Good morning to everyone. Getting a little wet and muddy on the farm. My wife says that I don't appreciate the good weather as much as I complain about the bad, so I'm working on that, but we've had a lot of rain here lately, so it's that time of year. 

For those that are guests or visitors or the first time, the last Sunday of the month, on the last Sunday of the month we celebrate the Lord's Supper, communion service, and the purpose of this is to remember what Jesus did for us. This is not a sacrament, this is an ordinance that Jesus gave us. He gave us two ordinances, baptism and communion, and the purpose of communion, as He lays out in His word, is to remember what He's done for us and to proclaim His death until He comes. 

So that's what we're going to do this morning. We'll have a message. We're working through the book of Romans. We've been studying on the last Sunday of each month in our communion services the first major section of the book of Romans in which Paul teaches us what really seems to be bad news, and that is the condemnation of all men. But this is a truth that we must understand. We must appreciate that all men are sinners before a holy God.

He begins in Romans 1:18, talking about what we might call the pagan man, the worldly man in Adam, and explains that every man knows the truth of God, even his eternal power and Godhead, but chooses to create his own God to fit his own sinful desires and religions fashioned after corrupt man. And because he knew God, it says in Romans 1, but chose not to glorify Him as God, he is without excuse; he's guilty before a holy God. 

For this reason, Paul explained to us that God gave man over to his sin, to a debased mind, to the natural conclusion of his sinful bent, and that has resulted in all that we see in our world. The manifestation of sin in all sorts of debauchery. This is the Gentile, this is the immoral man in Romans 1, what the world—or at least the self-righteous religious people of our world—would call sinners whom they would judge and condemn. 

When we came to chapter 2, we saw something most fascinating. It's not just the pagan sinner who stands condemned before a holy God; it's also the good people, the moral people, the religious people, such as the Jew of Paul's day that he'll use as the example, who are sinners, who are deserving of eternal punishment. If you look at Romans 2:1, really some amazing words, Paul says, "Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself, for you who judge practice the same things." 

But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things, and do you think this, O man? You who judge those practicing such things and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Most people in our world, even religious people, believe that it is the good man who goes to heaven. If you talk to someone, ask them, "Will you go to heaven?" He'll say, "I hope so." Why would you go to heaven? "Well, I'm a pretty good person, right? I haven't killed anyone." 

They believe it's the moral man, the one who does good that God will receive, but Paul— the point in chapter 2, I'm bringing us up to our context here in chapter 3—the point in chapter 2 is that the self-righteous religious attitude is going to lead to condemnation as well. For he shows the one who sits in judgment of the pagan, the drunkard, the prostitute, the homosexual, he shows this man—the pillar of the community, the deacon in the church—that this man is judged by the same standard, and that he's found to be a sinner as well. 

For the measure by which he judges others will be measured back to him, and in this he will be found a sinner just the same, because God judges according to truth. And the truth is, we've all fallen short of the glory of God, the standard of God. This was a shock to the Jew, just as it's a shock to the religious men of our day. 

I remember years ago, I was— I kind of have a Romans 1 brother and a Romans 2 brother historically, and my Romans 2 brother has always done everything that's right. We were raised in the Catholic Church, you know, he had the family business, and I remember we were at our deer camp years ago in Pence, and I was trying to witness to him when I was first saved, and he was having none of it. He said, "You just talk about God, you talk, I talk about God, but you, everything's God," and I was telling him how a man has to be perfect, that Jesus said you must be perfect as God is perfect to enter His heaven, and he was very sincere, and he said, "But nobody's perfect." I said, "Now you're starting to get it, now you're starting to understand."

It was a shock to the Jew, it's a shock to the religious man of our day, but the entire point of this section we're studying in Romans 1:18 to 3:20 is to show that every man is guilty, every man is a sinner, and every man needs a Savior, and that salvation cannot come through religion and works and rites and rituals. It can only come through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ in our place for our sins, and only by imputation of His righteousness to us by God's grace through faith alone. 

So in chapter 2, we saw Paul systematically destroy the three securities of the religious man, particularly the Jewish example of his time. You'll remember that the religious man basically trusts in three things, according to chapter 2: his heritage or tradition, the law, and some religious rite, ritual, or sacrament. In the Jew's case, it was the fact that they were Jews, that God had given them the law, and finally their circumcision. These were the three legs of the stool on which they rested for their eternal salvation. 

But what we saw in chapter 2 was that being a Jew was not going to get you to heaven, just as being a Baptist or a Lutheran or a Catholic today will not get you to heaven. Paul said God does not judge individual salvation on nationality or ethnic affiliation, and being a Jew does not earn you a place in heaven, nor does having the law. For having the law just makes you more culpable because you know what's right and what's wrong, and yet you still are doing what's wrong. Paul says you must keep the law perfectly in order to be justified by your works. 

And this is the problem; no one can keep it perfectly; all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And finally, Paul rips out the last leg of the stool explaining that there's no salvation by surgery, there's no rite or the cutting of the foreskin that can save you, because it's not an outward work that brings salvation. It's not an outward work that addresses the problem of sin, but Paul says at the end of chapter 2, it's an inward circumcision of the heart. A true Jew is not one who is outwardly, but one who is inwardly. Look at verse 28 of chapter 2. Paul says in summarizing this whole chapter, "he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit, not in the letter, referring to the law, whose praise is not from men, but from God." 

I'll give you this long introduction to set the context for our text this morning because you see, Paul has just utterly destroyed the hope of the Jews, at least as they understood their hope. In this indictment, this flawless argument that he's given, that brings them to a place of despair, of hopelessness in their own righteousness and religion, and that's the point of the law. Everyone thinks the law was given for us to keep it, the Ten Commandments we're going to keep and earn our righteousness and please God and be good enough to go to heaven. 

But the reason that God gave the law, so clear throughout the Bible, is to show us our sin, to show us our guilt, to show us our need for a Savior. And that brings us up to chapter 3, verse 1, so let's work through this interesting text in the first nine verses of chapter 3. 

"What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way. Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles, or word, of God. For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not. Indeed, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words and may overcome when you are judged. But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust, who inflicts wrath? I speak as a man. Certainly not. For then how will God judge the world? For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why also am I judged as a sinner? And why not say, let us do evil that good may come, as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say? Their condemnation is just." 

What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.

I've given you four points on your outline this morning for our study. First, the advantage of the Jew. Second, the words of God. Third, the faithfulness of God. And fourth, the reality of salvation. 

Well, you can imagine where the stinging words of Paul in chapter 2 left the sincere Jewish man. He would be angry. He would be confused, ready to fight Paul concerning the giving of the law, the covenants, God's choosing of the Jewish nation. And the question that would permeate his mind would be this—if all that you're saying is true, Paul, what is the advantage to being Jewish? 

And this is really a great question because if we look at the history of the Jewish nation, one might legitimately say, what advantage is there to being Jewish? We're studying the book of Daniel now, and Gurney on Tuesday nights, and that begins with the Babylonian captivity of Israel, you know, moves to the four Gentile nations, up to Rome who held them in captivity—the besieging of the city, the killing of the Jewish people. And this has gone on, they've been a persecuted people almost since the beginning; they've been hated, despised, slaughtered, even up to modern times. 

But in all this, they've always had this solace, that they are God's chosen people with the law, the covenants, the promises. But Paul has challenged their salvation based simply on these things, their individual salvation. So where does this leave them? What advantage is there to being a Jew? If it means persecution and suffering and hatred, but does not guarantee personal salvation, what's the point? What's the blessing? 

And so the Jew would challenge Paul, just like the religious man would challenge us today, saying that he's attacking the promises of God, he's attacking the law, he's attacking the covenants and the holiness of God. And that's the context by which we must understand these first nine verses of chapter 3. 

What is the advantage of the Jew? Paul says, "Much in every way." What an amazing statement, after all that he has just said. He says there's a great advantage. And notice verse 2, "Much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the words of God." The word oracles is a very unfortunate translation. It's the word logos, word; it's the words of God, nothing more than that. 

And here is the heart of our text: to the Jews were given the Old Testament, the law and the prophets, the Bible, the words of God, the revelation of Himself, of His promises, of His salvation. And this, my brothers and sisters, is the great advantage—the fact that they had the words of God. 

And did you know that this is the only advantage to the church today as well? You know, when I was a kid, we had a Bible about as big as this pulpit set on our coffee table. None of us ever opened it. Maybe to look at a picture or something now and then. We didn't study the Bible in our church. No one taught the Bible. It did us all kinds of things, but no study of the Bible. But this is the only book that God ever wrote. These are His words. 

There's no advantage to being part of a church, part of a local body of believers, if we do not have the words of God. And that's why the central focus of our worship—the hymns we sing, of our preaching, of our lives—must be the words, the revelation of God about His Son, Jesus Christ. The whole of the scriptures is a revelation of Jesus Christ, who He is, His person and His work, the promised redemption, the sacrifice of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. 

How else would you know anything about Jesus if it wasn't from this book? How else would you know anything about sin and the holiness of God and salvation through Christ, redemption, glorification, the promises? We know nothing apart from God's revelation of Himself to us. 

This substitutionary death is pictured all through the Old Testament, in the tabernacle, the Temple of Israel, and all the detailed worship and sacrifice that God prescribed. An example in type. Remember the sacrifice of Abel, the picture of Isaac as Abraham took him up on the mount and bound him on the altar with wood to sacrifice him, and God provided a ram in a thicket—a substitute. 

In every lamb and bull, every sacrifice of Israel was a picture of the Lamb of God who was promised—the Savior of Israel. I want you to just listen to Isaiah 53. This is an example out of the Jewish Old Testament. "Who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness, and when we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before shears is silent, so He opened not His mouth. 

He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken, and they made His grave with the wicked, but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit found in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When you make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul and be satisfied. By His knowledge, My righteous servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. 

Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoiled with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors." 

We could turn to Psalm 22. We could look at Exodus, Leviticus. Jesus is there. The promise is there. I think of Numbers 21, as it refers to Jesus, and Jesus refers to it in John 3 as well. Turn back to Numbers 21, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. 

Numbers 21:4. This is a story from the history of Israel in the Old Testament, and I want to highlight it because Jesus uses it to explain salvation. 

"Then they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the soul of the people became very discouraged on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, 'Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread,' the manna that God provided for them every day. 

So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses and said, 'We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.' So Moses prayed for the people. 

Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Make a fiery serpent, set it on a pole, and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he shall live.' So Moses made a bronze serpent, he put it on a pole, and so it was that if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived." 

I love this story, and it always makes me think of the guy and his wife in a tent, and the guy's been bitten by the snake, and she says, "Just look at the serpent, honey." He says, "I ain't looking at the serpent." "Just look at it." "No, I ain't looking at the serpent." "Moses, God, I took us out of Egypt. I don't know what to do." Some people won't look. Some people won't look. God says, "Just look." Just look at the serpent, you'll be healed. "I ain't looking at it." 

That's not a true story, that's just something I thought of. Jesus so beautifully explains this type and the way of salvation in John 3. John 3:13, Jesus said, "No one has ascended to heaven but he who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up on the cross." Listen to what He says: "That whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." 

Looking to Him is synonymous with believing Him. John 3:16 follows that verse: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Now listen to this: "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned. But he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." 

Why are men condemned? Because they will not believe Jesus. They want to establish their own righteousness through works and rites and rituals and religion, and God says, "I have provided a perfect sacrifice who has atoned completely for your sin, has satisfied My wrath on your behalf, and all I'm asking is that you look to Him, that you believe Him, that you put your trust in Him." Whoever looks to Jesus—that is, to believe on Him, to trust in Him, and His finished work on the cross, satisfying the wrath of God—whoever trusts in Him will be saved. Just as the serpent was lifted up by Moses, so Jesus was lifted up, and God calls on Israel and every man, and He says, "Look unto Me and be saved." Don't look to yourself, look unto Me and be saved. 

Was there an advantage to being a Jew? Yes, much in every way, but chiefly because they had the words of God. This is what matters, this is the advantage, this is all that matters, because His words are life, eternal life through faith in His Son. And how would we know if God had not told us, had not revealed Himself to us, had not given to us His Word? 

I spent the first 26 years of my life never reading any of His words. I was self-righteous, I was satisfied with myself. I was a religious man, somewhat. Thought I was fine. When I started to read His words, it's black ink on white paper, people. It's not hard to understand; it's not some big mystery, it's not a million interpretations; only those that are looking to twist it come up with something different when it says, "for it is by grace you have been saved, and through faith this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." Is that hard to understand? No. 

But we see the advantage of the Jew, the advantage of the Christian today, in a true biblical church is this: the words of God. And next we see the faithfulness of God to His Word. 

Romans 3:3, "For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?" Certainly not. "Let God be true, but every man a liar." This is a bit of a difficult text to sort out down through verse 8, but it has to do with understanding the Jewish perspective, the Jewish argument. And in its essence, it's a question of God's faithfulness and the misunderstanding of man concerning the words—the promise of God and His salvation plan. 

In verse 3 we see the Jewish perspective and misunderstanding of their security, their heritage, their law, and circumcision coming to light again. God made promises to Israel—to national Israel. It's so important to understand. And if we don't rightly divide the word on this issue, there's tremendous confusion in this text and the whole of the Scriptures. 

God made promises to national Israel of a land, of a nation, of Messiah ruling in the Millennial Kingdom for Israel. He made these unconditional promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He reiterates them all the way through the Scriptures. We see Paul come back to this again and again, and we'll see it in depth when we get to Romans 9 to 11. And the purpose of those three chapters is to show that God will keep His promises to Israel. 

But the leaders and teachers of Israel in Paul's time and Jesus' time had misapplied, misunderstood these promises and had twisted them to apply to an individual salvation for every person born a Jew. The rabbis taught that Abraham sits at the gates of Hades and will let no Jew pass in. They thought they were safe because they were physical sons of Abraham. 

Turn over to John 8; we're going to see Jesus address this. John 8, verse 32. He's talking to the Pharisees, the leaders of Israel, the religious men of His day. In chapter 8, verse 32, it says, "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." They answered Him and said, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say you will be made free?" What an amazing statement! They'd been in bondage since Nebuchadnezzar, all the way back in Babylon, and then the Greek and Medo-Persian and Roman empires. They were in bondage that day to Rome. 

Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave to sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill Me because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do not; and you do what you have seen with your father." 

You are of your father the devil, He tells them, down in verse 44. It's an amazing statement. They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham, but now you seek to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this." Being the physical sons of Abraham did not make them the sons of God. You become a son of God through faith. 

Jesus said, "Because I tell you the truth, you do not believe Me." You are of your father the devil, He said. We see it emphasized in Romans 9 as well. I'll read these words to you. 

Listen to Paul's heart. "I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises—of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen." 

"But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel." It's like Paul said at the end of chapter 2 in Romans. "It's not a Jew who's one outwardly; physically in the flesh, it's a Jew who's one inwardly by circumcision of the heart. Nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham, but in Isaac your seed shall be called." 

"That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; listen now, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed." The promise. Did you notice those words? It's not that a man is saved because of his lineage, because he's a Jew, or because he's a Catholic, or a Baptist, or whatever. It's not by heritage or religion, or rite or ritual. It's not by works. It’s by promise. 

Galatians 3:10, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse,” Paul says. “No one is justified by the law in the sight of God. The just shall live by faith,” he says. “Yet the law is not of faith, but the man who does them shall live by them. Then he says, ‘Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,” that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.’” 

The promise of the whole Bible, from the beginning to the end, is not of righteousness by works but righteousness by faith. Faith in the promised Deliverer, the Messiah, the Substitute—the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, Jesus Christ. Righteousness is by grace, a free gift, unmerited favor, for everyone who believes.

So what is Paul saying in verse 3 of our text? The Jew would object to what Paul had said in chapter 2 about works and the law and so forth. But Paul wants to make clear that it's about faith. And yet even if no one believes, God is still just. God is still faithful. If most of Israel did not believe, if they did not look unto Jesus, instead they crucified the promised Messiah, does that make the promises of God of no effect? Does that make God untrue because most men reject Him? No. God is true. God has kept and will keep His promises. 

God has given His only begotten Son as a sacrifice for my sins and yours. If I choose not to believe Him, to not put my whole faith in Christ alone and what He did on the cross, well, that says a lot more about me than it does about God. If every man rejects God and His free gift of salvation in Christ, that does not negate the faithfulness of God. That's Paul's argument here. 

The issue isn't that every individual Jew who has ever lived will be saved. That's not true, any more than every religious man in our world today will be saved. That's not the promise. The promise is Jesus. Call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. The promise is salvation from God's wrath for my sins. It's not this new gospel we see in the evangelical church today. Come to Jesus, He's going to make your life better. No! Your life might get worse. The promise is salvation from God's wrath for my sin because Jesus took that penalty for me. He paid it in full. But I must receive that gift. I must exercise faith, trust in Christ alone, in order to have my sin imputed to Him and His righteousness imputed to me. 

I want you to look at Romans 4 with me, just a page or two over. Romans 4, verse 1. Paul's just explained salvation by faith in the end of chapter 3, and we're going to get to that really good news here in a couple months. "What then shall we say that Abraham our father is found according to the flesh?" Please listen to these words. "For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God." 

"For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin." 

What this tells us is that God does not justify the good people. God justifies the man who understands that he's not a good person. That he is a sinner deserving of the wrath of God. The one who knows that he cannot be good enough. That he has sinned and fallen short of God's standard. God justifies, it says He saves the ungodly. His faith is accounted for righteousness. 

My friends, this is the good news of the gospel. It's available to everyone who forsakes their own righteousness, their works, their law, their religion, and turns to Jesus in faith. So God is faithful. He always makes good on His promises, but the problem is that man often rejects or misunderstands them. 

The Jew thought that he was in because he was a physical son of Abraham. The religious man today thinks that he can gain the favor of God by doing good works, by going to church, by being a relatively good person. But the truth is that the only advantage to being in a church is if that church is preaching and teaching the Word of God. That is the advantage because it is the truth that sets men free. 

Faith comes by hearing, hearing a message about Jesus, and Jesus said that sanctification comes by the truth; your word is truth. So the advantage is the Word of God, and regardless of man's belief or unbelief, it does not change the promise of God, nor the faithfulness of God. He's always justified. 

In Paul's day, especially with the Jew, the legalist, and in our day with the religious men of our world, there's a misunderstanding of God's salvation in Jesus, of God's grace gift through faith alone. We need to understand the reality of salvation in Christ. 

Look at our text again, verse 5. "But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? I speak as a man. Certainly not, for then how will God judge the world? For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, let us do evil that good may come, as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say? Their condemnation is just." 

What then? Are we—and when Paul says we, he's speaking of the Jews—are we better than they, the Gentiles? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. 

Verse 9 is the wonderful truth that Paul's teaching us in this section of Romans—the bad news before we get to the good news. We might see it as bad news that all men are born in Adam, they're condemned, they're sinners by nature, but listen, really it's good news. For what if some were better than others? 

What if the Jews were right and they were in because they were Jews and all of us Gentiles were out? That's not good news, not for me and you anyway. But the truth that we are all guilty before God, that every man has been found to be a sinner when judged according to truth is really good news because it means that every man, no matter how relatively bad or good, Jeffrey Dahmer or Mother Teresa, rich or poor, whatever distinctions man may draw in a worldly, fleshly sense, are of no distinction in God's eyes. He is no respecter of persons. 

Every man is a sinner in need of a Savior, and God has provided that Savior in the person and work of Jesus Christ. So salvation is available to every man equally. For every man has the choice to respond to Christ in faith, and this is the good news. 

But grace is so often misunderstood. You know how many times when I've tried to share the good news of the gospel with someone, they've said to me, "Well, if it's by grace and grace operates when we sin, then we can just sin all we want." In fact, wouldn't our sinning bring opportunity for God's glory? That's a line of argument in our text from the Jew. We see this same line of argument in Romans 6. 

But Paul gives us the answer. Turn to Romans 5 at verse 20. We'll start in 5:20. Romans 5:20 says, "Moreover, the law entered," here's the explanation of why God gave the law. Did you know from Adam to Moses there was no law? God gave the law—"Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. So that as sin reigned in death, even so, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

So what Paul's saying here is, God gave the law to show us our sin, to increase sin. It's like the illustration of our wood stove in our house, right? We've got that little wood stove, and someone will come over and they have a little toddler—two, three years old—and they're running around and they're just playing, doing their thing, not paying any attention, but they get kind of close to the wood stove, you know. 

So we give them a law and we say, "Don't touch the wood stove; it's hot." What's the first thing they want to do? Touch the wood stove, right? Because the law brings that about, because of sin in us. The law causes sin to increase, but the purpose was to show us our sin. 

So that's why the law came. But what the good news of the new covenant gospel is, is that where sin abounded, God's grace abounded much more. Grace is God giving us what we don't deserve. Mercy is God not giving us what we do deserve. But in grace, God gives us what we don't deserve. 

So grace operates when we sin. But the purpose that God's grace abounding was so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign in righteousness for those who believe. So the question that comes is Romans 6:1. Paul heard it a thousand times; we've heard it a thousand times, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" 

I mean, if it's by grace through faith and it's not by your works, then can't we sin all we want? Isn't that what you're saying? You can sin all you want? Well, I'm here to testify this morning, my brothers and sisters, I sin all I want. In fact, I sin more than I want. Because you see, when I believed Jesus, I got my want fixed. I died to sin; that's what Paul says. "How can we who died to sin live any longer in it?" 

I don't want to sin. I sin all I want; I sin more than I want because I don't want to sin. When I turned from religion, from my own works and my own righteousness and realized my sin and my need and turned to Jesus in faith, God united me together with Jesus in His death, burial, and resurrection, Romans 6:3-5. I was united with Him; I was buried with Him, and I was raised to newness of life; I died to sin. 

It says I've been freed from the controlling power of indwelling sin, and therefore it's no longer my desire to live in it. I can sin all I want because I don't want to sin. And in fact, in regeneration, God gave me a new heart, He gave me a new spirit, and He put His Holy Spirit in me, Ezekiel 36. He's given me a new desire to live in holiness and has equipped me to do that very thing. 

This is the reality of my salvation in Christ by grace through faith. I'm not who I was. Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation, 2 Corinthians 5:17. The old is gone, the new has come, and now because of what God has done in me—not because of what I have done—because He loved me so much that He gave His only begotten Son to die on the cross in my place for my sins, because of His great love for me and the salvation He provides for me in its fullness in Christ, my greatest passion and desire is to live for Him and to proclaim His death until He comes to any and all who will listen and call on them to believe Jesus, to turn to Him in faith, for the love of Christ compels us. 

We're not trying to earn God's favor through works, religion. My friends, we have God's favor by salvation in Christ, by grace through faith. In the law, in the old covenant, God said, "Obey and I will bless you." Striving, working, failing, curses. In the new covenant, you know what God said? "I have blessed you; now obey me." 

And my life is a life of thankfulness for what He did, secure in Him. God is my Papa, my Abba, my Father. As Mark talked about this morning, I can crawl up into His lap, I can come boldly to the throne of grace, the book of Hebrews says, to find help in time of need. I now have access directly to God the Father through Jesus Christ, His Son, because I believe Him. 

It's our desire to live for Him. We don't want to sin anymore. And God has dealt with the sin that formerly controlled us in Adam, and we can now live a new righteous life. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says, "Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ." That's why we're here. We are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us; we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. 

For He made Him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us in order that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. This is God's salvation plan. This is the truth. This is the good news. It's not religion; it's not works; it's faith; it's grace. And that's why we're here this morning. 

That's our message. To celebrate the Lord's Supper, to celebrate what Jesus did for us, to remember the cross and to proclaim His death until He comes. We're going to have our communion service now, if you just bow with me in a prayer. 

Father, we thank You so much for the truth of Your Word. Thank You for the advantage of having Your Word. I just pray that You would give us a great desire to read it, to study it, to know You through Your Word. And I pray that You would keep our church focused on the truth of Your Word, on Jesus Christ, and that this place would be a place where the Word of God is preached and held up and sung, and we would honor You in all that we do. 

Thank You for the sacrifice of Christ. Thank You for the cross. Thank You for everyone who could be here this morning, Lord. We pray that You'd make these things clear to each one of us, that our hearts would be open to Your truth. And now we, in thanksgiving, have the Lord's Supper together, in Jesus' name, amen.