imputed righteousness assumes something else. It assumes Adam's fall, and imputed unrighteousness, and imputed sinfulness. If you take away the one, you wipe away the other.

Do you understand what I'm saying here? If you say that you're not saved by imputed righteousness, then it calls into question the entire doctrine of sin, that Adam brought forth sin, and that we were born in iniquity, that we don't have a problem in our souls with sin. If you take away one, you wipe away the other. But These insidious movements moving through the church will destroy those who participate in them. There was a perfect sacrifice, there was perfect righteousness, and God is totally on our side at the moment of justification by faith alone.

And we enjoy fellowship with Him forever. Nothing can contradict it. The New Perspective on Paul people place emphasis on your works. They place emphasis on baptismal regeneration. But no, the Bible says that you're justified by faith alone through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

That's the basis of your salvation. These three movements are all particular attacks, some of them more winsome than others, some are more scholarly than others, but they are all attacks at this one single thing and that is the doctrine of justification by faith. In this passage, look at how many times that the word justify or justification is in this passage. It is something that we must maintain and preserve in the church. It attacks the way that we become believers.

We do not become believers because we got dunked in a water tank or sprinkled or put in a lake. We become believers because a judicial act took place that justified us and faith was the instrument that allowed it to take place. And we become Christians at the time of imputation of the righteousness of Christ. And then God is totally for me and he will carry me to heaven and my righteousness is not my own. That's what the reformers taught.

That's what the Apostle Paul taught. And I trust it will continue to teach it and emphasize it here. So there's this attack against the doctrine. That's one application. Beware.

Be wise. If you have friends who are involved in these movements, please beware. I was at a father-son retreat in Colorado where Doug Phillips and I were preaching. And at the end of the time, we were having a sharing time, and one man stood up and he said, he said, I have to tell you, because we were talking about, we were talking about justification by faith and we were talking about the emergent church and this man stood up and he said I have to beg to differ with you I hold the emergent church theology and it was a I he had the boldness to stand up in front of 500 people and say this, but we need to understand that there are people among us who are embracing this and we should we should take out our Bibles and read and read the book of Romans to them because all the answers are in the book of Romans. OK, second application.

I said I had three applications. This is sort of a change of gears here. Is there anybody here who is suffering under the weight of condemnation, of self-condemnation by the accuser or the brethren? Some of our loathing in life comes from a consciousness of our sin, our failures, our weaknesses, the things that we've done wrong in the flesh. And of course we must be aware of our sins and repent of our sins and not take them lightly, but you can also take them obsessively and in an unhealthy way and not remember the justification of the Lord Jesus Christ toward you.

And so I just wanted to say, you know, is there anyone here who is a child, a lamb, a son, a daughter of the Lord Jesus Christ, and grace has been freely bestowed, freely, freely given, just poured out grace, way more than your sins could ever accumulate. Grace that is lavish beyond measure, grace enough for the sins of the whole world and more. You know, do you connect with that? Do you need to understand this morning that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is the issue for us? We stand in grace.

We'll come to that later in the book of Romans. And we have hope in the glory of God. And it's the glory of God in us. So I just want to just say, hey, if anyone is suffering under an overburdened weight of sin, be free, preach the gospel to yourself. We've just been preaching it to you, but preach it to yourself.

Tell yourself that grace is freely given, that God does have mercy towards sinners. He's already been forbearing of your sins before you were saved. How much more do you think His mercy is toward you now? That's the third application. Preach the gospel to yourself.

Number three, the doctor of justification has many implications for our relationships. And we could go to a number of places in Scripture for this. Let's go down a couple of relational rabbit trails here to discuss this. Let's deal with self-righteousness in any of our relationships. Is there a wife in here who's raised up self-righteousness toward her husband?

Is there a husband who is wrongfully judging his wife and and acting and thinking that he somehow is better and he's responding that way like he like like he is over righteous? Are there any Are there any hidden sins here in this church right now of self-righteousness? Is there any anger in here, in this room, of one brother toward another? Because you think one brother is just, you know, not performing like he should. Well, it's probably true he's not performing like he should.

And that's the reality that we have to suffer with in this church and every other church. Is that we all see through a glass darkly. We walk into faith with all kinds of baggage. God is taking us to heaven. We have problems.

But let's be real about this. There is not one element of righteousness that stands us any taller than anyone else. It's zero. Our righteousness is zero. That's the truth.

We might be indignant, we might have anger toward our brothers, but one thing is absolutely true, any self-righteousness that would fuel that anger in the eyes of God is zero. You know, what if that person, think about this, what if your son could just be 20% more righteous? Or what if you, what If you could like get to 30% more righteous than your spouse or one of the elders of this church, it's possible, it's quite possible that some of you men could attain a 30% increase in your righteousness over any of the elders in this church in some particular area? And what value would that be? Zero.

Big zip. And If you're angry with your wife or your husband, or if you're angry at me, or if you're angry with your neighbor, there is self-righteousness there quite possibly. Self-righteousness is usually one of the things that causes anger. Why are you so mad? Often it's just an exaltation of your own opinion, your own judgment, and it fuels the offense.

Righteousness is only found in Jesus Christ. Of course, we know the Bible teaches that human righteousness can make life more comfortable. There's more love out there, there's more joy out there. That's good. That's a good thing.

This is why we should excel still more. We should seek to obey. We should keep moving in that direction. We're not contradicting that at all. But this should make us into forgiving people and not obsessing about the sins that others have.

Okay, so here's one thing. I want to just put a big stake in the ground here. If you're angry with your brother, it's possible that you've rejected in your heart the doctrine of justification by faith and you've forgotten that your righteousness is nothing. Okay. I'm going to give you an illustration And we'll close with this illustration.

My father and mother have, in December, will have been married 60 years. 60 years, isn't that amazing? They're traveling around the country right now and having a great time together. And a few months ago, my son David and I were in the car with my father and another man in Colorado. We were driving through the mountains in Colorado.

And I told this man, I said, hey, These guys are going to be married 60 years this year. Because he was talking about marriage and everything. And this man said, 60 years. No kidding. He said, Bill, Bill, are you going to have a shindig?

And my dad said, Bill, every day is a shindig. And I love that response because to me, that response meant, it meant to me what a covenant marriage is all about. My father and mother will have been married 60 years now. They've been married 60 years because they entered into a covenant of grace with one another. And this covenant, this justification in a sense, has led to a comfortable marriage and a wonderful life together.

It was this covenant that a husband made to his wife and the wife made to her husband. It was judicial and it was from the heart and it was unbreakable in their minds. They were just fleshing out the doctrine of justification. They were just fleshing out Christ's love for the church. A husband is loving his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that she might be holy and without blemish.

And The doctrine of justification has implications across every relationship in our lives. If we would be justified, then our hearts of compassion and our covenants should be strong with one another. The Bible presents that in many different ways. And the way that we treat one another has implications on what God has done. And this is illustrated brilliantly in Matthew 18.

Matthew 18 is a passage about dealing with sin. How do you deal with sin with your brother? How do you deal with offenses? And Matthew 18 gives specific ways of dealing with sin among the church. But it ends with a story that deals with this whole issue in light of the doctrine of justification.

And The story begins with the idea that there is in the Kingdom of Heaven a king who wanted to settle his accounts. And so he called together all those who owed him money and He found a servant that owed him an enormous amount of money, enormous amount of money. And he was brought to him and he was unable to pay and the king commanded that he be sold and his wife and children would be would be sold and he and the payment would be made although the payment wouldn't even come close to what he owed not even close and so the servant pleaded and he fell down before him and and he said master have patience with me and I will pay you all. And then the Master, amazingly, had mercy on him and he forgave the debt. And then the servant went out after being forgiven all these things.

He went out and he had people out there that owed him money. And he threatened those who owed him money. And he grabbed one by the neck and he laid hands on him and said, pay me what you owe. And that man pleaded with patience and he fell down on his knees and he begged him, he said, have patience, I will pay you, I will pay you. But that servant threw him into prison.

Well then the king heard of it, the master heard of it, and he was angry, and he brought him in. And he said, You wicked servant, I forgave you all the debt because you begged me. Should you not have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?" And this master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he could pay what was due him. And then this is the statement, So my heavenly Father will also do to each of you, if from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespass." This brings the doctrine of justification by faith right down to earth. We have been justified by a work of kindness, free grace, broadcasted toward us.

And what is one of the implications? Well there are many. Well one of those implications is that we freely forgive all those who have offended us. That's the application. And you'll find this in a number of places in scripture, where the heart of God towards sinners is called upon toward us that we would be the same way, that we would be tender-hearted and forgiving one another.

Titus chapter 3 does the same thing. It brings together the love of Christ and the relational implications of justification. He uses it to argue against lack of love in the church and gossip in the church. And he says this in Titus 3, I'm going to read it and this is the end of the sermon. He says, remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing humility to all men." And then he says, "'For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.

And then he drops the hammer and he takes us right back to justification by faith alone. He says, but when the kindness of the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, having been justified by His grace that we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." And then he stops, and he turns back, and he says, this is a faithful saying, those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men. The doctrine of justification by faith alone is meant to be applied in a broad way all over in every area of life. If you've been forgiven, forgive or your Heavenly Father will not forgive you.

That's the testimony of Scripture. So there's great comfort in the doctrine, isn't there? We can rejoice. But there's also a great responsibility in it that we would become like the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ in this world toward all who might have offended us in any way. Would you pray with me?

And so Lord, your grace is so far beyond anything that we could have. Please come and fill us with your grace. People of the fellowship of reconciliation, Reconciling the world to Christ, bringing His love into this world. I pray you would fulfill that in us, a very imperfect blind people. We so need your help for this Lord.

Amen.