Rom. 3:19-31
THE NEW MAN IN MY MIRROR
Intro: There is a song that I remember from my
youngest days. I remember my grandfather sitting on
his front porch, playing his banjo (He didn't pick his
banjo with a five finger lick, instead, he used the old
timey clawhammer method) and singing a song entitled,
"The Old Gray Mare." I am not sure if it a line, or if it is
just a chorus, but a portions of that song says, "The old
gray mare, she ain't what she used to be." Well, my
friends, if you are saved this evening the very same
things can be said about you, 1 Cor. 5:17!
Last Sunday evening, we studied verses 9-18 and
found that man is a totally depraved creature. There is
absolutely no good in him at all! Everything he touches
is tarnished by the sin that fills his being and he is
wretched in the sight of God. As we talked about those
things, we were talking about the Man In Our Mirror.
Well, as the text continues to unfold before us, Paul
continues his line of thinking, but he shifts directions on
us. He gives us a concluding thought concerning the
old man and he begins to talk about that new creature
that Jesus makes when He saves the sinner. It is that
new, saved fellow that we want to consider this evening.
So, with that in mind, let's consider this passage and
think for a while about The New Man In My Mirror. As
we will see, he ain't what he used to be!
I. V. 19-20 HE WAS A RUINED MAN
A. V. 19 He Was Declared A Sinner By The Law- Because the Law of God exposes all the things
that man is guilty of, man stands exposed as a
sinner and condemned by the Law! J.B. Phillips
said, "It is the straightedge of the Law that shows
us just how crooked we are." No one can look
into the Word of God and miss the truth of what
Paul is saying! Just remember Christ's words in
the Sermon on the Mount - Matt. 5:17-48. It is
the mirror of God's Word that reveals just how
wretched we really are.
B. V. 20 He Was Damned As A Sinner By The
Law - God gave the Law to man as a tool. It
was given to show man that he is a sinner and to
drive man to Jesus, Gal. 3:24. If the Law's entire
reason for existing could be could be summed
up in one statement, it would have to be that the
Law was given to show man that he is guilty in
the eyes of God and is in need of a Savior!
(Ill. The Law is like a mirror, James 1:23-25. It
can show you just how dirty your face is, but it
cannot be used to clean you up. You do not
take the mirror and rub it on your face to get
clean. The mirror exists to point you to the
water. So it is with the Law of the Lord. The
Law cannot clean us up, but it can create a
hunger in us for the One Who can: the Lord
Jesus Christ.)
I. He Was A Ruined Man
II. V. 21-26 HE IS A REDEEMED MAN
(Ill. Notice the little conjunction "but". It denotes a
change of thought. It stands as a worthy doorkeeper to
the thoughts that will follow. I certainly was a ruined
man, yet I thank the Lord that there is a change that has
taken place and it is represented by that little word "but."
Pay attention to those little words in your Bible.
Remember, even the largest door turns on a relatively
small hinge! For instance, think of the great passage in
Eph. 2:1-10. There, the word "but" shows up in a
similar fashion. These few verses that we are about to
look into now are jammed packed full of theological
truth. Donald Gray Barnhouse called them, "The heart
of the Bible." Reformer Martin Luther labeled then as
"the marrow of theology." This is, perhaps, the
deepest theological sea in the New Testament. We can
never do them justice in the few minutes we have here
this evening, but let's glean what we can nonetheless.
Notice these traits about the new man in my mirror.)
A. V. 21-23 He Has Experienced Faith - Man has
a very big problem. He is a sinner. We have
seen that fact repeated loud and clear in these
first three chapters of Romans. His problem is
that he is lost and he cannot get to God. We
have found that man cannot work his way to
God. He cannot be good enough to please God.
And yet, God the Father demands perfect
righteousness to enter His heaven - Matt. 5:20;
5:48.
You see, man is a miserable sinner, 3:23,
and he will never be right with God by virtue of
his own efforts. When the Bible says that we
"come short of the glory of God." It means
that we literally miss the mark. The tense of this
word suggests that this is an ongoing state of
affairs. In other words, no matter how good we
may get, we will still be missing the mark and
falling far short of the glory of God! You can't
get to God on your own!
Therefore, God allows men to be made
righteous by them placing their faith in His Son,
the Lord Jesus. What these verses are telling us
is that salvation doesn't come by works or by
being good. Salvation comes solely by faith.
You cannot buy your way to Heaven. You
cannot be good enough to get to Heaven. You
cannot work hard enough to get to Heaven.
However, you can believe in Jesus, be saved by
grace, be declared righteous by the Heavenly
Father and go to Heaven with nothing but faith to
show for it!
(Ill. Notice the wording, "unto all and upon
all." This implies that the Lord takes His
righteous and gives it to and puts it on those who
believe in His Son! That is how salvation works.)
B. V. 24 He Has Experienced Freedom - This
verse introduces us to two great theological
words and they are the words "justify" and
"redemption." The word "justify" means to "To
declare one not guilty, or to make one as he
ought to be." In the biblical sense, it means
that God, in His power and in His grace declares
us to be righteous and worthy of a relationship
with Him. The word "redemption" means "to set
at liberty after the payment of a ransom
price."
To put it all together, when we received
Jesus as our Savior, God applied the price that
Jesus had paid on the cross to our account and
declared us righteous. He thereby freed us from
the condemnation and the consequences of our
sins. He very literally set us free!
In Jesus, I am free from the need to try and
please God. He is already pleased with me
because of what Jesus did at the cross. I no
longer have to try to be good to get God to let
me go to Heaven. He has already given me His
own righteousness and in His eyes this evening,
I am as positionally holy as He Himself is! That
is a blessing!
Here is the kicker! The Bible says in this
verse that all of this happens "freely". This word
literally means "without a cause". Basically,
God gave us His righteousness even when we
did not deserve to receive it. He gave it to us
even though we could never earn it or pay Him
back for it. He gave it to us without a single
cause, or without any strings attached! There is
no explaining why God saved a bunch of Hell
deserving sinners. The only two words that
enter my mind are "Love" and "Grace".
I know that I do not understand all there is to
know about salvation and redemption, but I am
glad that I can experience them even though I
don't understand it!
(Ill. I don't understand how electrons are
created by a turbine and flow through wires until
they make a light glow, but I don't sit in the dark
because I don't understand. I can't figure out
how a black cow eats green grass and gives
white milk, but I don't do without dairy products.
Even though my knowledge of God's methods
and gifts in incomplete, I still enjoy the benefits
of those things nonetheless!)
C. V. 25-26 He Has Experienced Forgiveness -
These verses tell us that Jesus is the
"propitiation". This is a theological word that
means "An appeasement, or a satisfying."
This word comes from the Hebrew word which
was used of the cover of the ark of the covenant
in the Holy of Holies, which was sprinkled with
the blood of the expiatory victim on the annual
day of atonement (this rite signifying that the life
of the people, the loss of which they had
merited by their sins, was offered to God in the
blood as the life of the victim, and that God by
this ceremony was appeased and their sins
expiated).
What this means for you and me is that when
we trusted Jesus as our Savior, God requires
nothing further from us. He is absolutely
satisfied! Because of this, He has forgiven us by
the "remission of sins that are past". The
word "remission" means "to pass over, to
disregard." When we trusted Christ, God put
our sins behind Him, Psa. 103:12; Isa. 38:17;
Micah 7:19, and has forever cleansed us and
forgiven us, Col. 2:13-14; 1 John 1:7.
(Ill. As you can see, glory to God above, the man
in my mirror isn't the man he used to be. How
about the person who looks back at you? What
are you trusting in this evening for your soul's
salvation? Is in Jesus and His shed blood? Or,
is it some religious experience? Have you
experienced the glory and the power of the new
birth in your life? For several weeks I have been
preaching the bad news that man is a hell bound
sinner who deserves nothing better. Tonight, I
am glad that I can share the good news of
eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ. Are
you saved tonight?)
I. He Was A Ruined Man
II. He Is A Redeemed Man
III. V. 27-31 HE IS A RIGHTEOUS MAN
A. V. 27-28 He Has A New Relationship With The
Law - According to Paul, in these verses, the
new man knows that he isn't saved by keeping
the Law. He is saved by pure faith. Therefore,
there is nothing about which he can boast in the
matter of his salvation. Instead of man taking
the credit for something with which he had
nothing to do, all glory and honor must be given
to the Lord. He knows that the Law was just a
tool used by the Lord to bring that man to
Himself. He isn't trying to please God, He knows
that God is already pleased. He isn't trying to
earn point with God, he knows that God is
already completely satisfied. He knows that His
salvation is complete in the Person of the Lord
Jesus and He glorifies God on that account! He
has passed from the state of salvation having to
do with do's and realizes that it is done!
(Ill. Imagine for a moment that there are 2 chairs
sitting in an empty room. One chair is labeled
"Do" and the other is labeled "Done". Those two
chairs represent every religion and belief system
in the world. Every system is a "Do" or a "Done".
The "Do" religions are all based on the notion
that man must "do" something to please the
Lord. Such as: pray, join a church, give money,
be a good person, make a sacrifice, make a
pilgrimage, wear certain clothing, keep the Ten
Commandments, go to Mass, etc. Although all
the "Do" religions may seem different from the
outside, they all require their followers to "do"
something in order to earn salvation. Religions
like Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism,
Mormonism, The Jehovah's Witnesses and
Roman Catholicism are all examples of "Do"
religions.
In short, every religion in the world is a "Do"
religion, except one. Christianity is a "Done"
religion! Those who are truly saved haven't
done anything and aren't required to do
anything, because Jesus has already done
everything that is necessary!
Now, every person in this room is sitting in
one of those two chairs. You are either in the
"Do" chair where you are doing things to get to
Heaven, or you are in the "Done" chair where
you know that everything has already been done
for you. Be honest with God and with yourself
this evening. Which chair are you really sitting in
tonight? Your eternity hinges on your answer.)
B. V. 29-30 He Has A New Relationship With
The Lord - Now, because of our relationship
with the Lord Jesus Christ, we are brought into a
right relationship with the Heavenly Father. Now,
He isn't just the Father of our Lord, He is our
Father and we are His sons and daughters this
evening, 1 John 3:1-2! He has saved us,
justified us, accepted us in His Son and even
now He awaits us in our new home in Heaven.
We are no longer strangers, Eph. 2:12, we are
family. We have been reconciled to the Lord, 2
Cor. 5:18-19, and we have been brought into His
presence by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ!
C. V. 31 He Has A New Relationship With Life - In
this final verse, the great Apostle asks a final
question. If we are saved by faith apart from the
Law, then does this make the Law of God null
and void. In other words, can we just throw out
the Law and live as we please if we are really
saved by grace? The answer? God Forbid!
What he is saying is that our salvation does not
do away with the Law. Instead, our salvation
establishes, or fixes in place, the Law of God.
How is this true? Well, the Lord used the Law to
teach us that we were sinners. He used the Law
to show us that we were doomed without Him.
He used the Law to establish our need. Now
that we are saved, the Lord begins to live this
Law through our lives. The difference is that we
are not living the Law to be saved. We are not
living the Law because we have to. We just
naturally begin to live out the spirit of the Law of
the Lord because He has placed His Spirit in us
and because He has made us to be partakers of
His divine nature, 2 Pet. 1:4. In the simplest of
terms, we begin to live like God and His Son
when we are saved!
(Please do not misunderstand me. I am not
referring to sinless perfection. I am referring to
the fact that Jesus changes every life He saves
by grace! He puts a desire and a longing within
our hearts to love Him, to live for Him and to do
the things that please Him, honor Him and bring
glory unto Him. We show the world that
people can live for God, by letting God live in
them!)
Conc: When I look in my mirror, the same face that has
looked at me for 37 years still looks back. However, I
know that the old man of sin has been changed into a
new man by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't
make that claim with the least bit of boasting. I know
that there is much room for improvement in my life.
However, I do know where I was when the Lord found
me. I know what He did for me when He saved me. I
know the changes He has made in my life over the
years.
Now, I ask you this question: Has the Lord made
a change in you? Are you saved tonight? Which chair
are you sitting in this evening? If the Lord has shown
you that you are in the wrong chair, wouldn't tonight be
a good time to change seats? He is still saving souls by
grace and He will save you if you will come to Him. I do
not know your need or your heart, but God does and so
do you. If there is a spiritual need in your life, come to
this altar now and let Jesus meet it for you.
