Bible Guys Classics: Romans 3 Part 1

Well today we're going on the road again, on the Romans. Road, on the Romans road. That's right, Well, that's what we're beginning. There's a for those of you who don't know. There's a way to share the gospel, to lead somebody to Jesus using scriptures in the Book of Romans, and the first one usually is here. In Romans Carrey, wait to get all on the road again. Roman road. So he's Chris and I'm Jeff, and we're the Bible guys. So Jeff, yes, our staff have put together a segment that seems to be sort of the opposite of the segment that they hand to me, which is what made Chris mad this week. Those are the best. Well, we love those. We love to hear the Chris rant. Well they well, I'm not sure about that that they put together this question because we asked it. I think last week too, or maybe two weeks ago. What made Jeff. Happy this week? Oh yes, so I'm not sure I like that one. And see here's the thing. They know us. They know us well. If not careful, everybody might think that you don't ever get mad. Oh I don't. I'm like a saint. Yeah whatever, Yeah, so Jeff, but just actually I just. Probably have the worst temper between the two of us. So that's a that's a funny thing that it's just you're more vocal about the things that irritate you. Oh for sure, Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. So let's go back to the question what made Jeff happy? What what happened this week? Jeff? That made Jeff happy? Let me tell you this is one of the best things that's ever happened to me. I mean, like, wow, Jesus saved me from my sins. My wife said yes and married me, the birth of my three children. Yeah, coming to Heritage Church. And this Christmas, my kids teamed up together and bought me an a five wagu beef ribbi steak that had to be imported in dry ice from Japan. And this is this is one of the most expensive pieces of meat you can have in the world, in the world. Wow. And they shifted in and it was magnificent. So we just we cooked it this past week while they were all together. It was incredible. So every bite was an explosion of flavor. Yeah, so you thought it was worth it? Oh? Oh yeah, every bite? Now you can't eat much of it. If you've ever had wag you you know, it's just so rich. It's beyond a beef thing. It's just sort of like if you bring in an eighteen ounce rabbi, you know, prime rebbi, I will just destroy that thing in the next fifteen twenty minutes. But I could only eat just a few ounces of this. It was just so rich. But it was amazing luxurious, decadently luxurious. Wow. Yeah, And were you were you scared to cook it? Yes? Well, so expensive you don't get one shot at it, you know what I mean? And so yeah, I was. I was really nervous about it, but we we nailed it. It was it was amazing. The way that normal beef process is fat is different from wagu Waguo has this genetic thing that creates uh mono unsaturated fats, which is like olive oil, and it embeds it in the muscle. So literally it would melt like we could run our finger across the top of the meat and it would leave like a puddle of what looked like olive oil behind it. Right. So it was just so rich meat. It was phenomenal. So to non meat eaters this sounds horrible. But to the to the steak lovers that are listening, it was just a spectacular experience. Did you put some a one on it? No, my wife did. I'm not joking. I'm not joking. She had a one on her plate. Wow. I had gone about a bunch of other steaks so that everybody could, you know, because we all knew we were gonna have the little bites of it because it was so expensive and so rich. So I had to brought some other steaks. So there were others. So I don't know that she had a one on her plate for this wago the most expensive bite of meat she's ever had in her life, right, But uh, yeah she did. That's funny. One time Bonnie and I we went to tell my parents that we were expecting their first grandson. Yeah, and we took them out to a prime rib restaurant, very famous restaurant. It was expensive and we ordered and everything, and then when we were done, she, my wife called the server rover and said, could you bring me some a one? And he looked like she just cussed him out. He went, excuse me, madam, And she said, could you marke me some a one? So he goes uh yes, and he just looked so disgusted. He walked and he came back and he set the A one on the table and he said, I'll give your regrets to the chef. Oh no, well he's not wrong. I know you don't put anyone on that stuff. But she did so, and she's like, I paid for it, and that's how I like it. I didn't care what you think, you know. So yeah, so that was That's what made me happy this week. Was the most amazingly expensive piece of meat I could ever dream of. Oh yeah, what a great gift from the fIF for you. They know me, they really love. Me, they like me, they really like me. Yeah, that was it. Okay, so we're continuing with this idea that we're all sinners. Now he's he's stacking it on at this point. It's not just you Jews are sinners, or the Gentiles or sinners, because you know, you live apart from God. Now he's really kind of going to begin to build this logical argument that ultimately, I promise you, ultimately it's going to lead to so Jesus solved it. That's tomorrow. Actually it's the first time he brings that up. But this is kind of the culmination of this whole argument that everybody's a sinner and there's a consequence to it. So Rome's chapter three is where we're picking up, and it starts off with this whole idea of God being faithful. Says, then, what's the advantage of being a Jew? Is there any value in the ceremony circumcision? Yes, there's great benefits. First of all, the Jews are entrusted with the whole revelation of God. True, some of them are unfaithful, But just because they're unfaithful does not mean that God will be unfaithful, of course, not even if everyone else is a liar. God is true, as the scriptures say about him. You will be proved right in what you say, and you will win your case in court. But some might say our sinfulness deserves a good purpose, for it helps people see how righteous God is. Isn't it unfair then for him to punish us? This is merely a human point of view, of course, not if God were not entirely fair, how would he be qualified to judge the world. But someone might still argue, how can God condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty highlights his truthfulness and brings him more glory, and some people even slanderous by claiming that we say the more we sin, the better it is those who say such things deserve to be condemned. Well, then, should we conclude that Jews are better than others, No, not at all, for we have already shown that all people, whether Jews or Gentiles, are under the power of sin. As a scriptures say, no one is righteous, not even one. No one is truly wise, No one is seeking God. All have turned away, all have been become useless. No one does good, not a single one. Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave. Their tongues are filled with lies, snake venom drips from their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. They rush to commit murder, Destruction and misery always follow them. They don't know where to find peace. They have no fear of God at all. Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given for its purposes to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God, For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. Yep, there it is, and that's the. Purpose of the law. Yeah, so the last sentence for no one can ever be made right with God by doing the law commands. The law simply shows us how simple we are. Isn't it amazing? How I mentioned yesterday and yesterday's podcast that I do a lot of funerals. Well, the first half of every funeral that I do is all about the person. Yeah, you know, like, hey, we want to honor, remember, and you know, share about the person who's deceased. But then the second half of the funeral, I always just try to answer one simple question and I just say, you know, I'm just going to spend our few remaining moments answering this one simple question, which is, how can anyone know for sure they can go to Heaven when they die? Because the vast majority of people, It's the same speech every single time, every single time that I give a funeral, I say, the vast majority of people think that if they're good, outweighs they're bad. That's the most important part of the equation. Okay, And I always say I feel like we have to apologize on behalf of the church, because I don't think the Church has done a very good job in answering this really simple question with clarity, right, because I think that the majority of all the people in my life that I've ever talked with seem to somehow think, you know, like, well, I've tried to keep the Ten Commandments right, and it's like, why is that the message above? You know that that you know, salvation is Jesus alone? Right, you know, why is it the Ten comments? Why is it you know, you know, salvation by works? And so here what Paul says, Hey, you want to talk about the law. You want to talk about the commandments, you want to talk about every law that has ever been given. No one can ever. Be made right with God by doing the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. Yeah, yeah, so you know he's again there's no chapters and verses in Paul's letters. These are our segments. And so to separate chapter three from chapter two, Paul didn't do that. So basically he's finishing up that. So then if if Jews can be unrighte with God even though they've followed some of the rules, and if Gentiles can be right with God by their heart, but haven't followed these same rules that we followed, Then what's the use, That's what he's saying, why would we even try to follow any of God's guidelines anyways? And then he goes on and goes or maybe you can justify then sinning in general, just to show how good God is. If sin proves that we're bad and God's good, then God actually gets glory when I sin. And Paul's like, come on, people, right, because we're always find trying to find loopholes. Naturally humans try to find loopholes and go, oh, well great, I get to keep doing what I do and God gets glorified. That's fantastic. And he's saying, no, that's not the point. He said, Instead, we have to conclude the fact that none of our sin is beneficial. It's never acceptable, it's never an okay thing. God's grace is available to both Jews and Greeks, Jews and Gentiles, it's available to everybody, but it's never beneficial to live a life of sin. And he said, as a matter of fact, that's where he begins to quote the Book of Isaiah, right where he says, no one is righteous, not even one, and no one's truly wise, no one is really seeking God. Yeah, it's Psalm fourteen, that's all. I'm sorry, Palm. What did I say, Isaiah, I'm sorry Psalm fourteen. Which, by the way, is interesting because we so know it is Romans three ten, right, yeah, because that actually is the reference that I gave to on the Road again by Willie Nils. Yeah, because Romans three ten is sort of the beginning of the Romans Road, which establishes that all of us are lost, there's none righteous, no, not one, and it's it's very famous in the Christian world as Romans three ten, but really it's Psalm fourteen. Yeah, so I see where my mistake was there. So he quotes Psalm fourteen, Psalm fifty three, Psalm five, Psalm ten, and then he finishes up with Isaiah fifty nine is Versus fifteen, sixteen to seventeen there it is, So yeah, yeah, that's that's kind of where I think I made that leap. And then he goes back to Psal thirty six. So what he's doing is he's rattling off a bunch of verses that highlight the fact that you know, God says, man live. Even the best version of you is still a sinner. Right, Even your best words drip with evil. Even your best behavior is sinful compared to a perfect and holy and righteous God. And so basically what he's doing is he's really piling on here at the end to go listen. You are at your core a sinner, and the best things you do are tainted by sin, and yet God is good and loves you. Right, but stop thinking that somehow you can earn your way to heaven. It's not possible. You've already broken the law, you already fall short, and even your best attempts are imperfect attempts. And so he said, if you're trying to trust the law here, it's just not possible. No one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. So then I think it does bring up the question, well, then why why should we do what God commands? And I think it comes down to Jesus. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments, so it stops being about trying to earn my way to heaven. See me trying to keep the rules so I can go to heaven is all about me, right, But if instead, I realized Jesus paid my price to heaven, so now I don't have to earn it. Now. The reason to do the right thing now, the reason to obey God's laws is to show him I love him. There's no other way I can other than to then willingly do what I don't am not any longer required to do. You know, when I was, when I first went into ministry was by the way, I'm not sure if I've even told you this, but when I was, I grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. It was a small little Baptist church, right, and we were part of an independent, you know, Baptist Association. And they had this homemade thing with all these other youth pastors. This sounds funny, but it's called the any OYF the Northeastern Ohio Youth Fellowship any OAF, I know, goofy right, But it was just a sort of like a group of churches that came together. Well, there was always a guy who's still a good friend of mine, Tim Chambers, and he would meet us, and we always met in Ohio, so we meet somewhere in Ohio. But he was from Michigan and it was Ryan Road Baptist Church. Now, for those of you who don't know, obviously, majority of people that don't know who's listening. Is one mile from where I live is Ryan Road currently, and I've lived there for almost twenty years, right, and yet as a kid living in Ohio four hours away, this guy was a pastor and I just remember his church, Ryan Road Baptist Church was, by the way, is no longer there, okay, but anyway, but that you know, and then here I ended up living right down the street, and I knew this guy's names of the church Ryan Road. Anyway, The point is. Is that he was sort of like a mentor along because he was best friends with my youth pastor. And I remember asking him saying, like, hey, when I go into ministry, how do I teach kids how to follow God? Which, by the way, is sort of the topic here? Now, how do you how do you get people to obey the law? Right? And here's what he said. He said, Chris, it's three things and these are in specific order. I just I just tell my kids, you have to love God, know God, serve God. Right. I'm sorry, no, God, love God, serve God. Sorry, right to know God? You got it out of order, I did, he's going to be mad. Now he's going to be mad and he's lisening. So to know God, Love God, serve God. And I started and I started thinking about that, and then it wasn't until much, much, much later on in my ministry that I realized, WHOA, that is completely true. You first have to know about God. You have to. You have to understand him. You know, you sort of you know, input all the information about who God is, you learn about his character, you read about it, right, you sort of get to know God first, like an introductory type of thing, and then the more you get to know him, the more you love him, which is the absolute key to obeying him. So one of my favorite phrases after that became this, I obey God because I want to, not because I have to. And by the way, both are okay, right. It's it's kind of like when God says God loves a cheerful giver. Well, you know, it's just better as long as you give, right, So it's sort of like this, it's like, well, as long as you obey. But there's a major difference between obeying because you have to and obeying because you want to. And see, I think the key is what Tim told me so long ago, and that is, if you don't love God enough to obey him, chances are you just don't know him, because to know him. Is to love him. Yeah. Well that's great. Yeah, so there it is. That's great love. I love the idea that it's a great progression. I think sometimes because we come to Christ immaturity. We come to Christ usually because you know, he's been drawing us, the holypit's been drawing us to Christ. But he's been doing it through the circumstances of our life. So a lot of times it's a struggle, it's a difficulty, it's confusion, it's lostness, it's just it's purpose, uselessness, whatever, whatever thing God used. Oftentimes when we come to faith and we find the solution to the thing that's missing in our life, so it's kind of an us centered thing at the beginning, it's Jesus is the answer to what's missing, or Jesus is the answer to what's broken, or Jesus is the one who solved this problem in my life. And so we come to him and it's Jesus, yes, because he fixes me in this right right. And then if we're not careful. We stay the whole Christian life, the whole journey still being all about what Jesus can do for me, rather than us learning who he is. So you know, God so loved that he gave, so the giving is it's for you. There's no shame in that. It is for you. But it's because God is love, and when you really discover who he is, you learn to love him. And then that's why Jesus said, now you know, keep my commandments because you love me, because he makes Paul makes it clear here there's no chance of you getting to heaven by doing right. Can't do that. But every time I do choose to do the right thing, I'm saying I love you to Jesus. That's another hug. It's another thing I was thinking about this. I had a friend that was very particularly sensitive to smell. If he smelled something that you know, if he smelled shoes and we didn't smell him, it'd make him gag, right, just everything would you know, everything was too sensitive, so he could not be around people wearing any kind of cologne at all. And you know, oh, that's that's a strong gag reflex. Yeah. Yeah, so I have a gag reflex, but it's not that strong. So if you were wearing any kind of scent, he would start sneezing and his eyes would puff up and he just couldn't couldn't handle it. So you know, I'm free to wear whatever I want to wear. And back then, you know, when we were in college, you wear what your car right. Right, right, brute my faberge right for the cowboy and all of us. So whatever it was, you're free to I'm a free individual, I'm a grown man. I can wear what I want to wear. I want to do and wear it. But I enjoyed his company and I cared about him, so I would limit my freedoms in order to please him so that I could be with him and be around him. And if Boule says God cannot be in the presence of sin, so it'd be the same thing that I care enough about my relationship with God that I'm willing to limit the freedoms that I have in Christ. And I limit those things. And by the way, when I keep God's laws, my life will be better. I'll avoid brokenness, I'll avoid some of the destructive behaviors, I'll avoid addictions, I'll avoid ruining relationships. I'll strengthen so many of the things that would naturally be weak. So if I follow God's loss, my life will be better. It will be it won't be worse. There's not one of God's laws it will make my life worse. But I'm free to do what I want. But I'm not demonstrating love to God or thankfulness to God when I choose to just live for myself. And I think this is kind of the contrast between Jesus in the Gospel saying, if you love me, keep my commandments and Paul saying there's no way you can get to heaven just keeping commandments. You know. So you know, the Bible tells us that God institute marriage as a reflection of our relationship with him. Right, So marriage is a thing given to us, but it's actually very cleverly designed to show our relationship with Him and then the family unit as well. So when it says, for instance, bear with me, when it says God gave his only son for us, we think to ourselves, man, we can't relate to that until we have a son, right, And so think about this, you know, I know, I know, serving God for the pleasure of loving God is not too much different than going out of your way for your kids or for your. Wife, don't you agree. So it's like it's like, it's like I will go through the pain of like cleaning my house, right, not because I like cleaning my house, because I like when my wife walks in through the door to go, oh, thank you so much. For the first time ever, we actually attempt to decorate the entire house with Christmas decorations without my wife. She was at home in Ohio, think no, she was in Florida visiting Sarah, and we were going through some stuff, and my daughter Tory said, I don't think we should be doing this because you know how much Christmas decorations there are in a typical household, right, And Liz does all that. She decorates the whole house. We're talking every room, every decoration boxes and boxes. I bet you there's twelve boxes, like big huge bins right from the attic. And so it's like, so Tory goes, I think we should I'm not sure if we should do this, I said, can you imagine what it'll be like if she walks into the door the Christmas tree's up, you know, not decorated but up and everything else is up. So we did it, and it's the first time in history. And my wife walked in through the door and. She goes, I don't know how I feel about this. That she walked around and she said, you have no idea what it was like to walk in and just see everything just done. And ultimately, thank goodness, she loved it. But the only reason why I did it is not because I like it. So we live our lives trying to please God. And it's like, you know, just just to know that, like you know, when we live in His laws, it glorifies God. Right, we love and forgive others. It shines God's love. Do you remember I think it was a week or two ago in Two Corinthians where he says, come out from among them, be separate, don't touch down, clean thing. Right. So those are some rules that seems pretty strong. But then he says, and then you'll be like my children, my sons and daughters, and I'll be like a father to you. So God is using the family relationship to say, hey, if you want to make me happy, do these things. Yeah, right, just for your kids, yeah, for your dad. And so I love this idea. And we've said this before in a podcast. I think we need to wrap up with this. But the Bible is its own best commentary. So in this passage, he says, there's no chance of getting to heaven by obeying the law. So then why why should we obey the law? Jesus said, because if you love me, keep my commandments. And it turns out it's a family thing, right if you do when I say, it will be like a family together, and you speaks directly to the illustration you just used. Yeah, it's pretty great how the Bible works out that way. Cool. Well, we will see you next time and hopefully you'll join us on Monday on the Bible Guys,