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Romans 3
Did you get saved by following the Law? Does that benefit
you ? Paul says no! He says that believing in the Lord Jesus Christ is what it
takes. Not something we actually do.
Then what’s the advantage of being a Jew? Is there any value
in the ceremony of circumcision? Yes, there are great benefits! First of all,
the Jews were entrusted with the whole revelation of God. True, some of them
were unfaithful; but just because they were unfaithful, does that mean 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.” Romans 3:1-4
I love this part! “Even if everyone else is a liar God is
true!” We can know it as a truth that God will continually be faithful to the
Word, in our lives, and that is more than we can say about people we know. The
thing we need to learn from this chapter is that just because the people in our
family line may have deserted God and His Way, we can still be obedient and
faithful to God ourselves. He is faithful to forgive us of our sins, doubt, and
for harboring grudges. All we need to do is ask, seek, find!
Ask forgiveness
Seek Him and His Word daily
Find Him, His hope, His direction and the peace that follows
all of that!
“But,” some say, “our sinfulness serves 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? 7 “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
slander us 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
we 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 the 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 become
useless. No one does good, not a single one.” Romans 3:1-12
Read Psalm 14 all 7 verses support this statement. Paul knew
the Scriptures from his youth, He knew the training of a Pharasee before coming
to know Jesus as His Lord and Messiah.
All sin is bad, there are no grey areas, in God's eyes sin
is just wrong and when we do wrong we deserve to be punished. All have turned
away; all have become useless and no one does good. According to the NLT
version. And its true, everyone even people who think they have to be good to
get to heaven are sinners. It does not mean that the Jews are better than
Christians, because they have a ‘scape goat' in obeying the Law. They still
need the Messiah, Jesus Christ in their lives as well. There are always going
to be people who say God does not judge us, or claim we are not following His
direction because we fail from time to time. But read on in this Chapter and
book of Romans, you will find the Good News!
“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 purpose is 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. Romans 3:13-20
The good news is Christ Took Our Punishment! When we realize
He did this for us as well as the Jewish people it can be overwhelming.
-What do you need to do to be saved?
-What do Jewish people need to do to be saved?
-Who is closer to God?
But Now God has shown us a way to be made right with him
without keeping the requirements of the Law.as was promised in the writings of
Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our
faith in Jesus. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we
are.
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious
standard. Yet God in His grace freely makes us right in His sight. He did this through Christ Jesuswhen he freed us from the
penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People
are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed His love,
shedding His blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being faith when He helpd
back and did not punish those people ho sinned in times past, for He was
looking ahead and including thmin what He would do in this present time. God
did this to demonstrate His righteousness, for He Himself is fair and just, and
He makes sinners right in His sight when they believe in Jesus. Romans 3:21-26
See! All people start in the same place, no matter who we
are we fall short. But God has made a way for us to be saved from our
punishment if we believe that Jesus allowed Himself to be sacrificed to take
our punishment from us. We inturn put our faith in Jesus to remove the stain of
our sinflulness and replace it with clean garments of righteousness.
Read Hebrews 21:1-2
How does this relate to Christ taking our sins?
Does this happen when we first believe?
It was taught to me by an old Missionary Preacher many years
ago, that when Father God looks at us before we sin, we are as filthy rags. You
know smelly and dirty from whatever we were trying to clean up? That bad. Then
when we believe, accept and receive Christ in our lives, hearts and all; He
sees not what we used to be but instead He sees Jesus in us. Aka the Holy
Spirit in us reflects outward instead of who we used to be, or what we used to
do.
Another thing taught is like taking the list of things we
did, all the sins big and small, list them all on a whiteboard, and then
cleaning it off. Not the kind of clean that leaves residue, but
the kind when you
spray it with the extra special cleaning
spray and wipe it off. From there the cloth is full of our sin but God only
looks at the clean board with our name on it! The rag is tossed and we are made
clean and new spiritually speaking.
Lets read on.
Can we boast, then, that we have done anythign to accepted
by God? No, because our acquiittal is not based on obeying the Law. It is based
on faith. So we are made right with God through faith and not by obying the
Law.
After all, is God the God of he Jews only?
Isnt He also the God of the Gentiles? Of course He is. There
is only one God and He makes people right with himself only by faith, whether
they re Jews or Gentiles.
Well then, if we emphasize faith does that this mean that we
can forget aout the Law? Of course not! In fact only when we have faith do we
truly fulfill the law. Romans 3:27-31
As we continue in this study we will read learn more about
faith and what comes next when we become believers accepted by God. It is so
awesome to think about the fact that God accepted us. We like to say we
accepted Christ, but really it is the other way around isn't it! He takes on
the task of our cleansing us from sin.
What is something you really do not like to do but you do it
anyway because of the love you have for the person you do it for?
Thank God for cleaning you up today!
Don’t forget to check the youtube page for the next recap
video and read ahead through chapter 4