It’s Still All About Jesus -- Romans 3:21-22

Reformation Day, 2017

Grace, Mercy and Peace are yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:21-22

    But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— [22] the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

Hearing these words of our Epistle reading today, Believing these words of Romans chapter 3, leads us to agree that it is all about Jesus.

·         The reformation of the church in the 1500s, was all about Jesus

·         Our commemoration of that reformation, 500 years later is still all about Jesus

·         Actually, everything we do in our church.

·         All of our faith

·         All of our faith, here in this world and forever in the world to come

So, if it’s all about Jesus, I want us to take this moment now, not just to have a history lesson, not even, a theology lesson, nor a lesson about culture and our heritage. Let’s think about Jesus.

            The Scripture lessons that we hear on Reformation Day tell us all about Jesus.

In the Gospel reading, He tells how He sets us free. In this Epistle reading of Paul’s letter to the Romans, Jesus is our Redeemer. Our propitiation. And the one who justifies us.

            Starting with Jesus words, John 8:36 “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”  He sets us free. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is that He has set you free from all sins, from death and from the condemnation of the law. By His death on the cross, Jesus has freed you from the bondage of your sins and of the uncertainty of your future and your destiny. Redeemed by Jesus you have freedom from the worry and fear of what lies in store for you the rest of your life and on Judgment Day. There is great freedom in saying and believing, “It’s all about Jesus.”

Now, if you say, “It’s all about Jesus,” it means you have to repent. You have to repent of having it be all about something other than Jesus. It’s not all about you, if it’s all about Jesus.

It’s easier not to repent, not to change, to stay self-involved. But you have to face reality. It’s not all about you.

Also, It’s not all about what other people think of you.

Of course it’s important that people think well of you. You want others to consider you trustworthy, moral and kind. But it’s not what it’s all about. When we make it all about what others think of us, it becomes obsessive. We go to great lengths to build up a sort of image to present before others. More often than not, that image is different than reality, of who we really are. We try to prove ourselves to be smarter, nicer, less sinful, less prone to mistakes, than what we really are.

When we get the feeling it’s all about what others are thinking of us, the temptation is great to be dishonest about who we really are. The Biblical word that describes us when we are dishonest about ourselves is “hypocrite”.

But because of Jesus, and because it is all about Jesus, you are now free to be open, honest and transparent.  You are fee to let others know who you really are:  a sinner. Sinful from birth. Sinning everyday. But saved by Jesus

Romans 3 tells us how you’re saved by Jesus. It says, “[Jesus], whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” (Romans 3:25)

Propitiate means to make someone be not upset anymore. Jesus the propitiation, has propitiated God the Father and removed His wrath from us. God is not upset about our hypocrisy, our lies, our self-involvement because Jesus has redeemed us. Now it’s not as though, God has gone soft on sin. Romans 3 is a careful description of how Jesus has overcome the very serious problem of sin. The propitiation of Jesus had to come at the cost of His blood.

    It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:26)

God is just and the justifier. Jesus makes it possible for God to be both at the same time.

God is just. He can’t stand sin. He can’t say sin is “ok”, “no problem”.

Sin upsets God.

And He’s right to feel that way. He is not overreacting. God is true. And the God’s honest truth is that sin is bad. It’s horrible. It’s devastating to life, to our relationships, to our faith. And I’m not only talking about the worst sins here, the notorious sins. I’m not talking about the sins of bad-behaving hooligans, like women chasing movie producers or crooked politicians. I’m talking about your sins, my sin: our jealous and covetous thoughts, our lack of love, our poor charity. These are the kinds of things that damage our relationships, warp our minds and tear our faith.

In regard to those sins, God is just in saying your sins deserve wrath and punishment. And the deserved punishment is death. But because of Jesus, who shed His blood for you, God can be both just and the justifier. Because of Jesus, God can declare you justified. You are not left with all that guilt. You are not stuck in all that sin. You’re not left to wonder and worry about how to straighten out the problems you’ve got because of sin. Thanks to Jesus, it’s not about all that horrible sin, and its devastating effects.

Thanks to Jesus we can rejoice as the people of God, trusting that He is now pleased with us. We can rejoice in the Gospel of Jesus and sing our praises to God for this glorious Gospel.

Now a little about this word “Reformation”. When Martin Luther was talking about Reformation 500 years ago, he meant curriculum reform at the University and among the scholars. He was trying to reform the “system”. The larger work, the work that was to go into the churches and into the ears and hearts of the people of the church, he simply called, “preaching the gospel.” So our prayer for this church of the reformation is simply that the gospel of freedom in Christ, the Propitiation of God’s wrath by Christ, the gospel of our justification in Christ, be preached in this place and around the world for our children and for as many years as the Lord allows.

Amen.