Gospel Comprehension

About this sermon

Introduction: Paul announces what the gospel is. (1:16-17) Paul establishes why the gospel is needed. (1:18-3:20) Paul summarizes all that the gospel reveals. (3:21-26) And now he has some questions. A good teacher understands the value of testing comprehension. Have you really heard me? Do you really grasp what I’m saying? Do you and I really believe the same thing? In Paul’s case, these are rhetorical questions, because he supplies the answers. But the value of these questions for his original readers and for us is that they map out what a right understanding of the gospel produces. A person’s understanding of the gospel can be measured by how they respond to these questions. Paul voices 6 questions. Those 6 questions can be organized into three main points that he makes through those questions. That’s what we consider today. Have we truly comprehended, apprehended, the gospel that Paul has just presented to us? The first test is this: I. DOES YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE GOSPEL LEAVE ANY ROOM FOR HUMAN BOASTING? Paul asks three questions that belong to this first point. “What becomes of our boasting?” “By what kind of law, by what rule or measure, is that boasting excluded?” “Is it a law of works that rules boasting out?” His point is unmistakable. When you rightly understand the gospel, you realize that it is the revelation of a righteousness from God that is received by faith, that is apart from the law, though it witnessed by the law, and that it LEAVES NO ROOM FOR HUMAN BOASTING. What becomes of our boasting? It’s excluded. It’s shut out is the idea. It’s prevented. Every time pride wants to walk through the door, when salvation is considered, if one rightly understands how God saves sinners, the door is shut. Pride has no place to enter. MAY I TELL YOU SOMETHING? PROUD CHRISTIANS EITHER FORGETFUL CHRISTIANS. I’m talking now about genuine believers. Proud Christians have forgotten their own story. And how does the gospel destroy pride? The gospel destroys pride precisely because salvation doesn’t depend on man at all. It doesn’t depend on anything found in him. It doesn’t depend on anything performed by him. It’s not explained by law keeping in the least. EVERYTHING ABOUT IT IS A GIFT. The law of faith, RULES PRIDE OUT. ESV Romans 9:15 For he says to Moses, a"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion,1 but on God, who has mercy. ESV Romans 3:28 For we hold that one is justified by faith aapart from works of the law. And before we move on from this point too quickly, apply what we’ve just said to the matter of faith as well. Paul specifically says here that all boasting is excluded because of the principle of faith, the law of faith, the doctrine of faith. So, does your understanding of FAITH leave no room for human boasting? Is faith a human work or a gift from God along with repentance and everything else that is received through the redemption accomplished by Jesus? I dare say that only a belief in the Sovereignty of God in salvation rules out all boasting. Only the view that says that salvation is all of God, from beginning to end, really says that God saves sinners. II. DOES YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF SALVATION AFFIRM THE UNIVERSALS DECLARED IN THE GOSPEL? Does your understanding of salvation affirm that: A. THERE’S ONLY ONE KIND OF HUMAN BEING? B. THERE’S ONLY ONE GOD WHO HAS REVEALED HIMSELF INERRANTLY IN SCRIPTURE? C. THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY OF SALVATION THAT THE GOSPEL OF GOD DECLARES? ESV Romans 3:29 Or ais God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since aGod is one-- who will justify the circumcised by faith and bthe uncircumcised through faith. The gospel offers salvation, reconciliation, adoption, on the same terms to both Jews and Gentiles. There is no other God. There is no other plan of salvation. God justifies believing sinners, ALL SINNERS, in the same way. Through faith in His Son. His Son who accomplished their redemption. You do not yet understand the gospel if you have a vague message or a misguided message for sinners. If your message has to do with human beings improving themselves with Jesus. (Jesus the helper) Or if your message has to do with God NEEDING men to come to him. (Jesus the needy pleader) If your message is simply faith in God (generic). If your message is faith in faith. If your message is in a vague Jesus who requires nothing more (and produces nothing more) than intellectual assent or verbal allegiance Then you still don’t understand how God saves sinners. You don’t understand the results of regeneration. You have no true concept of the sinfulness of men or the holiness and grace and mercy of God. You have vastly underestimated what salvation requires and what salvation is.