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None Is Righteous (Romans 3:9-26)

by | Oct 25, 2015 | 2015 Sermons, Romans and Mission, SERMONS

romans3.9-26-noneisrighteous.m4a

A woman named Jen made the mistake of winking at John Fitzgerald Page on match.com. Their email exchange would earn him the distinction of being called the worst person in the world. John Fitzgerald Page works as a financial consultant and has done some modeling and acting and part-time fitness training. He has his own website johnfitzgeraldpage.com where he brags about his biography, lists all of the small roles that he has had in film, television, and modeling, and name-drops celebrities he has met. So this woman winked at him on a dating website, which then notified him of her interest. In reply, he sent her an email touting his biography – noting the kind of place where he lives, how he went to an Ivy League school, his height and weight and how often he works out, the kind of work he does in corporate finance, and offering to share more pictures of himself. And throughout this email he asks her questions like whether she comes to the part of town where he lives, where she went to school, what she does to keep in shape, and whether she has any other pictures to share. So Jen auto-replied with “no thanks,” which sent him an email saying that they are not a good match regarding their personalities. So he responded with the following email:

I think you forgot how this works. You hit on me, and therefore have to impress ME and pass MY criteria and standards – not vice versa. 6 pictures of just your head and your inability to answer a simple question lets me know one thing. You are not in shape. I am a trainer on the side, in fact, I’m heading to the gym in 26 minutes! So next time you meet a guy of my caliber, instead of trying to turn it around, just get to the gym! I will even give you one free training session, so you don’t blow it with the next 8.9 on Hot or Not, Ivy League grad, Mensa member, can bench/squat/leg press over 1200 lbs., has had lunch with the secretary of defense, has an MBA from the top school in the country, lives in a Buckhead high rise, drives a beemer convertible, has been in 14 major motion pictures, was in Jezebel’s best-dressed, etc. Oh, that’s right, there aren’t any more of those! Regards, John.

John Fitzgerald Page had put forward some of what was most impressive about himself and so her rejection he took very hard and personally and he fought back with more of his resumé. When we reach verse 20 our instinct is still to fight back and justify ourselves and point to our resumé, but our real resumé is here back in verse 10: “none is righteous; no, not one.” 

 

Romans 3:9-26 

 

  1. The law means that your own personal resumé is the same as the barbarians: “none is righteous.”

    1. Paul says that both Jews and Greeks are under sin, for if by works of the law no human being will be justified in God’s sight then no one—not even his own Jewish people—can justify themselves. In another letter Paul recounts his resumé as “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee” (Philippians 3:5), but after naming such privileges he says that he counts all that (bleep—a colorful word for excrement) for the sake of Christ. He came to realize that his Jewish resumé was the same as the Greeks: “none is righteous.” Likewise now he wants the Christians in Rome to realize that their resumé is the same as the barbarians: “none is righteous.” Paul had taken the gospel to the Greeks among whom none is righteous and now he wanted to take the gospel to the barbarians among whom none is righteous with the help of Romans among whom none is righteous. The Romans would have thought that the barbarians were the worst type of person in the world, but Paul wants them to see that there is only one type of human being in the world: “none is righteous.” And if none is righteous, then none can justify himself in God’s sight.

    2. John Fitzgerald Page tried to do what we all try to do. We respond with more of our resumé in order to justify ourselves and it doesn’t work. There is no world in which Jen hearing him continue to justify himself is going to think, ‘Yeah, you know what, I was wrong.’ Perhaps in our circles we don’t try to impress God with nice cars and what we can bench, but we list the things that we do for the church, the community service that we do for others, and the morals that we teach our children. Should someone ask us why we think we will go to heaven and our instinct is to point to our own resumé. Tell that to a non-Christian and if they know you well enough they might just say “no thanks.” We are not materially different from the Jewish person in Paul’s day nor from the John Fitzgerald Page’s of our day. The law will even lead the mouths of John Fitzgerald Page and you and I to have to stop. Indeed, “none is righteous” and thus none can justify himself in God’s sight. You do not get your righteousness from doing works of the law. The law demands that you be righteous and the verdict is in that none is righteous. (But God offers us His righteousness in the gospel. His answer is that the righteous by faith will live.)

  2. The gospel means that even right now God reads the resumé of Jesus Christ for all who believe instead of your own resumé.

    1. Normally we think of the present as a time of God’s patience that will be followed by the day of judgment, but Paul tells us that the future is now. He changes the tenses from the normal way of thinking about it to say the patience of God was in the past and the final judgment is already a present reality for the one who believes. So even right now God justifies you by faith. The final judgment verdict of righteous has already been announced for all who believe in Jesus. This means that the Christian life is 100% righteous from beginning to end. Thus in God’s eyes you are as righteous as you will ever be – He sees His righteousness when He sees you. He looks at you who believe in Jesus now as a saint.

    2. God can justly look at you this way because your memoir was Ghost written (Holy Ghost written) – it is Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – for it is not your biography but Jesus’ biography given to you that is read at the judgment. God reads the resumé of Jesus Christ instead of your own resumé because none is righteous but by faith you are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Paul also says, “for there is no distinction: for all have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God.” It matters not then whether we are Jew or Greek, Roman or barbarian, this gospel is good news for all kinds of people for we are all the same type of people. Your instinct may still be to talk about your biography like John F. Page, but instead lets start planning to reach barbarians for justification is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone.