His Perfect Love

Matt VanderVen: God won't withhold salvation from anyone who will believe. And that's the only thing He's ever asked us to do is to believe. When we believe, we find grace, and through grace, we find faith. It's a domino, but it always begins by belief.

But your beliefs are only as good as what you place them in, and your faith is only as good as what you place it in. If you place your beliefs and your faith in you or me, you're going to be sorely disappointed. But if you put your faith and trust in Christ, you never will.

Guest (Male): So glad you've joined us today for His Perfect Love, as we get back into Romans and encounter one of the more well-known passages in the Bible. We'll soon see that the way we become right before God is by first admitting that we're a sinner and in need of a savior. It's then we can turn from our sin to Christ in faith. Those that do are no longer guilty before a holy God. That good news is front and center today as we join Pastor Matt VanderVen in Romans chapter one.

Matt VanderVen: Please open your Bibles to the book of Romans. We're going to be picking up where we left off in verse 16. We've come as far as 16, and really from this point all the way through chapter 3, verse 19, Paul's going to unify or unite the entire world under sin. I know that seems strange to some. Most people say, "Well, why is he uniting us under our banner of salvation, Jesus Christ?" And he will. But first, he wants everyone to understand where we are in our need for a savior.

If I could ask you to please turn to chapter 3. Hold your finger in chapter 1, but just turn to chapter 3 and look at verse 19 for a moment, and this will sort of draw us in and set the tone on that. It says, "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law." Clearly, we know we're not under the law. That was settled in Acts chapter 15 and 16 by the Jerusalem Council that way. And it says, "And all," notice that, all—circle that in your Bibles, it's very important—"all the world may become what? Guilty before God."

You see, that's Paul's aim here. I mean, this is a letter that's being sent to Rome. He's from Corinth, and he's basically making the claim that all have sinned. And he begins in chapter 1, focusing on the unrighteousness for those unrighteous, you might say. And in chapter 2, he's going to turn his focus more to the self-righteous. But he's doing this because it's important that all of humanity realize that we are sinners before God.

He wants us to understand what justification is going to do in our lives as we're going to pick up today in verse 16 and 17, one of the most well-known passages in the Bible for most, I would say. God is not only the just, but He's also the justifier. It's interesting. You go back in early tradition in our law schools, one of the first books or a required course in our law schools—I know we have some folks that have gone through law school here—but earlier on in our tradition, I think we've gotten far away from it today.

But Romans as a required course was studied because of the logical and effective case that Paul makes to all of humanity. It's laid out before sin that way. I know the Holy Spirit clearly did this in Paul's life. It was inspiration through the Holy Spirit. I'm sure Paul was very aware of what God was saying as he's writing these things down. But the coherency, the logic, the simplicity of how he appeals to all of humanity, unifying everyone into this common thread of sin and therefore pointing us to one that is greater that can redeem us from our sin. There's nothing else like it.

It's a shame some of the law schools still don't study this, because we would find out our courtrooms would be vastly different today, wouldn't they, if we look at all as guilty, but we have a justifier. And that justifier can only be the just one, Jesus Christ. Verse 16: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, 'The just shall live by faith,'" again, quoting Habakkuk chapter 2, verse 4. That's what we see there in that latter part.

This is our next major theological premise that Paul's going to be introducing. Do you remember the first one we kind of went through? And that was on the nature of Christ. It was the hypostatic union. We talked about that in the first portion, up to verse 16. We looked at the nature of Christ, His divinity and His humanity, 100% of both. It wasn't some type of equation that changes up or down that way. We didn't see that.

We are going to be reading about justification by faith. That's what we just read here, and God as that just and justifier. It's like the song we sang this morning. What did we sing? We're justified just as if we've never done anything wrong. Just think about that for a moment. If we were in the Hebrew, I would say selah. What does that mean? Just meditate, think about it for a moment.

I like that. I mean, what a beautiful expression of grace God has given us here. It's perfect grace. God, who is just, righteously looks away from your sin, my sin. That's what we read here. He must look away because we're great people? No, hardly. No, He looks away because of one, the just one, Jesus, who atoned and removed our sins, and He imputed His righteousness.

It was His righteousness that had to get imputed to us, so that when He would look on us, it's His righteousness through our faith. Just think about that for a minute. His righteousness through our faith, through our belief. It's only through this righteousness that we're reading here that God says He accepts us. It's no other way. It can't be any other way. It's mutually exclusive. There are no other ways. It's only through the righteousness that God accepts humans.

This is the term that we refer to and, again, thinking of a court case, as we would present the evidence as Paul is presenting evidence here. He would say this is justification. When Martin Luther read this, it wrecked him. He began to think differently about what he understood as his walk in the faith because he didn't understand faith. He thought it was works. He thought, "Well, boy, I lived a good life. I've done great things. I'm a monk, Lord. If You allow this," as he's making his way up the steps. "If You allow me to get there, then I'll dedicate my life unto You."

What could we ever bring to God? I'll tell you what we can bring to God according to the scripture: the only thing that we can really bring to God, and that's our sin. We possess nothing else righteous inside of us that would allow us to come to God to pay that spiritual transaction that took place on the cross at Calvary. There's nothing. We have nothing that we can give God. If we could, then why would we need Jesus Christ to go to Calvary and to be crucified and to be resurrected and to redeem us from our sin? If we internally possess that quality or capability to do that, they're mutually exclusive. That's what the Word teaches us here.

Another definition that we're going to talk a little bit about, and I've just used it a couple of times, is to impute. If I ask you what does impute mean, how many people think they know what the word impute means? Raise your hand if you think you understand what that word impute means from a biblical perspective and how it's being used in the Greek. Okay, good, a few.

What's it mean? It means to ascribe or to attribute something to someone. If you're taking notes, to ascribe or to attribute something to someone. When someone says we took Christ's love and it was imputed, or Christ's righteousness, better said, it was imputed to us, we're saying that someone, Jesus in this case, took His righteousness and He ascribed or attributed that to you and I.

When we place our faith in Christ, God ascribes His perfect righteousness, or attributes, if you'd like that better, of Christ to our account so that we become, and I'm going to use this word, Ephesians 4 uses this word, perfect. Wait a minute, Pastor, are you saying we're perfect? In Christ. In Christ. If you're looking for that, go to Ephesians 4 and you can read more about that, that it says that we gather together. Well, let's pause here. Let's turn to Ephesians 4. I can see enough sort of looks. I think it's worthy. We've gone to this passage a few times when we looked at why we meet as a church.

If you want to look at verse 11 in chapter 4: "And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers." Notice He distinguishes between the two. Those that teach the word aren't necessarily pastors. Do you have a love for the flock? Is your heart knit to the men and women that God brings in through those doors? Do you love them and are you willing to die for them? That's a pastor. That's an undershepherd. If that's not you, you should go work at a seminary. They need the help and get some good teachers there, but that's not a shepherd.

"For the equipping," this is what we gather. We're not to forsake the gathering of the brethren, as Hebrews tells us, but for what? For the equipping. That's what we're doing here this morning. You're all being equipped. "Of the saints," that's you and I, the hagios in the Greek. "For the work of the ministry." That's our focus. That's our aim as disciples of Christ, for the work of the ministry. And that comes out differently in everyone. Some of that work in the ministry has nothing to do with this physical building. That happens outside of this building in your jobs, in your homes, in wherever God takes you and sends you, in your marriages, with your children.

"But for the work of the ministry, for the edifying," that's the building up, you're building up "of the body," that's you and I, "the body of Christ, till we all come into the unity," what's that unity that speaks about that we're to come into? "Of faith." We're reading verses 16 and 17 right now. Faith. The unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, to a—what's that word there? Circle it in your Bible. What's it say? Perfect.

Is God grammatically challenged? No. How could we ever be perfect? We couldn't in ourselves, because even though we're saved, don't we continue to sin? Yes. But have we not received the nature of Christ? The first Adam we were born into, a nature of sin, original sin, Genesis chapter 3. But we were redeemed through Christ, and we were given a new nature in Christ that when God looks upon us, no longer sees our old nature, because that nature is gone. Paul's going to write about that in chapters 8 and 11 of Romans. He's going to talk about that. He's going to say the waging of the flesh, the things that he doesn't even want to do, he says, "That's not me." No, Paul's not schizophrenic.

When we get there, we'll exegetete that. He's not schizophrenic, he's being very deliberate in what he's saying. He's saying, "Not only the things I don't want to do, those things I do," he's saying, "It's not me doing them. It's the waging of the flesh inside of me, but I live in the spirit and I walk in the Spirit of God, and I know I have victory over sin, and I know that Christ, when He looks at me, He sees no sin. He sees the righteousness of Jesus His Son in us." It's everything to understand the identity of Christ and who we are in that, because that forms our identity. And we have such a biblically illiterate generation that people are walking around and don't understand who they are in Christ.

And this is foundational. "To a perfect man, to the measure and the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children doing what? Being tossed to and fro, carried with every wind of doctrine." That means that you read something, I get questions, you read whatever website, go wherever you go, and you start to look at these things, and we start to see people nitpick doctrines, but they take them out of context. And he's saying, "No, you're not going to be able to be deceived by that any longer as you sit under the word. You'll be able to test and know what is true and right and good."

You can turn back with me to Romans. For our sake, He made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become what? The righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21. Now you know how Paul could write that in Corinth, which oh by the way, he wrote Romans while he was in Corinth. Just think about that for a minute. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin that we might become the righteousness of God.

Not only is Christ's righteousness imputed to us through faith, but our sin is accounted to Christ. Now He was without sin clearly, but this is how Christ paid our sin debt to God, because it needed to be paid. Think of it as an accounting term. If you have accounting, you have one side of the spreadsheet, you have things going out, things coming in, or things coming in, things going out on the right side. You have sin that we have accumulated, past, present, and future, through our whole lives. And when you sum total that, it comes out to a number.

None of us could pay for that. That's why He said in the Greek, tetelestai. He used a Greek term to say, "It's paid in full. It's finished," in an accounting term, because He wanted everybody to understand in that column, the number never went away. It's been removed though. It's not that we satisfied it; we couldn't. Christ did. And not only that, when God looks upon you and I now as sons and daughters of the living God, He no longer sees that sin. But not does He not just see that sin, but He sees the righteousness of Jesus Christ, one third of the Trinity in us.

Think about that for a minute when you start to think, "Man, I'm not measuring up. Can I do anything good for the kingdom? Man, I don't have a pure motive in my entire body or heart." Guess what, friends? It ain't about you. Who's it about? Christ in you. Is there not a greater gift or an example of perfect grace than that? And I'll tell you right now, and I look at you with my eyes, without my cheaters on, I can't reconcile that mentally. I understand it, I can teach it, I can share it, but to the ends of the degree of my mind and my heart, my brain has to shut off and my heart has to take over because I can't process it.

That I have a God that loves me so much, that loves you so much, that He would give His only begotten Son, that He would take the sin of the world, past, present, and future, for those that even reject Him until they place their faith and trust in Him, that He did it for all, in other words. And that we take on His righteousness, we take on His nature, and He no longer sees us as we really ought to be seen. How much more if we would see each other that way? How much more if we would look at each other's eyes that way and encourage and build up and love and truly unconditional love that way?

You see, Christ had no sin in Himself, but a good term that we use is He bore our sin as He suffered on the cross. You see, He suffered the just penalty for what we deserved because there had to be a payment. This is why Paul can say in Galatians chapter 2, verse 20: "I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And this life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." That's our anthem, friends. That's your anthem, that's my anthem.

And by having the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, we can be seen by God as sinless, just as Jesus is sinless. Now again, I want to be careful. I'm not saying that we're perfect that way. We're perfect in Christ. But of ourselves, we have no perfection that way within us. It's His and it's His righteousness. Are you all with me on that? I want to be really clear in how I'm saying that.

Now in verse 16 he says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel." This right here reveals Paul's heart. There's no room for embarrassment of the gospel centered on a crucified Jewish savior that way. He says, "For it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes." Underline that: "for everyone who believes." You won't get into problems with doctrine if you underline the words of God inspired by the Holy Spirit: "everyone who believes."

This is why Paul isn't ashamed of a gospel centered on the crucified Savior. He knows that the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ, and he also tells us something here: it has power. Certainly we don't give it power. Sometimes you might hear someone that's a good speaker and they can handle the word well and they get up there and they just got a lot of finesse, they're all over the platform and they're just really entertaining that way. And you look at people like that and you wonder, "Where, what am I being drawn to? The attractiveness of that individual and the way that they're presenting it, or is it the power of the gospel that does the work?"

Well, it's the power of the gospel we hear. It has power. The way I was sort of praying about it is that we stop, when we acknowledge that, we stop holding back the power of the gospel because we begin to present it effectively in an apologetic way. When we actually present the gospel, we're allowing the word to speak for itself. It takes all of the, doesn't it take all of the weight and the stress and the pressure and the whole "I hope I get it right when I'm witnessing to someone"? That's for the Lord to add unto the kingdom. Our job is just to lovingly present truth without compromise. We see that here.

A scholar by the name of Morris once said the gospel is not advice to people suggesting that they lift themselves up. It's not a "get better in 21-day program." Okay? It is power. It lifts them up. Paul does not say that the gospel brings power, but it is that power that's God's, and God brings the power through the word. Do you guys with me on that?

Greece might have had its philosophy, right? We go back and we can look at Athens and Greece. Rome had its power. Warren Wiersbe said, "Despite all their power, the Romans, like all men, were powerless to make themselves righteous before God." The gospel's power to salvation comes to who? Just some? Just a few? To everyone who believes. God won't withhold salvation from anyone who will believe.

And that's the only thing He's ever asked us to do is to believe. And when we believe, we find grace, and through grace we find faith. It's a domino, but it always begins by belief. But your beliefs are only as good as what you place them in, and your faith is only as good as what you place it in. If you place your beliefs and your faith in you or me, you're going to be sorely disappointed. But if you put your faith and trust in Christ, you never will. He's the ancient of days. He doesn't change that way. Believing is the only requirement we see in all of scripture that you have in front of you.

Guest (Male): Pastor Matt VanderVen on His Perfect Love. We're developing our study in Romans, and if you enjoyed today's message, we'd like to know. Email us at our website, hisperfectlove.org, and be sure to include your prayer requests. And while you're there, you'll notice a place to listen to Pastor Matt's sermons, including all of Romans. That's at hisperfectlove.org.

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We want all of our listeners to have access to the Word of God. So if you're in need of a Bible, we'd like to get one into your hands. Just email us through our website and ask for the free Bible offer. Here's our web address again, hisperfectlove.org. This has been His Perfect Love with Pastor Matt VanderVen. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you back here next time when we'll share another study in Romans. His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg-West Shore.