Coming Up Short…Romans 3:21-23
Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason - June 12, 2005
21But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight—not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago. 22We are made right in God’s sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.
23For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
The New International Version of the New Testament translates this passage in this manner:
“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law. Has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,…” (3:22-23)
This morning I want to share some thoughts about coming up short before we look at our text for today.
- A Post Office worker, at the main sorting office, finds an unstamped, poorly hand-written envelope, addressed to God. He opens it and discovers it is from an elderly lady, distressed because all her savings -- $200 -- have been stolen. She will be cold and hungry this Christmas.
He organizes the postal workers, who dig deep and come up with $180 to donate. They get it to her by special courier the same morning. A week later, the same postal worker recognizes the same handwriting on another envelope. He opens it.
"Dear God, Thank you for the $180 for Christmas, which would have been so bleak otherwise.
P.S. It was $20 short but that was probably those thieving workers at the Post Office." - AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked intellectual leadership". He received a $26 million severance package.
Somebody came up short in that one. - A man in Orange County Municipal Court had been ticketed for driving alone in the carpool lane. He claimed that the four frozen cadavers in the mortuary van he was driving should be counted. The judged ruled that passengers must be alive to qualify.
He came up short in his passenger list. - According to the Knight-Ridder News Service, the inscription on the metal bands used by the U.S. Department of the Interior to tag migratory birds has been changed. The bands used to bear the address of the Washington Biological Survey, abbreviated, "Wash. Biol. Surv." until the agency received the following letter from an Arkansas camper:
"Dear Sirs: While camping last week I shot one of your birds. I think it was a crow. I followed the cooking instructions on the leg tag and I want to tell you it was horrible."
Somebody came up short, but I’m not sure who it was - the Dept. of the Interior or the camper.
A story is told about Fiorello LaGuardia, who, when he was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all of WWII.
One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself.
Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving.
But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. "It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor." the man told the mayor. "She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson."
LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said "I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions--ten dollars or ten days in jail."
But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero saying: "Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Baliff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant."
So the following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York City policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.
- And then there was a young man from a wealthy family was about to graduate from high school. It was the custom in that affluent neighborhood for the parents to give the graduate an automobile. "Bill’ and his father had spent months looking at cars, and the week before graduation, they found the perfect car.
On the eve of his graduation, his father handed him a gift wrapped Bible. Bill was so angry that he threw the Bible down and stormed out of the house.
He and his father never saw each other again. It was the news of his father’s death that brought Bill home again.
As he sat one night going through his father’s possessions that he was to inherit, he come across the Bible his father had given him.
He brushed away the dust and opened it to find a cashier’s check, dated the day of his graduation - in the exact amount of the car they had chosen together.
As I thought about this story, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people in this world have done the same thing to God. Literally tossed aside a wonderful promise, because they didn’t understand it, or they didn’t believe that it was possible.
Our text declares this simple fact: All [of us] have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
Most people looking at this text in Romans belabor the point that there is no difference between men when it comes to God and man’s sinfulness. It is pointed out clearly that we are all sinners and there is no difference between us in that regard, whether we are rich or poor, black or white or some shade of brown in our skin color, or whatever our family history or background. There is not difference we have been told and therefore we all come up short of the glory of God.
The Apostle Paul tells us in verse 22 of this third chapter of Romans that “There is no difference.” To understand this statement we have to go back to verse 21 which tells us “But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known…This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference.”
The antecedent of the statement “There is no difference.” really has nothing to do with all men being the same…but has something to do with our being righteous before God.
The text applies to God and not to us. It is an announcement of all that follows and that it applies to God rather than to man.
The simple meaning of our text is that there is no difference between the method that God uses to declare men to be lost sinners and the method he uses to declare that they are as righteous as Himself.
In spite of all that man might argue, there is a divine decree which has gone out declaring that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. People may not believe it, but it is true.
In exactly the same manner there has gone forth a divine decree that God will justify the sinner who believes in Christ by a declaration that it is so, and not by any intrinsic righteousness that is in the man.
God has so spoken and that is the end of the argument. Inherent in our text, is the idea that the Word of God is the only arbiter of right and wrong. God makes a decree and that decree will stand forever or until he brings in some new principle that will make the first decree void. And therefore, any statement of any man that is contrary to the Word of God is condemned in advance by the Word of God.
God announces, “I the Lord God Almighty, say what is good and what is bad; I am the One who announces what is holy and what is unholy. It is My Word that decides who is sinful and who is righteous. I am the Lord who searches the hearts and tries the thoughts; therefore, I the Lord shall be the only one who to say what is righteous and what is sinful.
Our text concerns the oneness of the method of the two operations of God regarding the declaration of guilt and the declaration of righteousness.
Donald Gray Barnhouse in his study of Romans says that we can paraphrase our text in this manner: “God’s method of imparting righteousness is a divine method. It is witnessed by the law and the prophets. It is a method of offering righteousness to every member of the human race and of making the righteousness operative and effective in all of those who believe God simple Word. There is no difference between this method of offering righteousness by the fiat of God and the declaration of man’s sinfulness by the fiat of God. I, God, declared that all men in the world of time and space have sinned and have come short of my glory, and it is so because I have said it is so. In exactly the same way I now declare to be perfect in my sight, and absolutely perfect, all those who believe in My Word about the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are perfect because I say they are perfect, and it is so because I say it is so.” Volume III, p. 65.
That is how God looks upon those who have trusted Christ as Savior and Lord of their lives. God is saying to us: ‘You have accepted my verdict about your lost position and sinfulness in my sight. Then accept with the same certainty my verdict that I have declared you to be righteous in and through Jesus Christ. It is a finished work. There is no difference between those two declarations.
God declares that when the Lord Jesus Christ died, I died with him.
God declares that when Jesus Christ was buried my sins were buried with him.
God declares that when the Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead I was raised with him.
God declares that when the Lord Jesus Christ ascended to Heaven I was taken up to heaven with him.
God declares that when Jesus Christ took his seat on the throne of the Father in Heaven I was seated in heavenly places with him.
And because we are in Christ, then that is how God sees every believer, seated with Christ.
God has declared us righteous.
The Judge who once declared me guilty has not now declared me free…no, he has declared me righteous.
The flat declaration of the Creator of the Universe is that all have sinned and as a result have fallen short of the glory of God.
The idea behind the words “have fallen short of the Glory of God” is that of a complete lack or of want in the sense of being devoid of something. We would also see it in people who have gotten financially involved to the point at which their liabilities exceed their assets and they choose to go bankrupt to reorganize their financial affairs. So All have sinned and are bankrupt of the glory of God.
The word was also used of “missing the season” in the time of Christ. It was used of a farmer who did not get his seed in the ground on time and failed to get a crop. He missed the season. In using this word we could translate the phrase “for all have sinned and have missed the season of the glory of God.
However we translate the word…it has the sense of “and are falling short of the glory of God.”
It is a continuous action that is in view here. We have sinned and we are constantly falling short of the glory of God.
Perhaps we could illustrate the point in the following manner:
After World War I, there were tens of thousands of American soldiers left in France whose supreme desire was to go home as quickly as possible. One day a messenger came with a message from General Pershing’s headquarters that 2,700 men were to be chosen to march in the peace parades of London, Paris, Brussels and Rome.
Some of the men thought it would be really great to travel Europe at the government’s expense. As the men read on, they discovered that there were two conditions imposed as standards for selection to this prestigious assignment. The first was that each person chosen for this duty had to have a clean military record. It was the second condition that caused them some consternation: every candidate for selection had to be at least one meter and eighty-six centimeters tall. No one knew what a meter and eighty-six centimeters was in feet and inches.
As a result they began comparing themselves to each other. The men got into arguments as to their relative heights, and soon they were standing back to back to see who the tallest man in their company was. Finally, they knew their comparative heights from Slim down to Shorty. Slim was very proud and told them all that he would send them a post card from Rome and that he would take a look at the English girls for the rest of them. Poor Shorty he did not even have a chance.
Their Lieutenant coming back from leave heard of the plan. He knew enough French to go into the village and bring back a meter stick. Soon there was a mark on the wall of the required height. Now the men were no longer measuring themselves against themselves. They had to go up against a mark on the wall that was unchangeable according to the orders from headquarters.
One or two of the men backed up to the mark only to discover that they were an inch or so short of the mark. Some men merely looked at the mark and knew there was no hope of meeting the requirement. Finally, Slim was called and he came to be measured. He puffed himself up to his greatest height and stood there as they measured him. It was discovered just then, that even Slim was too short, though by no more than a quarter of an inch.
Not one of the men in the company qualified by General Pershing’s standard. Of course, General Pershing got his 2,700 men and they marched in the parades. But none of those men came from this company of men. Pershing was not asking for men to be about so tall, but that they fill an absolute requirement. His demand was inflexible. And tall Slim did not march in the parade any more than did short Shorty.
Let’s close with this application:
God is in His Heaven and he is telling men on what basis they may enter in to live with Him forever. He has the right to make his own rules. They present us with an absolute requirement.
The rule God has made for entry into His Heaven is that men shall measure up to His glory, and be as perfect as He is.
God Almighty has put up His perfect standard. He measures you by it and declares that you are short and can never do any thing to meet his requirements.
He then proceeds, by the same method, to declare righteous the ungodly who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. All have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God.
What of us…here today who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and have accepted his death on the cross as the sacrifice for our sin? What are we to do? Understanding what we have considered together today, I would pose this to you: Rest in the work He has done for you, which is all sufficient and which alone will satisfy God. If we will completely stop trusting in our selves and trust Christ, God will count you righteous in His Son Jesus Christ.
--Dennis Gleason
