5/5/24 “All Fall Short”
“All Fall Short”
Romans 3:9-31
Currently, there are approximately 2.3 million Americans living in prison.
If the current prison population were a city, it would be larger than Dallas or Philadelphia.
1 out of every 138 people in this country goes to bed each night in a jail cell.
The question that is on the minds of many people in prison is “How do I get out of here?”
Over the years, there have been some very clever & successful prison breaks…
In 1934, gangster John Dillinger (Known as ‘Public Enemy #1) who was a bank robber and murderer escaped prison by using a fake gun made of wood that was painted black with shoe polish. He would be shot dead by police a few months later.
In 1962, three prisoners escaped from the island of Alcatraz by digging a tunnel through a concrete wall using a spoon, then fashioned a raft made from 50 stolen raincoats…the three men were never heard from again.
In 1971, notorious fraudster Frank Abagnale tricked guards into believing that he was an undercover federal worker sent to inspect the prison – he walked right out.
In 1986, Michael Vaujour used nectarines painted to look like grenades to force his way onto the roof of the prison - where his wife landed a helicopter to pick him up…they were both captured a short time later.
Joaquin Guzman (Also known as ‘El Chapo’) escaped from prison twice.
The first time, in 2001, by bribing some prison guards to hide him in a laundry cart….
The second time was in 2014 when Guzman escaped through an elaborate tunnel built below the prison by his henchmen.
Get this, the tunnel had lighting, ventilation, and a motorcycle on tracks waiting for El Chapo to ride to freedom in style!...He was recaptured in 2016 and is currently behind bars in Colorado…who knows for how long, though!
In July of 2017, twelve inmates escaped from Walker County Jail in Alabama by smearing peanut butter over a door’s signage, tricking a guard into opening the wrong door – a door which led to the parking lot rather than to the prison yard.
Lastly, awhile back in Ontario, Canada, there was a man arrested and taken into custody. The man was in handcuffs and he also happened to be wearing a neck chain with a metal cross on it.
Interestingly, the very top of the cross came to a sharp point – a point that just so happened to make it very easy to pick the lock on a pair of handcuffs.
Fortunately, in this case, one of the officers recognized the situation and stopped the suspect from getting away…
Today’s passage in Romans speaks to the fact that ALL of us are born wearing spiritual handcuffs, so to speak.
Due to the reality of sin, we all enter this world condemned…shackled…handcuffed…imprisoned…enslaved to sin.
BUT, there is a cross that contains the key to your freedom.
A cross that contains the key to your release from the bondage of sinful desires of disobedience.
A cross that will set you Free !!!....It is the cross of Jesus Christ.
Midway through today’s reading, the apostle Paul pivots from summarizing man’s sad state of sinful depravity…to that of the joyful hope found in the message of the gospel.
Up to this point in his letter to the church at Rome, Paul has laid the case of condemnation against 3 groups of lost individuals: the lost unrighteous, the lost moralist, and the lost religionist.
Now, beginning in verse 9 of chapter 3, Paul – by inspiration of the Holy Spirit – begins to summarize the reality that ALL human beings are born lost and sinful….we ALL enter this world under God’s wrath.
Verse 9 states “Are we any better? Not at all!”
He goes on to say that “Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.”
In other words, are we Christians – in ourselves – better than other groups of people already shown to be condemned before God?
…are we somehow intrinsically superior to others?
…Have we been saved because our basic human nature was on a plane higher than theirs?
Absolutely Not!
In God’s court of justice, the entire human race is charged with the same offense – that of sinful disobedience to God’s perfect, unchanging moral law.
In and of ourselves, we all stand guilty before a Holy & Righteous God.
In verses 10 – 18, Paul paraphrases and quotes numerous Old Testament passages that deal with the reality of man’s inherently sinful condition.
Some of them are as follows:
(Psalm 5:9-10) “Not a word from their mouth can be trusted; their heart is filled with destruction. Their throat is an open grave; with their tongue they speak deceit. Declare them guilty, O God! Let their intrigues be their downfall. Banish them for their many sins, for they have rebelled against you.”
(Psalm 14:3) “All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
(Isaiah 59:7) “Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are evil thoughts; ruin and destruction mark their ways.”
If one counts, you will find 13 separate indictments of humanity within these verses.
These indictments of mankind are broken into three main categories:
1) Man’s character (Verses 10-12)…Who a person is.
2) Man’s conversations (Verses 13-14)…What a person says.
3) Man’s conduct (Verses 15-17)…What a person does.
As a master prosecutor would present an open-and-shut case against a guilty defendant, Paul lays out these obvious and irrefutable accusations against mankind – himself included.
Look at how many times he uses the phrase “No one”…
No one is righteous (V.10)… No one understands… No one seeks God (V.11)
There is No one who does good (V.12)
In case you haven’t yet figured it out, Paul is saying that ALL Y’ALL are messed up!
Humanity has a problem!...Humanity is inherently evil.
This is not a popular statement.
Try telling everyone you meet this week that they were born evil and rotten to the core….see what response you get! (No, don’t do this – that’s the Holy Spirit’s job – people come to realize their utter depravity when HE convicts someone of their sin)
Unfortunately, when someone seeks advice from a worldly psychiatrist or counselor of some kind, the therapist will never start treating a patient from the perspective of this spiritual truth.
To the world, you see, man is inherently good.
It’s just unfortunate circumstances in life - along with oppressive external forces that cause people to succumb to depression, anxiety, fear, and guilt.
Modern psychology hates guilt. Many worldly counselors define guilt as “A wasted emotion that only results in self-stigmatization.”
The world tries to sweep guilt under the rug…they just try to ignore it.
“Here, take these drugs, they’ll help you feel better about yourself and those nasty feelings of guilt that are making you gloomy and sad.”
But like that mangy cat you keep trying to get rid of by dropping it off along the highway miles away from your house – guilt keeps coming back!
But there’s a reason why guilt keeps coming back.
We all feel guilty – because all of us are guilty!
Guilt is universally experienced across all ages, cultures, races, ethnicities…
It is something that we all feel, because God gave each of us a conscience – and our consciences tell us that something is not right within us.
They tell us that we are guilty of not living up to a standard of righteousness that has been internally revealed to us.
We can see and understand such righteousness, but we just can’t seem to get there!
Has anyone here this morning ever been to Catalina Island?
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Catalina Island sits 25 miles off the coast of California straight West of Los Angeles.
This rock in my hand happens to be from Catalina Island – I picked it up about 7 years ago when my family was vacationing there.
Well, on a clear day, Catalina Island can be seen from the Huntington Beach pier on the mainland of California.
Imagine if we all took a road trip on the new shuttle bus to that pier on Huntington Beach.
Now imagine if I told you to take a running start and jump off of the end of the pier…with the goal of landing on Catalina Island 25 miles away.
Some of you may make it 10 feet past the pier…
maybe some of you who are fairly athletic might make it 15 feet off the peir…
…AND…..some of you might just go kerplunk off the end of the pier right into the water, right!? 😊
But the point is…None of us would come anywhere close to landing on an island 25 miles away!
We can see the island – we just can’t get there in our own strength.
So it is with God’s standard of righteousness.
We can see it – we can understand it by reading the Mosaic law…
…But we just can’t get there on our own…and when our running jumps fall miserably short, it bothers our conscience…in turn, producing guilt.
But you know what?
Guilt is a good thing…Guilt is a GOOD thing!
Why? because it makes us aware of our spiritual problem – and that something needs to be done about it!
Speaking of Catalina Island, after my daughter and I had finished a kayaking tour along the coast, I was stepping out of my kayak, and I stepped on something sharp.
Immediately, the nerves in my foot sent a signal to my brain that something was wrong!
In the physical world, pain is an indicator that something is not right – that something needs to be addressed.
In the spiritual world, guilt is an indicator that something is not right – and it needs to be addressed.
It’s a spiritual alarm that is telling you that sin needs to be taken care of…it needs to be confessed…and it needs to be repented of.
Then, and only then, will the pain of guilt subside.
This is where we also see Paul make a major shift in this letter.
So far, he has laid out the legal case against sinful humanity, to which there can be no rebuttal from the defense.
Now, in verse 21 (Romans 3:21) Paul speaks of a “Righteousness from God” that is “Apart from the Law.”
Up until now in this letter, we have been under a dark cloud of humanity’s sinful iniquities…our inherent depravity.
But now, a beam of light is breaking through the dark – the sun is beginning to break up the clouds of hopelessness and despair.
Remember in the beginning of the movie “The Wizard of Oz”, when the tornado is throwing Dorothy’s house all over the place.
It’s a chaotic & dramatic picture of doom-and-gloom…and everything is in black and white.
Then, suddenly, the house lands on solid ground…Dorothy and Toto open the front door only to find that they have safely landed in a place where the storms were all gone…it was peaceful...the birds were singing
…And everything was now in color!
The bad news had now given way to good news…hope had risen from the ashes of hopelessness.
In a similar way, Paul now begins to move from describing man’s hopeless condition – to describing the remedy for man’s hopeless condition…
We are introduced to the cure for our spiritually terminal illness of sin.
Referring to the next 6 verses of scripture (Verses 21-26) Theologian Donald Grey Barnhouse famously said that “These verses are the six most important verses in the Bible.”
Leon Morris exclaimed that these verses constituted “The most important paragraph ever written.”
Alva McClain said, “If I could have only six verses out of the Bible and the rest be taken away, I’d pick these verses.”
Why do these theologians have such high regard for these passages?
Because – to put it plainly - these six verses describe how God saves those who place their faith & trust in Jesus Christ.
They describe the best news ever to fall upon the ears of mankind.
They describe God’s immeasurable GRACE…His unmerited favor…generosity.
John MacArthur puts it this way: “Now, after backing all sinful mankind, Jew and Gentile alike, into the totally dark and seemingly inescapable corner of God’s wrath, Paul begins to open the window of divine grace that lets in the glorious light of salvation through the righteousness that God Himself has provided.”
From this wellspring of God’s grace – culminating with Jesus sacrificing his life on the cross as an atonement for our sins - comes the potential for man to now stand before God as righteous…as justified…as blameless…as pure…as innocent!
Verse 22 (Romans 3:22) describes how this can happen: “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”
Genuine, saving faith brings about a practical change within us – we think & behave differently - but it also brings about a positional change in regard to our standing before Almighty God.
Verse 23 (Romans 3:23) reminds us that we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s perfect standard (This is humanity’s disease)
But verse 24 (Romans 3:24) informs us that there is an antidote to our sin disease…and the antidote – which takes effect through faith placed in the person & finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross - results in a healed state called justification.
The word Justification (gr. Dikaioo) means “To declare the rightness of something or someone.
In a spiritual sense, Justification is God’s declaration that all the demands of the law are fulfilled on behalf of the believing sinner through the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Justification is a legal transaction…it changes the judicial standing of the sinner before God.
When you came to faith in Jesus, God imputed (Or, conferred) the perfect righteousness of Christ to your account…
Then - even though you are far from righteous in a practical sense - God is able to declare you positionally innocent of the charges against you….
You are declared innocent because when he looks at you – He doesn’t see your sin….He only sees His Son!
Have any of you ever been to the famous Riverwalk down in San Antonio, TX?
The Riverwalk is just steps away from the Alamo and provides a nice place for people to relax if they’ve been walking around for a long time.
All along the Riverwalk, you will find tables with huge umbrellas covering people from being burned by the hot south Texas sun.
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Much of the Riverwalk is below the land around it, so in many places there are areas where you can literally look down on all of these table umbrellas – it makes a very beautiful scene.
Years ago, I remember looking down on some of these beautiful umbrellas from a high vantage point knowing that there were people underneath them – but I couldn’t see them…I could only see the umbrella above them.
Brothers & sisters in Christ, this is how God chooses to view you as well.
If you are covered by the umbrella of the blood of Jesus Christ, when God looks at you -He no longer sees your sinful humanity,
Rather, He sees the beautiful face of His righteous son….
…and therefore, because God’s wrath against your sin has now been satisfied through the work of Jesus on the cross, God is able to proclaim you to be righteous as well…
He is able to proclaim you as justified…He is able to proclaim you as ‘innocent of all charges – you are now a free man, or you are now a free woman.
This is why the gospel of John says, “So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)
Do you see how this freedom and declaration of righteousness has absolutely nothing to do with anything you may have done ?
It’s all about the cross. It’s all about the blood of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, Paul says in verse 27 (Romans 3:27) “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded….”
We cannot take credit for anything having to do with our salvation other than responding in faith to God’s salvific call upon our life…and even faith is a gift.
So, essentially, God deserves all the credit in bringing you up out of the black & white chaos of depravity to the peaceful, full-color life of sanctification.
That is why – in humility – we praise Him.
That is why – in humility – we worship Him.
That is why – in humility – we serve Him.
That is why – in humility – we honor Him.
That is why - in humility – we submit to Him.
…and that is why – in humility – we tell others about how He set us free from the prison of sin.
The cross truly is the key that will set you free…
…And if you give your life to the man on the middle cross, you will experience freedom from sin for all eternity.
Let’s Pray.