Righteousness of God through Faith in Jesus Christ
Romans 3:21-25a
Last Sunday was about what faith is in general. Today, is about what it means for us to have faith in our relationship with God?
To have faith is not about having faith in ourselves or having positive thoughts about our future. There are many churches focus on preaching having positive outlook and mindsets on our lives when it comes to faith; however, this is not true
Faith is:
The object of our faith is not Christianity but Christ:
In high school, PD’s friend invited him come over to his church and PD became a Christian. However, in college, his friend stopped going to church though he served the church in the past but him and his family were hurt by the church and they are living a life of non believers at the moment.
There is a son of a missionary, he grew up there and went to local school there and he had a lot of opportunities to serve short term mission teams but he was hurt by seeing what they did, they were rude and arrogant to the local people. He decided to leave the church because he wasn’t sure if Christianity is true.
Sometimes, people say those who are going to church are not great, there is no difference between Christian and others, there is no truth in Christianity. How can we help/support the people who were hurt by the church and Christianity? The truth is Jesus not Christianity. What we believe is not Christianity but in Christ.
In the entire history, the church did a lot of bad things not only in America but worldwide (Christian started wars in the name of Jesus, they often supported gender discrimination and racial discrimination). In the Bible, Jesus taught/told people that “I am the truth.” Therefore, the truth is Jesus Christ, we need to believe Jesus himself.
So how can we see Christianity differently? We need to set our eyes on Jesus Christ. How many times do we think about Christ in our daily life? We need to think about Jesus more every day. We are not a follower of the religion or Christianity but we are Christianos (in the Bible, it means follower of Christ). Start your day by saying: God I want to spend my day with you.
We are justified through Faith in Jesus Christ:
People say I love God but at the same time I hate Him. In the bible, we are taught that we need to be holy as “God is holy.” We need to be perfect as “God is perfect.”
As a Christian, we try to be perfect, holy. So we study the Bible, and attend Sunday worship but we feel like we are not good enough and still cannot get rid of the guilty feeling inside our heart .
Martin Luther wanted to become a monk though his parents wanted him to become a lawyer. Without telling his parents he became a monk. The training was hard and long and when he looked at the cross, he felt like Jesus was telling him ‘why are you still not holy?,’ ‘because of your unrighteousness, I have to die on the cross.’ He felt like Jesus was accusing him. He loves God but at the same time he hates God because he cannot achieve the standard God has for him. The more we try to get closer to God/try to be holy, the more we realize how bad we are and how far we are from God’s standards
Romans 21:22: the righteousness of God through Faith in Jesus Christ for all who believes: Martin Luther read this passage one day, then he finally understood that he can be righteous not through his own effort but by the blood of Jesus Christ, he can be justified through Jesus Christ. After that, when he looked at the cross, it was not an accusation or condemnation or blaming anymore, it was the sign of God’s love and grace and forgiveness. He felt that he was finally freed from his guilt through Jesus Christ on the cross. Until then, he tried to rely on his own effort, but now he knows it is through Jesus Christ.
We cannot rely on our own effort to be justified or free but we rely on what Jesus had done for us. If we have faith in us, we will fail, but we need to have faith in Jesus Christ. In order to do that we need to admit how broken I am, how sinful I am, how hopeless I am without Jesus, and how much we need God.
Reflection Questions:
What is your take away from the message?
How often do you think about Jesus everyday?
