His Perfect Love

Matt VanderVen: Today on His Perfect Love, our universal guilt and God's marvelous grace. At one time, I thought I had to do certain things for my salvation. What I didn't realize is it was already done for me and it was a free gift. All I had to do was receive it.

Oh, and James will talk about what I do once I receive it. I'm not off the hook, by the way. But we're talking about salvation. He says being justified freely by His grace. Circle that. I love that. It's by His grace. We're getting an education on grace here.

Guest (Male): This is His Perfect Love. The word goes out. What real love looks like. In truth and grace, this is His Perfect Love.

We've all experienced falling short of the mark at some point in our lives. Maybe it was failing to make the sports team in high school because you weren't fast enough, or you didn't get the job of your dreams due to a lack of experience.

Today on His Perfect Love, we'll learn that on our own, we all fall short of a right standing with God. But the good news is Jesus can provide the righteousness we need. That comes to our attention in Romans Chapter 3. Here is Pastor Matt VanderVen, starting us off at Verse 12. This is His Perfect Love.

Matt VanderVen: Verse 12 says they have altogether become unprofitable. This word unprofitable has this idea of rotten fruit. Write that in your margin. Rotten fruit. Think of that for a minute.

It's like what Jesus had said when He said, "All leaves and no fruit." Who did He describe that as? Israel. He actually described that of Israel, the people. He says you are all leaves and no fruit. You recognize the season, the times, and all this, but you don't see your own spiritual health or need.

It speaks of something permanently bad and therefore useless. What did Paul say about salt? Salt can't be seasoned. It's no longer salty. What does it have to be done? It's taken when it's useless and it's thrown and trampled underfoot.

Used for nothing. That's what can happen. That's what he says has happened to us already in our spiritual state before we accepted Christ. They have together become rotten. That's what it says. Unprofitable.

Verse 13 says their throat is an open tomb. Again, we find similar sentiments in the Old Testament and passages like Psalm 5:9. Again, not a new idea. Psalm 140:3. With these references to the Psalms, Paul calls virtually every part of a man's body into guilt.

I mean, look at what we just read. The throat, the tongue, the lips, the mouth, the feet, the eyes. What's left? It's all filled with rebellion and sin against God. That's what He's showing us. We're in enmity. We're distant from God before we have Christ.

As much as we might want to say we're a good person or we were a good person, no, we weren't. Again, you're coming into church. If you're not saved and you're here this morning, welcome to Calvary Chapel. We're glad you're here.

But it's better to come in and hear the Word of God and know our true spiritual state at that point. Isn't it? We don't play Christian. We don't play church here. We teach the Word of God, and it's God's Word that speaks. It's God's Word that transforms.

But if we don't hear that, how do we ever know there's a change about? How do we get changed? Why do you think He warns us? God warns us about the tickling of the ears and just hearing the honeydew.

We are living in a biblically illiterate generation. People don't know the Word of God. They walk into churches and they've never heard the Word taught line by line. They don't understand. They don't even know what they don't know.

Doesn't that break your heart? Because someday they're going to stand before the Judge, the Just and the Justifier. He could have justified them through His Son Jesus Christ if they received Him. It's like Europe. So much of Europe needs to be evangelized today.

At one time, Europe evangelized America. America needs to evangelize Europe. I know the third-world countries in Africa and everywhere else like that need it, but Europe in itself, most of the churches and the cathedrals have been made into flats, apartments, rent places, museums.

Look how far we can fall. We're not removed from it. We need to hold on to our Judeo-Christian values in this country. We need to hold on to the Word of God. We are not willing to compromise. We don't move. We stand on the Word and we leave the consequences to Him.

In Verse 15, it says their feet are swift to shed blood. I know this is a stretch for you guys. I'm being obviously sarcastic. Abortion in the US: As of April 2018, data that begins in 2015, looking back, 638,169 babies were murdered in their mother's womb.

Some 40 to 60 million since its inception. School shootings: We hear a lot about that. There were over 37 just this year alone. 37 instances all across the United States. 44 deaths, 82 injuries. This is real. 2018. Kids taking guns and killing kids.

Their feet are swift to shed blood. They need Jesus. We need to get into the schools. We need to get Jesus into their hearts. How do we do that? We need the Word of God and prayer in our schools. You have little ones.

Undercover agents. You send them right in. You send them right in with Jesus. They go right in. They're in the lunchroom. They've got the teachers. You guys are all there. You're undercover agents. You're there for Christ.

I love our teen ministry. One of the things I shared with the leaders of the teen ministry this year, I said we're getting into the schools. We're going to get into the Bible clubs. We're going to support them. Don't worry about the legal aspects. God will take care of that.

Get in there. These kids need to know there's hope. Suicide rate very high between 15 and 20-year-olds. Transgender, almost 50%. They're swift to shed blood. What about terrorist activities? Around the world, just this year, 18,000 deaths from terrorist-related activities.

If you've ever heard the Voice of the Martyrs, I encourage you to look at it. People are dying in China right now. China started cracking down again. Arresting not only the Christians. It used to be you could have the public Christian church, the church that was allowed within the communist state there.

But even that, they've begun to crack down on. We have people that we support in this fellowship financially. You know who they are. We have one gentleman that's up in Ithaca that's getting ready to go next year to China.

We're going to be careful about using his name. You know who he is and the letters out there. He's going over there. We need to be praying for our brother. I think a Pastor Ted has come and visited before. He goes over to China. He goes underground.

He gets over there. He sits by the railroad station. Somebody that he doesn't know comes up, grabs him, brings him. They put a thing over his head. He can't see. Sometimes two or three hours. He ends up in a remote place. They lift up a thing. He goes down.

The farmers in the area come in. They have one 60-watt light bulb. They fit as many as they can, 50 to 60 men in a room, knowing that if they get caught, their wives, their children will be murdered. They're sitting under there and he goes through book by book.

I love when he comes in and tells his testimony. He's been here before and he shares. He says we're not teaching it the communist way where we kind of go very direct. We do it line by line and verse by verse. He says we're teaching them and you know what?

They can't get enough of it. He says I finish the book of Ephesians and they went, "More, more." He says, "Aren't you getting a little numb? Got to move around? Tired?" And they say, "More." Then they wake up the next morning.

I shouldn't say wake up because he says they get like 30 minutes of sleep because sometimes they'll close their eyes, turn the bulb off. Then they get out and they go work in the fields all day. They'll come back and do this because it usually goes for about five to seven days.

He's over there longer, but usually by then, they start to crack down when they hear the different areas. So he's got to keep moving the church. This is real. There's persecution going on all around the world right now.

How about murders? 2017's numbers: 17,500 murders in the United States of America. One is too many. This is why we need to get the gospel of Jesus Christ into the hearts of people.

Because when left to themselves, not only does anarchy pursue, but as it says just like it says here in the Word, "Their feet are swift to shed blood." People are dying. Is your heart sensitive to that? Are you moved by that?

Does that not move you? Are you content where you are in your bubble? Yes, I'm being direct. Are you content in your bubble? Get out. Get over it. Get over it. We're not here for comfort. We're here to glorify God and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, I'm not saying everybody's got to quit your jobs and go be missionaries. We need prayer warriors. Moms, grandmas, you're in your house. What are you doing? You're praying. No different than somebody going to Africa. You're a prayer warrior.

Husbands, you go to the job. You pray for your family, your wife, your kids. You provide for the family. Guess what? You're doing the work of Christ. Because when you're in that job, the only Bible that people may read is your life as a living epistle.

Are you not doing the work of God? I'm not saying everybody's got to go across to Europe or to Africa. How about walking out of your house and going to the right of the left? Jesus said your neighbors, even those that you hate. He said that.

You know what I'm talking about. The neighbors. The ones that are super loud, unless that's you. The ones that are super loud on the block. They're annoying. The one that always comes out and is like, "Hey, when we getting together? We're going to do this." And you're like, "Yeah, yeah." Don't ever do that.

There is no fear before their eyes. This summarizes their entire thought. Every sin and rebellion against God happens because we don't have proper respect for Him. Reverence. Wherever there is sin, there is no fear of God.

Just think about that. Wherever there is sin, there's a lack of fear of God because you've placed what should be the reverence for God and respect, you've placed yourself in it by thinking you are entitled.

That's what happens when you elevate tradition over God's love and obedience. Only man does that. Look at Verse 19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.

Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. So whatever the law says, Paul points out here that man's utter sinfulness comes to us in the law, actually. It was a measuring rod.

It was a measuring rod to let us know we were crooked that way. It's intended for those under the law. So think of the Jew hearing this. Under the law, submitted themselves under the law, but still being told they're not justified.

He does this to silence every critic and demonstrate the universal guilt in mankind. That's what he's doing here. That all the world may become guilty before God. Now there's good news coming.

You didn't come here just this morning to hear all the depressed, "Oh boy, I'm going to walk out of here depressed." No, the good news is coming and it always was prophesied. But here he's building to that.

He says by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight. This would have wrecked the Jewish people of that day when they would have thought only the Gentiles this would be applicable to, not the Jew.

Paul makes it clear that God speaks to those who are under the law. Verse 20: Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight. The law cannot save us. The law cannot justify anyone. That's what he's saying here.

It's useful giving us the knowledge of sin, but it cannot save us. A gentleman by the name of J.B. Phillips to paraphrase this, he says, "It is a straightedge of the law," speaking of the law, "it is a straightedge of the law that showed us how crooked we are."

I like that. It is a straightedge of the law, a measuring rod. It is a straightedge of the law that shows us just how crooked we are. Now, as I said, the good news is coming. The gospel because it's all good news.

But we move into the revelation of the righteousness of God. Let's look at Verse 21. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law—notice that, circle that, very, very important—apart. Circle that word.

Bring your friend, the skeptic, the self-righteous, the Jew that believes under the law they're saved. Bring them here. It's apart from the law. He's going to make a very distinct point about this. But now, and I'm so grateful for that, but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.

What we learn here from Paul, this transition from judgment of Romans Chapter 3, Verse 20—he was just talking about judgment—now in Verse 21, he talks about justification. Aren't you glad for that conjunction? But. But God. But now.

He says apart from the law. The law cannot save us. We've already talked about that. But God reveals a righteousness that will save us. It's apart from the law. You see, it's apart from that legal. Remember justification, it's a legal term.

It's apart from that legality of the law. It's apart from that. Why is that important? Because it destroys this idea that we can have that earning or deserving, finding merit in one's own ability. It removes that possibility.

It's apart from the law because what were you to do with the law? You were to keep it. You might say it's works-based. You were to work something and he says it's apart from that. Again, it's protection. He's protecting us from us, from pride.

He says being witnessed by the law and the prophets. This reminds us that there's continuity by God for the work through the Old Testament. This isn't a new revelation. This isn't a new revelation that way. He's not revealing something new. This was always prophesied.

The righteousness was not imagined or created by Paul. This wasn't like he had a good dream, he didn't eat pepperoni pizza, wake up and think, "Wow, you know, this whole idea of righteousness the next day." There was nothing like that.

I think it also speaks to me in that it's not meant to take up the slack between keeping the law and God's perfect standard. It's not Jesus plus something. He's going to say it's faith, and we're going to talk about that.

It's not given to complement our own righteousness. He said just contrary. It's given apart from that. Do you see that? It's so beautiful because you can't misinterpret this. I'll say it another way for you.

If you have faith and you have works—and there is a place for work, certainly—they're not mutually exclusive, and we're going to talk about that. We're going to go to James in a little bit. They're not mutually exclusive.

We're talking about salvation at the moment, though. If you have faith and you have works, and he says the law would represent the works, and he says it's apart from that, what remains? P if then not Q is what? Not P. Logically, you with me? Mathematically?

So if you have faith and you have works, and he says negate works or apart, not negate it, apart from the law, what remains? What is the only thing left in that breadbasket? If I've got a basket and I put faith and I put works in the basket for salvation—very important, we're not talking about sanctification—for salvation, what is left if I take the works and I separate that apart from it?

Again, he didn't say he got rid of it. It's important. This hasn't gone away. But what's left in that breadbasket? Faith and faith alone. It's the only thing that can be logically, mathematically. He's going to build on this because he's going to say then how is it? Where does it come from?

Look, Verse 22, he's going to explain it. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on, all and all. Not a certain selection, not a group, not a few. He's not grammatically challenged. All and all.

He means what he says and he says what he means. He tells us it's the same precursor here that we read in Chapter 1, Verse 16 and 17 of justification by faith. He uses the same logical argument here. What does he say?

For the one who does what? Believes. It's the same thing he said in Chapter 1:16-17. He didn't say it was anything else. It was believing in the work and believing in who Jesus Christ is and what He can do.

Believing that He's forgiven you from your sins, that He separates you from sin, that He's given you a new nature. As part of that new nature, you are no longer under condemnation and you are a new creation.

The old things have passed away, all things have been made new. Right? That's what he's sharing here. That's what he's building to. That's what he's explaining. But he says it's important. It's through faith.

Notice that he doesn't say it's by faith. This is important and I'm being particular. Forgive me on the words. I'm being very particular here, but you want me to be particular. Look at this in your Bible.

It's telling us the righteousness of God is not ours by faith. It's ours through faith. We don't earn the righteousness by our faith. We receive. We receive righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ.

What's that make it? If you're standing in front of me and it was by my faith that I gave you something, and it was by me, who's still the author of the gift? I still have a part in it, don't I?

But if you're giving me a gift and I've got no part in it, it's through and you hand it to me, what do you call that? It's a gift. It's a gift of what? Grace. Because it's unmerited. It's undeserved.

It immediately blocks any opportunity for pride, any opportunity to work your way up to it. You just got the simplest breakdown, praise God for Paul, for the work of grace and justification right here in front of you.

Maybe you need to go back and listen to the study on this or the CD now. You go back and listen to the CD or whatever you use, the MP3 player, whatever it is. Think through this for a moment. To all and all who believe, for there is no difference.

Through faith in Christ, for there is no difference. He says there's no other way to obtain righteousness. This righteousness is not earned through the obedience to law. It's received righteousness gained through faith in Jesus Christ.

That's what he's saying here. So let's look at 23 because now he's made a very logical and all-inclusive point on condemnation. So now he's shifting as I already mentioned in 21, he's now shifting to talk about man's universal needs and God's universal offer, if I can say it that way.

God's free will offer that's for all and all as he said. Verse 23: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. People love to quote that. It's the Romans road. People give that. I wish people read Verse 24 when they gave that.

If you do that, give Verse 24 please, because it's being justified what? Freely. Don't leave that out. You give them half the equation, they're going to end up in a denominational struggle thinking they have to work their way through this.

I was there. At one time, I thought I had to do certain things for my salvation. What I didn't realize is it was already done for me and it was a free gift. All I had to do was receive it.

Oh, and James will talk about what I do once I receive it. I'm not off the hook, by the way. But we're talking about salvation. He says being justified freely by His grace. Circle that. I love that.

It's by His grace. We're getting an education on grace here. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Guest (Male): Today on His Perfect Love, we've been learning that righteousness comes by God's grace through faith and is undeserved, and certainly not earned by us. Pastor Matt VanderVen will finish up Romans Chapter 3 next time out.

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We have a midweek service too, Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. We're located at 28 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, PA. Go to ccharrisburg.com for more information. Then we'll come back to our study of Romans next time on His Perfect Love with Pastor Matt. See you then.

His Perfect Love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. Let the Word go out. The perfect love of Christ to shine. Our lives will shout: I am my Beloved's and He is mine. Every heart is in His hands. We'll never stop reaching out. This is His Perfect Love.

The Word goes out. This is what real love looks like. In truth and grace, this is His Perfect Love.