Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The sermon text is from Romans 3:19-28 previously read.
I probably would be better not admitting this, but occasionally I get a kick out of courtroom television shows like Judge Judy or Judge Mathis. It’s not that I take pleasure in the pain of others, or that I think I’ll be better educated in the Law. It’s more perverse than that. I enjoy seeing the dumb excuses people come up with.
Most of the shows follow the same format. The narrator says the plaintiff is suing the defendant for $1000 of unpaid rent. Then he explains the defendant admits he never paid the $1000, but that he doesn’t think he should have to pay it because he didn’t like living in the house. There are always elaborate reasons and rationalizations, but usually it comes down to this – the guilty party doesn’t think the law should apply to them.
Too bad that’s not how the law works. Everyone living in this country is bound by our laws. No exceptions. The law doesn’t say drive 55 mph unless you’re late for work. A compassionate cop might let you off with a warning, but according to the law you’re still guilty.
On the other hand, the laws of the United States don’t apply if you live in Canada or Mexico. The laws of those countries don’t care if we have a 55 mph speed limit in Illinois. They have their own laws, and they expect when you’re there you will obey those.
God’s Law is different. It doesn’t care who you are or where you live. It applies to everyone living person. Our text says by God’s Law “every mouth is silenced and the whole world is held accountable to God.” There is no nibbling around the edges with God’s Law. It’s absolute. It demands righteousness – perfect obedience – complete and unfailing compliance. Human laws govern outward behavior, but God’s Law isn’t so easy. It extends to our hidden thoughts and whispered words. The state trooper doesn’t care what you think about him when you pass him on the highway, as long as you’re keeping the speed limit. God’s Law judges not only our outward actions, but it judges the heart. Romans 13 says, “Love is the fulfillment of the Law.” The behaviors God demands will follow our heart.
God’s Law is exacting, microscopically peeling off the layers of all our thoughts and words and actions. Our text says, “Through the Law we become conscious of sin.” God’s Law shows the truth, it’s like a mirror that makes us aware of all the large and tiny imperfections.
You are a sinner. You were born that way. It’s what you are, and so am I. Psalm 51 says, “We were sinful from birth, from the time our mother’s conceived us.” We sinners have a problem with God. We agree in principle that as God He has the right to demand our obedience, but in practice we sinners are like defendants in the courtroom. We know God’s Law. We know it demands perfect obedience. We know we don’t measure up – that we’re failures and lawbreakers. We also know God’s verdict on our sin – “The soul that sins shall die”, Ezekiel wrote. In every fiber of our being, we our conscious of our sin and the guilt that comes with it, and we know we deserve to go to hell. But sinners are born excuse makers. We rationalize our own behavior. We try to justify our lives and our choices before God – and it doesn’t work.
Today, imagine you are standing before God’s Judgment throne. We all will be soon enough when Jesus comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead. What plea will you enter? Many people justify themselves and their lives and their actions and their motivations this way: I’ve lived a good life. I’m a good person. 2 Corinthians 10 says those who compare themselves with themselves, “are not wise.” Remember, God’s legal standard: “Be holy, as I the Lord your God, am holy.” There are a lot of so-called “good people” in hell, because they rejected the free gift of God’s holiness in Jesus.
Many people will admit they are sinners, that perhaps they should have loved God with all their heart or loved their neighbors as themselves… but then come the attempts at self-justification. My life is too busy right now. I don’t have time for God but I still believe in Him, but James says, “Faith without works is dead.” A dead faith ends in hell. Some say that their lifestyle choices aren’t hurting anyone. There are lots of people worse than I am. But God’s Law shouts, “Give up the lame excuses!” When you stand in God’s courtroom, He isn’t grading you against your neighbor.
When you and your friend are out walking in the woods and you come across an angry bear, you don’t have to be faster than the bear. You only have to be faster than your friend. That’s not how it is with God. You don’t get credit for being better than the person you’re sitting next to. Your problem is with God the Judge. It’s His Law, and you’re guilty – dead to rights. There are no misdemeanors and felonies, major and minor violations. God’s Law is crushing – without exception it says sinners deserve to die temporally and die eternally in hell.
Do you see that? There really is a hell. And the terrible tragedy is God prepared hell for the devil and evil angels but many excuse-makers and self-justifiers will go there. “Wide is the road,” Jesus said, “that leads to destruction and many travel there, but narrow is the path that leads to life and only a few find it.”. Only understanding it will get us to keep our big mouths shut and stop with the self-justification. Only when we get how guilty and helpless we are, is “every mouth silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.”
It may seem odd to say, but one of the great gifts of Dr. Martin Luther’s Reformation of the Church was a return to a solid, Scriptural understanding of God’s Law. That doesn’t seem like much of a gift, I know. It doesn’t do much for the self-esteem to admit we’re “poor, miserable sinners who deserve nothing but temporal and eternal punishment.” Dr. Luther taught with Scripture that when you stand before God there’s no money that can buy indulgence, no purgatorial timeout before you get into heaven, no satisfaction, no number of “Hail Marys” or “Our Fathers” that can make things right, and no hope that the good in our life will outweigh the bad. Every mouth stands silenced when your case appears before God the Judge of the Living and the dead.
For us, who have been stripped of every weak self-justification, St. Paul wrote, “But now a righteousness from God, apart from Law, has been made known… We maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the Law.”
God demands a perfect righteousness that we can’t reach, but in God’s mercy He didn’t choose to forget sin or ignore it; rather, He took it upon Himself. Galatians 4 says, “In the fullness of time, God sent His Son born of a Virgin, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law.” As fully God, Jesus stood above and outside the Law, but He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin, fully human. Christ our Savior lived a perfectly righteous life under God’s Law and met every demand in thought, word and deed for us. Our text says, “God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in His blood.” The sinless Savior carried our sins to the cross, suffering the condemnation and damnation and judgment that we deserve.
There is only one plea for us sinners standing before God – it’s not self-justification – it’s the blood of Jesus. He suffered all our sins deserve and rose from the dead to give God’s Divine pardon to all who believe in Him. This faith in Jesus is God’s gift by the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s not a quality or virtue in us. It’s a repentant heart that says, “God be merciful to me a sinner and trusts in God’s heaven-sent Savior.”
The great treasure of the Reformation wasn’t simply a better understanding of God’s Law, but by that a better appreciation for Christ and His work. Christ didn’t save us from what we couldn’t handle on our own. He saved us completely. Our text says, “We maintain that a man is justified by faith.” To be justified means that through faith in Jesus, when we sinners stand before God’s throne, He declares us innocent – declares us righteous – Jesus blotted out our ugly record of sin with His precious blood, and through faith the living Lamb of God pleads our case at God’s right hand.
Not only were our efforts at self-justification stupid and useless, they held God at a distance when He wants nothing more than to justify us – to declare us innocent – in the blood of Jesus. God the Divine Judge in His heart of grace wants nothing more than to stare down from the bench, and for those who trust in Jesus as their Savior, God gavels down His verdict, “Your sin has been paid. Your sentence was served by My Son.” That’s what justification is – God declaring sinners righteous or innocent through faith in our substitute – the Virgin-born Savior who stepped into our shoes and paid the price of death for us. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.”
When you come to know this gracious Judge, you come to know the God of Scripture. The God who hates sin and chose to suffer its consequences for you. When you know this Judge, you give up the excuses and joyfully enter your plea. “Just as I am without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me; and that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come. I come.” When you stand in God’s court, let Jesus, your Substitute, speak for you. He promises you, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free, indeed.” Amen.
And now may the peace of God which surpasses human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.