Well, hey everyone, and welcome. We are so excited that you are here. Hey, Lincoln Road, can you help me? Welcome in all of our campuses right now. Anybody who's watch watching online, welcome man. So pumped that you chose to be here with us. I don't know how you guys are doing at the campuses right now, watching online, but we've had worship this morning. Y'all like it has been powerful. I don't know. Have, are you guys enjoying the venture worship originals that our team has been producing? Like my mind continues to be blown by the songs that are coming out of this church. Like I get so excited. And little shameless plug right here. You've got to be at the live album recording on October 22nd. Actually, scratch that. Only come to the live album recording. If you ready to throw down, like, I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you, if you're ready to bring the energy, bring the passion, bring the worship, then go ahead and get a ticket. I actually just got a text, uh, backstage a little while before coming out here that we we're only down to like a few hundred tickets left. So if now's the chance, don't put it off. Like be a part of this experience.

Because here's what I love about our church is it's not just about gathering everybody and having a worship night and saying, oh, look, cool. Look what we did. It's about creating music that not just we can listen to, but our kids can listen to and our kids' kids can listen to and they can be a part of the message, 'cause these are our stories. This is our church's heart, our church's stories put into music. And I'm excited about the opportunity that, you know, when you think about culture and you think about how many songs are being put out nowadays, like by Doja Cat or all these crazy things, like so many things that people could listen to. Our church was like, Hey, you know what? We'll step into that. We'll be a part of that because now my little girl, when we're driving down on our way to school, she's gonna be able to say, Hey daddy, can we listen to always have and always will? Yes baby we can. And she's gonna be hearing that kind of message. Come on, that's exciting about what God is doing in our church to be a part of that.

But that's one of the reasons why venture's so special is because we want to create content that doesn't just stay here within the context of these walls, but it goes outside the walls. We wanna equip you to take this message of Jesus out far beyond where our campuses are or where online can reach because there's people that you can reach that we never will. And that's what this is all about. It's why we have a podcast, right, that you can jump in and be a part of and and listen to the, the text that we're in week to week and get into studying the scriptures called Unschool Ordinary. Jump in be a part of that. It's why we have house churches and it's why we're in series on Romans right now. Is anybody enjoying the Romans series? They really excited about what we've been learning so far? Yeah, I have as well, there's two types of people, honestly. There's the people that haven't lost their trilight since week one, right? Like you are, you're the one that brings it every week and you've got a color code for every different color, right? For the pink and then for the green and the yellow. I'm gonna circle these and this and that. Like I get you, I'm part of that crew, trust me. But then there's other people that are like, Hey Romans, uh, A of all what even is it? And B of all, isn't that about? Is this a series about that TikTok re like trimmed? How often do you think about the Roman Empire? Like is that what we're talking about? No, I promise that's not what it is.

But I will, I'll admit Romans can be a lot truthfully as I read it. And so often I'll be like tired, I wanna take a nap after reading. I just wish Paul would punctuate, like, use a period, bro, please. I just thought like, so it could be so difficult to read and we've been over it for three weeks already and we haven't even gotten out of chapter one. Like how are we gonna, we're gonna have to speed this thing up a little bit if we were or to get through the book of Romans in the next several weeks. We've learned about Paul and his calling and what it means to be a believer. And then we, the next week we looked at how it means to be unashamed of the gospel. And then last week, wow, what a powerful word we heard on the wrath of God and the love of God, intermingling and then being led God leads with his kindness. What a powerful word Kyle gave us last week. And so today I want us to, to dive back in to Romans. So go ahead and take a deep breath. We're gonna be in Romans chapter three. We're moving on down, right, we're moving on down. But if you're thinking to yourself, man, listen Blake, can we just take a break? Like gimme a breath. Uh, can we do something else? Trust me, you're not the only one that's ever felt that way. In fact, there's somebody in scripture that also felt the same way you did.

Believe it or not, if you go to second Peter, chapter three, verses 15 and 16, I find this so funny. Peter the apostle, the one who lived with Jesus, he actually lived with the savior of the world for three years. He had this to say about Paul, check this out. It says, bear in mind that our lord's patience means salvation. Just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all of his letters speaking in them of these matters. And he says His letters contain some things that are hard to understand. Thank you. If Peter acknowledges it, the guy that lived with Jesus for three years, then I don't feel so bad that I don't understand everything that Paul says in his letters that makes me feel better. But I still think it's worth it. I still think it's worth it to dive in because there's truths in this book that when we take away, they will transform our lives. They'll transform how we view our life, how we view God's grace and his mercy.

In fact, today's text in Romans three is what many people call the hinge of the whole letter. Paul had been talking about something else in chapters one and two in the beginning of chapter three. But when he gets to verse 21, something shifts. And that shift is immensely important for you and I, it's incredibly important as we begin to walk out our faith. So what I want us to do is I want us to set a roadmap. In fact, the ta, the te um, the task I was given today was actually to preach Romans three and four to you. We're gonna get through four verses in chapter three. So my challenge to you is this, take this as a, as a high look and then go study yourself. Go to house church on Wednesday night. Be a part of the community. Begin to unpack the text in Romans three and four. But this is going to be a roadmap for you to see the high points that hinge of this letter and see what it means for us.

Let's pray together as we enter into God's word. Father, we love you. We're so honored to be here in this moment that you've written a word to us, Lord, that there's something that you want us to see. There's something you want us to glean from this text. So Father, I pray that we would devote all of our attention into this moment, all of our energy, all of our passion into what you have to say to us so that it would move us, that it would transform us, that we would never be the same. We love you Lord, us. In Jesus name we pray and everybody said amen.

All right, take a deep breath. We're going into Romans 3 21. Let's just start off with the first verse that says, but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. Now that's a big verse all the sudden up top, like that's a lot of words in there we need to unpack, but I kind of see it as a scenic view. If we're going on a road trip, we kind of need to pull over and take a moment and look at what's happening here. It's like if you go to a national park or something and there's a little off road next to the sign, you kind of get out. We need to get out for a second, go up to it and take a selfie. Like let's take a selfie with the verse and see what the Lord wants to say.

But check out the very first word it says, but now verse 21, Paul is saying, but now I call this one of the big buts of the Bible. Something has shifted. Something has changed from what Paul was talking about, what he was saying to us, to now something is different. What was he saying before? He was talking about how we are depraved as humans, that there's nothing good in us, right? Like we feel this, that we mess up, we screw up our, our lives can get off the rails very easily. And we are given over to our own desires over and over. This is what Paul had been talking about and something was introduced called the law. We'll unpack that in a second. And it was there to help show how broken we really were. But Paul says in this verse, he says, but now something has changed the way that you thought about getting to God. The way you thought that you get to God is not the way anymore. Something has shifted.

In order for us to know that, we have to unpack two crucial words in this verse. The first one is the law. What is the law, right? Like how, how do we see the law or what? Even better yet, what did Paul think when he wrote that word? The law apart from it, is the righteousness of God. Well, for Paul, it was this thing called the Torah. The Torah first five books in the Bible. Essentially what it boils down to is 613 commandments in the Old Testament that the, that the Israelites had to live by, they had to abide by in order to have a proper standing. Y'all, I can hardly drive the speed limit. And there were 613 laws that they had to commit themselves to in order to have a right standing with God. It's impossible. There was no way. And in fact, that's what the sacrificial system was for, right? Think about how often they had to go back and forth to the altar, back and forth to the temple because man, you step outside. Ah man, I'm wearing mixed threads. Okay, well I can't, I can't worship God today 'cause I'm wearing threads of two different kinds. Did you have bacon this morning for breakfast? I'm sorry it's over. You can't have a right relationship with God. You gotta go offer a sacrifice. Did you do work on the Sabbath? Anybody mow their grass on a Sunday? It's over. There was no way that they could appropriately, but every now they had to go, go back to the temple, go back to the temple, and you say, Blake, that that sounds good. Like for a guy that wrote it 2000 years ago and then 2000 years before that was when the law was enacted. So what does this mean for me?

But don't we do the same thing? Isn't this the same way that we live our lives still to this day? Think about it. How often have you said, man, I really messed up this week. It has not been a good week for me. I have not lived a good life. So I definitely need to be at church on Sunday, right? I need to go do my penance. I need to go do that thing that absolves me from the way I lived. Or for somebody who's like, man, I really got turned on Saturday so early next morning, I need to at least make it to college ministry on Sunday night. Because I mean, for me, I, I just gotta do something. We do the same thing. We say, okay, God, we're going to try to earn our favor back by doing the right things. We're gonna go to the right places because we've lived like hell during the week. So we're gonna try to get heaven on Sunday. We're gonna try to earn it back. But Paul's saying, Hey, it's separated from that now because the law is like that weird, that weird family member that always points out your flaws every time you see 'em at Thanksgiving. You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about? Like I don't personally have any family members like this, but I know that you do. It's that one weird family member is like every time that you see 'em once a year and they come up to you and they're like, oh yeah, it looks like you got about 12 to 15 pounds that you added on since last time. You know? Or like, ooh, like green is not your color. Like that's that family member that comes in and they're always nitpicking. This is what the law did. The law always looked at you and said, Hey, you're doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong. This is not right. You can't do this. And it was an immense awareness that we were always messed up. And even to this day we live in the shadow of the law where we're saying, Hey, there's nothing that we can do to try to, to find our way back to God. But Paul says, but now apart from that, separated from that, there is a way to have what? Righteousness with God.

This is the second thing that we need to unpack. We're able to make the shift to understand the hinge of what Paul is saying. What is the righteousness of God? Well, essentially it boils down to this, the ability to be in a right relationship with him. Like everything is good, everything is perfect. There are no phrase in the cord, there's no tension. It is all good. We are locked in on our relationship with God. Has anybody ever been in like a weird tense relationship? Like something in the relationship got tense and then it's just like it was really awkward for a while? Then you can start to understand what unrighteousness in a relationship looks like not being aligned together. Maybe you have a significant other or a spouse or a friend where you've had a little tiff, you've had an argument. I know Lauren and I, whenever we'll have an argument at the house, it always happens the same exact way. The kids will go to bed. And we had been having a little tiff throughout the day and then we all, there's like 30 minutes between when the kids go to bed and we just had to go to bed that we live in the same house. So we have to be together. So she goes to the couch and I go to the recliner. We just look at everywhere but each other just looking. But then you have to do like the logistics of the relationship. You know what I mean? Like are you gonna get the kids tomorrow? Am I, and then she's over here like, I don't know, you should probably get 'em looking around and like there's just some tension, there's hostility there and the, and the relationship is frayed. That's on a human level, what it's like to be out of relationship with God. But what God is saying is there is something outside of living up to the law that will allow you to be completely aligned back in with me. That is some good news because the law has shown us that we can't do it ourselves.

In fact, Paul goes on to say that, let's jump into verse 22. And it says this, this is, the righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe there is no difference between Jew and Gentile. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. So what does the law show us? What is Paul saying here? He's saying first and foremost, good works are not the way to God. Good works are not the way. There is nothing that you nor I can do to earn God's favor. This is what Romans 3 23 is all about. For all have sinned and fall short of God's glory, we fall short. What does it mean to fall short of God's glory? It means that there is no way in our broken selves, there is no way with what we have in our ability to earn or attain or aspire to. There is nothing that we can do to catch up to eternity. Think about it. God is huge. He is mighty. He is strong and sovereign. He is magnanimous the, the, the largest thing. And he is so far beyond us that the moment that we move away from perfection, which happened before you and I were ever born, the moment that we moved away from perfection, the chasm became far too wide. We've all sinned. We've all fallen short of God's glory. And now there are so many of us who are trying to pick up the pieces of our own lives and try to move towards it, try to earn our way back into God's favor. God, if I can just look good enough, if I can just dress good enough, if I can act good enough and say the right things and don't cuss as much and don't do all these things, then I can earn your favor. And God's saying there is no way that you can catch up to me because I'm eternity, I'm perfect.

But she might say, well man, listen, I am living a pretty good life though. Like it's a pretty, it's a pretty good life. I'm not as bad as some of those other people. I haven't done what other people have done. Have you seen the news? Have you looked at the headlines? Have you seen what people are doing? Surely I'm better than they are. Or maybe you're on the other side of the equation. You say, yeah, Blake, I've screwed up. I have nothing left to offer and this is my last hope. I have nothing to give. I have nothing to offer. I have no sacrifice to make because my life is torn up and there's nothing left for me on both sides of the equation. Whether you think you've got it all right or you've got it all wrong, there's still no way that we can get up, catch up to him. I love what Hanley Moles says. He says this, he says, the harlet, the liar, the murderer. There's short of it talking about God's glory, but so are you. Perhaps they stand at the bottom of a mine and you on the crest of an alp. But you are as little to touch the stars as they for each and every one of us. No matter if we feel like we have climbed up the mountain and we are on the Mount Everest of holies and we have a perfect life, if we're doing it in our own ability, we're just as good as the person that's never done anything right in their life. Because when you're both trying to touch and grasp paternity, it's futile. There's nothing that we can do. I want you to grasp that because there is nothing more dangerous than a person who thinks that religion is gonna get them to God. There's nothing more dangerous than that y'all, than thinking that you have anything to do to earn favor with God by doing things a certain way. There's nothing more dangerous than these three words. I've got this. So many I've, I've run that race and it leads to nothing but surely that's not all there is, right?

We go on and we see the, the hinge continues to swing because we didn't just stay in Romans 3 23 for all of sin and fall short of God's glory. But then we go to verse 24, verse 24. It says this, let's go back to it. It says yes for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. That is good news because just as all of us have sinned, every single one of us, we've all experienced, we have all been broken and there is nothing we can do to catch up to God. Paul then goes on to say, Hey, yes, we see that. I see that everyone has sinned, but also all have been given the opportunity to be justified. And what does justified mean? It means the guilt has been removed. Justified means that the guilt has been removed through faith in Christ. Every single person, no matter your story, no matter what you've been through, it doesn't matter what happened last year, last month, last week, or last night, every single person has an opportunity to find life again. This is good news that what the law wanted to do was to cast judgment and condemnation. And maybe you are feeling that right now. Maybe you are feeling that in this moment. You're saying, I'm not. There's nothing good in me. The gift of Jesus is this, that you can say, you're right. There is nothing good in me, but because of God's great love, Ephesians two says, the passion with which he had for us while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The Son of God stepped off of on high. He stepped out of eternity and he came and he lived life as a human. And he gave that life up freely for the joy set before him. Hebrews says that he endured the cross. He scorned the shame so that you and I would no longer have to be defined by death, by sin, by that eternal separation from God because God says there's no way that you're gonna be able to climb the mountain to get to me. But you know what? Instead, I'm gonna climb down the mountain to get to you. This is the God that we serve. He says this, there's a chasm, but I'm gonna build a cross that chasm. I'm gonna walk across it and I'm coming for you. This is the hope that we have in Jesus.

You know, there was a time, several years ago, I worked at a camp called Pine Cove, and I've told this story before, but it's just so powerful in this moment. Pine Cove was one of those weird places where I was a a counselor for a bunch, bunch of middle schoolers and it was, I tell people it was the best worst time of my life. And so here I was with some middle schoolers and you know that like with middle schoolers, there's always this kids that you're like, man, you have so much potential. Like you have so much potential, but you're just a turd. You know what I'm saying? It was like, if you would just get your act together, man, it'd be incredible what God would do through you if you would just stop beating other people up. And that's what was happening with these two kids, man, they, you just knew that the Lord's hand was all over 'em and as a result, they were running as far as they could. So they decided one of the best things to do to just m make everything chaos at camp was to like get into a fight. And so they got into a fight, we separated 'em and we took 'em out to this place where we did um, uh, discipleship, also known as discipline. And um, we got to this big hill. It was a gravel road and you had to climb up the hill and go back and down. It was full of rocks. So we sat 'em down on a log and we brought these two big five gallon buckets. We set 'em in front of 'em. We said, all right boys, here's your punishment. You have a debt that is due and here, here's what how you pay it back. You have to take rocks, you have to put 'em in the five gallon buckets. Pick up the five gallon buckets and you have to walk to the top of the hill and you have to set 'em down, unpack the rocks, refill it, and then walk back down. We need you to do that seven times. And they looked at me the way you guys just did and they had no idea how they were gonna accomplish it, but we said, all right, let's get started. So one by one, they started putting the rocks in. They were complaining and picked it up and it was so heavy. These were scrawny little 10 year olds and they were trying to walk it up this hill, you know, trying to get up, trying to come on up. And finally they get to the top and they were worn out. They were sweating from head to toe and they pulled the rocks out and they looked at back at us. We were like, keep going. And so they put the rocks back in and picked it up, came down the hill, basically collapsed. Knew they still had six times to go. And so what we did, we said, all right, boys got six more times. We gotta keep going, but here's what we want you to do. We want you to go sit on the log. And there was like this little canister of water and we poured 'em a cup of water, told 'em to sit on the log. And me and the other counselor, while they were doing it, we didn't tell 'em what we were doing. We went to the buckets and we started putting rocks in the buckets and we grabbed the buckets and we carried 'em up, emptied them, filled 'em back up, carried 'em back down. Six more times, those boys watched as their counselors took on a debt that they could not pay so that their debt would be paid. And by the end of that time, there were tears coming down from these boys' eyes. And when we got done with our seventh time, we were also tired and sweaty and we went and we knelt in front of him. We said, fellas, what we want you to know is that what we just did for you pales in comparison to the grace and the mercy that was lavished upon you by Jesus.

Friends, you are carrying a load that you cannot bear. You are walking around with something that is way too heavy for you. Maybe you're trying to earn favor with God. Maybe it's shame and guilt that you're carrying, but just like those boys, you're trying to walk up a hill with a burden that is not for you. It is too much for you to bury and you will never be able to get up that hill carrying that yourself. But the grace of God is this, that Jesus came and he looks at you and he says, Hey, let me carry that for you. Lemme take that. In fact, I already have. In fact, I've already paid the price like I'm watching you and you are carrying something that is way too heavy for you. Would you let it go? Would you release it? And let me carry the burden for you because I've got the scars to prove that I can handle it. I've already walked this journey for you. His grace covers over everything.

So you say, Blake, well what does this mean? Like how do I, how do I begin to take this on? How do I begin to live this out? Because I want what you're talking about, 'cause I've tried everything and nothing is working. So I need this. What do I do? Romans 10, nine and 10 gives us the answer. And we're gonna talk about it several weeks from now, but I think it's appropriate here. It says this. It says, if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with the heart that you believe and are justified, the guilt is taken away and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. There's some people in the room today that you've been living with a burden that is far too heavy for you. And today is the day of salvation where you say, I can't, I can't take it anymore. God, this is too much for me. But I'm professing with my mouth that you are Lord, I'm professing with my mouth that you are the savior of my life and I'm giving you everything. My life is now yours because the way I was living it is not for me. I can't do it anymore. So I'm standing firmly in the path that you have already trailed for me and I'm going with you declare with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and salvation comes to you today. 'cause this is what it's all about. We are not, God doesn't rescue us because of what we do. We're rescued because of what God has already done and it's for you.

I love what the late Tim Keller said. It's such a powerful quote. He says this, he says The gospel, the gospel is this. We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe. Yet at the same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. My friends, there is nothing good in any of us. We have all fallen short of God's glory. But at the same time, An Exact same moment where the enemy would wanna say that there is no hope for you. The hope of Eten a eternity rushes in says, you are more loved and accepted in Christ than you ever dared hope.

The challenge to you today is this. Will you receive that? Will you trust him? Will you give him your life fully and follow him? Just follow him today. You're gonna have an opportunity to respond at all of our locations. I'm gonna give you the same opportunity and maybe this is resonating with you, and today is your day of salvation. Don't let the enemy steal this from you. Let today be that day. You can come down to the crosses that any of our campuses, write something down. If you want to write it down, let that be a moment for you. You can come and take communion to recognize and reflect on what Christ has done. There's our prayer teams are available. Don't leave any of our campuses today without knowing, without a shadow of a doubt that Christ is the Lord and savior you of your life. We are praying for you. I am praying for you. Life change takes place in the room today.

Let me pray. Father, we love you. Let, There's, there are no words to express gratitude for what you've done. God, you were so good. You were so faithful, so gracious that while we were so far from you, adrift alone, running, rebelling, you still saw fit to bring us back in, to give us grace and mercy, we rest in you today. We love you, Lord said Jesus. Name your pray. Amen.