²³ For every­one has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glo­ri­ous stan­dard. ²⁴ Yet God, with unde­served kind­ness, declares that we are right­eous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. ²⁵ For God pre­sented Jesus as the sac­ri­fice for sin. Peo­ple are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sac­ri­ficed his life, shed­ding his blood. This sac­ri­fice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not pun­ish those who sinned in times past, ²⁶ for he was look­ing ahead and includ­ing them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demon­strate his right­eous­ness, for he him­self is fair and just, and he declares sin­ners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.

Unde­served Kindness

I want to focus on the first part of this pas­sage because, to be hon­est, it’s the part that truly excites me. How­ever, I know that some of you will be drawn to the sec­ond part of the pas­sage because of what Paul says about those who lived before Jesus Christ. It’s a ques­tion I’ve often been asked: “How were peo­ple saved before Jesus died on the Cross?” Paul seems to sug­gest that those who lived pre-Christ did not have the lux­ury of know­ing Jesus per­son­ally, but they did know of the hope and promise that was to come. All  through the Old Tes­ta­ment, the prophets declared that a day would come when a Mes­siah would save peo­ple. And so, while they didn’t know his name, these peo­ple still placed their trust in the promise and hope that God pro­claimed through all of Scripture.

Now on to the part that really excites me.

More than a few of The Oil Change read­ers have expe­ri­ence stand­ing before a judge. Those who have been found guilty under­stand that your crime often fol­lows you for the rest of your life. It can affect where you travel, what you do for a liv­ing, and whether you’ll be given the ben­e­fit of the doubt. A guilty ver­dict can be dif­fi­cult no mat­ter how sorry you are for what you did.

Being found not-guilty frees you of the charges. Your record is wiped clean. You are com­pletely free.

That’s what Christ did for us on the cross. We were guilty. We should have had the book thrown at us for our sin and wrong doing. And yet, God, the ulti­mate judge, declares us not guilty. Our slate is wiped clean. The guilt of our past is removed. It is as if it never happened.

I meet so many peo­ple who are weighed down from the guilt of their past. They assume that God could never use them because of the things they’ve done. They are “lucky” to be for­given and should never expect more than that. I try to get such peo­ple to see them­selves through the lens of grace. To under­stand just how God sees them. For some, it’s very dif­fi­cult to do.

Do you real­ize that God doesn’t know what you’re talk­ing about when you sug­gest that you can’t be used by him because of your past? The Bible says that the sin you is wiped clean. It’s removed from the slate. As crazy as this sounds, but the Bible sug­gests that God can’t even remem­ber it. He chooses to for­get your wrong­do­ing. You stand before him com­pletely right­eous. Even as I type those words I find it incred­i­ble to real­ize. When I prayed this morn­ing for God to for­give me of my sin, he did. If I bring it up tonight, he wont know what I’m talk­ing about. It’s been for­given. It’s been removed from my record. It’s done. It’s gone.

And, it’s unde­served. I didn’t do it. Jesus Christ did. Wow.

My prayer: Lord, far too often I am unable to see past my fail­ures. Even when you for­give me, I hold on to them, and believe that I am “unus­able” because of my past sins. Yet, your word promises me: my past is truly wiped clean. You, a holy God, sees me as right­eous. And so, today I will try, with your help, to not be caught in my past. I will look for­ward, and with a sense of awe, be open to how­ever you want to use me, and not allow my past sin to crip­ple me. I don’t deserve this love and grace, but I receive it. Thank you. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

Share on Facebook

²¹ 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. ²² We are made right with God by plac­ing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for every­one who believes, no mat­ter who we are.

No Mat­ter Who You Are

I love this pas­sage. In a very sim­ple, straight­for­ward way, it ties the entire story of God — the Old and New Tes­ta­ments together. While he doesn’t give spe­cific exam­ples, Paul sug­gests that even Moses and the prophets pointed the way to the promise of grace found in Jesus Christ (Paul does give exam­ples else­where as did Jesus in the Gospels).

We are made right not by fol­low­ing a list of “do’s or do not’s”, nor by per­form­ing cer­tain rit­u­als, nor by obey­ing a select group of reli­gious lead­ers. There is only one way that we are made right. By plac­ing our faith in Jesus Christ. That’s it. Paul will make it clear that there is still value is set­ting stan­dards, choos­ing to do cer­tain things and avoid other actions, etc., but not so that we might be made right in God’s eyes. That is only done through faith in Christ. There is incred­i­ble free­dom in that realization.

The sec­ond part of this pas­sage is as won­der­ful as the first: it’s open to every­one. It doesn’t mat­ter who you are. Your past doesn’t exclude you from grace. Your actions don’t exclude you. Your race, your reli­gious back­ground, noth­ing. Heck, you can even cheer for the Toronto Maple Leafs and still be offered the gift of grace. How incred­i­ble is that?

You see, my friends, the mes­sage of the gospel truly is good news. Why we make it some­thing else is beyond me. It’s good news to real­ize that it’s no longer up to me to strive for God’s accep­tance. It’s not on my back to be good enough for God. It’s done. It’s accom­plished. Jesus took care of it. I’ve been a fol­lower of Christ since 1982 and far too often I take my sal­va­tion for granted. Today, as I read this pas­sage, I am once again amazed by grace.

My prayer: Thank you for sav­ing me, what can I say? You are my every­thing, I will sing your praise. You shed your blood for me, what can I say? You took my sin and shame, a sin­ner called by name. Thank you, Lord.

The words of my prayer today are from a song called “Thank You For Sav­ing Me” by Deliri­ous. If you want, you can lis­ten to the song by click­ing here.

Until tomor­row.

Share on Facebook

⁹ 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. ¹⁰ As the Scrip­tures say,“No one is righteous—not even one.
¹¹ No one is truly wise; no one is seek­ing God.
¹² All have turned away; all have become use­less.
No one does good, not a sin­gle one.”
¹³ “Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave.
Their tongues are filled with lies.”
“Snake venom drips from their lips.”
¹⁴ “Their mouths are full of curs­ing and bit­ter­ness.”
¹⁵ “They rush to com­mit mur­der.
¹⁶ Destruc­tion and mis­ery always fol­low them.
¹⁷ They don’t know where to find peace.”
¹⁸ “They have no fear of God at all.”

¹⁹ 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. ²⁰ 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.

No One Is Righteous

This is one of the most famous pas­sages in the Bible. Most Chris­tians have read, and quoted, verse 10: No one is right­eous — not even one. How­ever, what most don’t know is that Paul was actu­ally quot­ing from the Old Tes­ta­ment. He’s quot­ing a por­tion of Psalm 14. Actu­ally, each sen­tence in Paul’s pas­sage is a direct ref­er­ence to an Old Tes­ta­ment pas­sage. I don’t have time to list them all, but a good study Bible will show you where each verse is found.

Psalm 14 begins by say­ing that only a fool believes there is no God. It then goes on to sug­gest that God looked over the world for some­one who was seek­ing him. For some­one who was truly wise, and instead, he found human­ity was only look­ing out for them­selves. Peo­ple were focused on their own self­ish­ness. No one was wise. No was was good.

But wait a minute! You might respond. I’m not THAT bad of a per­son. I’m pretty good.

I’m sure you are. But, look at the dif­fer­ent verses that Paul quotes in this pas­sage. Are you guilty of any of these things? Have you ever lied? Have you ever hurt some­one else’s feel­ings with your words or your actions? Are you bit­ter toward any­one? Do you become angry with those who dis­agree with you? If you answer yes to any of these (I know I d0), then you’re guilty. You’re not good enough on your own.

But it’s not bad news. Not if we finally get to the point of accept­ing the truth: we sim­ply can­not be good enough on our own. We need God. With­out him, we fail at being righteous.

That’s tomorrow’s message.

My prayer: Lord, I admit it: I’m a sin­ful man. I am guilty of all of these things and so much more. It is fool­ish of me to try and boast of my good­ness. Because it’s a facade. It hides the sin­ful­ness that can be found below the sur­face. With­out you, I am doomed to a life of wrong. I need you. I need your right­eous­ness to be applied to my life. Today, as I meet and inter­act with oth­ers, help me to not point fin­gers at their behav­iour. Instead, may my thoughts be on my own choices. And my own need of you. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

Share on Facebook