The Bethany Bullet Sermon Message - Week of September 24, 2017

Sermon: “The Loneliness of the Law”

Text: Romans 3:10-23

Romans 3:10-23           GOD’S WORD Translation (GW)

¹⁰ as Scripture says,

“Not one person has God’s approval.
¹¹ No one understands.
    No one searches for God.
¹²     Everyone has turned away.
        Together they have become rotten to the core.
            No one does anything good,
                not even one person.
¹³     Their throats are open graves.
    Their tongues practice deception.
        Their lips hide the venom of poisonous snakes.
¹⁴         Their mouths are full of curses and bitter resentment.
¹⁵             They run quickly to murder people.
¹⁶                 There is ruin and suffering wherever they go.
¹⁷                     They have not learned to live in peace.
¹⁸                     They are not terrified of God.”

¹⁹ We know that whatever the Scriptures say applies to everyone under their influence, and no one can say a thing. The whole world is brought under the judgment of God. ²⁰ Not one person can have God’s approval by any effort to follow the laws in the Scriptures. These laws show what sin is.

God Gives Us His Approval as a Gift

²¹ Now, the way to receive God’s approval has been made plain in a way other than the laws in the Scriptures. Moses’ Teachings and the Prophets tell us this. ²² Everyone who believes has God’s approval through faith in Jesus Christ.

There is no difference between people. ²³ Because all people have sinned, they have fallen short of God’s glory.

Sin is paradoxically in that it unites us all together; count the plural pronouns in the above text.  For all our differences and diversity, ultimately one thing unites us - our fallenness.   Yet, the very thing that unites us divides us leaves us utterly alone for sin separates us from God and from one another. 

Worse yet, there is nothing we can to do to change or correct the situation.  That's where the most beautiful and glorious sentence ever penned comes in: "but now a righteousness from God is revealed.  This righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe."  That righteousness unites.  It unites us with our God and one another.

 -Pastor Kevin Kritzer