The Despair of "Not.Even.One"

Why do you think that so many people have no peace, why they instead slog through life in despair?
The many reasons we could list generally fall into two categories:
1.  Despair is the response to our own shortcomings.
2.  Despair is the response to events we cannot control.

We are going to walk through Romans 3 this morning, a chapter that contains some of the most-often quoted verses for the Bible.
It is here we find despair's antidote.

Paul has just finished lambasting the Jews, destroying their belief in their own superiority.  I can imagine that they are floundering in despair, having had their "supports" kicked right out from under them.  This is reflected in verse 1, where Paul asks the obvious question:

"What's the advantage in being a Jew?"

I want you to imagine someone coming along, coming to your congregation and telling you that some major tenet (or tenets) of your faith are worthless.  That's about how these Jews felt.  It is how all people, with an established "religion", feel when they are slammed in the face with the brilliance of God's true salvation.  It is not found in "religions" or in the keeping of a bunch of rituals.

Rituals, unless grounded in an already settled salvation only serve to distract from the truth.

Paul goes on, then, to tell the Jewish Christians that the number one advantage to being Jewish is that God entrusted to them the writings of the Law and the prophets, writings which served several purposes.
1.  The Old Testament writings revealed to the Jews the nature of God, "who He is", insomuch as they could comprehend.
2.  The Old Testament writings revealed to the Jews the centrality of faith (although a lot of them missed this key teaching), and to expose the human impossibility of perfectly keeping the whole Law.
3.  The Old Testament writings showed the Jews excellent rules for "clean" living.  These kept the Jews a physically strong and healthy people, one of the key factors in their enduring as a people (although scattered) until this day.

Those are just a few, key purposes.  It's little wonder Paul listed the Scriptures as the number 1 advantage being a Jew.

However, when it comes to earning a righteous, holy standing before a holy God - - that is, taking care of our own "sin problem" - - we are all on equal footing.  Busted.  The Jews' involvement with God's revelation did not serve then, nor does it serve now, to make them right with God.  Jew or Gentile, we are all alike under the crushing burden of our sin, all despairing in the same sinking boat, apart from the salvation of Jesus Christ. Without Him - - -

"There is no one righteous, not even one;

There is no one who understands;

There is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away,

Together they have become worthless;

There is no one who does good,

Not even one" 

Romans 3:10-12

NIV

Here, Paul quotes Psalm 14:1-3 and 53:1-3, catapulting the Old Testament into the New, to hammer home the truth: works-based salvation is totally ineffective in pleasing God.

Fortunately, God did not leave us there, to wallow in our despair.  Are you ready?  Here's hope!
Here's grace!  Hallelujah!  God's perfect grace, to our rescue!

21-24 But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

25-26 God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.

Romans 3:21-26  The Message

This is the central message of Romans.  This is the heart of "the gospel".  God put His love on the line for us, by giving His Son in sacrificial death, while we were no use whatsoever to Him. Everything else in the letter to the Romans is reiteration of this passage.

The despair of Not.Even.One. is answered by the pure gift of The.One.And.Only!

Our closing prayer today will be from Psalm 86:12-13 (NIV).

12I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart;

I will glorify your name forever.

13For great is your love toward me;

you have delivered me from the depths,

from the realm of the dead.