If you had a minute in an elevator to explain to someone how we can be right with God, what would you say? It’s called an elevator speech. You may recite John 3:16. You may share a brief version of your conversion story. I think if Paul had a minute in an elevator, he would recite four key verses from Romans to explain how we can be saved. What are the four key verses?
All Lost
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
The first key verse is Romans 3:23. We are all lost. We are all under sin. Verse 23 is an important starting point of the gospel because it tells us who we are and where we are. In this verse God diagnoses our condition – our true corruption, our true need. He says, “No one is righteous. No one is seeking God. No one does good, not a single one!” Imagine three people try to swim from Hawaii to Japan. One cannot swim at all; he sinks as soon as he gets out of his depth. The next is a weak swimmer; he flounders for sixty feet before drowning. The third is a championship swimmer and swims strongly for a long time. But after thirty miles he is struggling; after forty he is sinking; after fifty miles he drowns. Is one more drowned than the others? No! It doesn’t matter at all which swam further; none were anywhere near Japan, and each ends as dead as the others.[1] In the same way, the religious person may trust in morality and the unreligious person may indulge in sensuality, and neither comes close to a righteous heart. Here Paul is not talking about fruits of sin, but about the root, our sinful nature (cf. Eph 2:3). The religious person may not be as sinful as the unreligious person. But both of them are equally lost, equally condemned to perish. We “alike are all under sin” (3:9). By nature, we are not morally good. By nature we are morally bad. You may say: “Paul, I am not that bad. I don't steal, kill, lie much, or swear much, and I give to some charities.” But that is not the main question. The main question is: Do you love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength? Do you love his Son, Jesus Christ? A natural man may search profoundly for the truth, but he does not honor God, love God, or obey God (cf. 1 Cor 2:14; Col 3:6). This is God’s diagnose of our condition: we are all lost.
The Point of No Return
“For the wages of sin is death,
The second key verse is Romans 6:23. There are the consequences of sin. And the ultimate consequence of sin is death. Then, after that, what happens? The Bible says, “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” (Heb 9:27) We will all stand before the judgment of God. I remember an awful story where the human condition is like a vulture whose is flying, looking for carrion. And he sees a dead goat on a big ice flow in the Niagara River. And then he sours down and he lands and begins to eat and he watches the waterfall. This vulture has eaten dead animals on ice flows and he knows the right second when he can get off the ice flow. And he knows what is coming. But he is eating and he shouldn’t be there. He should be soaring. But he is eating and just when he sees the waterfall ready to come, he stretches his broad, self-sufficient wings and his talons are frozen solid in the ice and he goes over that waterfall.[2] That’s where most people are today. That’s where we are and where we are going: sin, death, and judgment. The point of Romans 6:23, and the point of this story is: Don’t stay with sin, turn away from sin, flee from God’s coming wrath right now, because when you think the hour is right and you stretch your wings, it would be too late. Esau begged to repent with tears, but he couldn’t find repentance (Heb 12:17). It was too late. He had passed the point of no return. So don’t stay with sin. Flee from sin now. Then, how can we flee from sin?
Jesus, God’s Way of Salvation
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
We can find the solution in our third key verse, Romans 5:8. Jesus is God’s way of salvation. God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. Then, why did Jesus have to die? Could God not found another way for our sins to be forgiven than Jesus dying on the cross? In order to answer this question, let us think about the story of David and Bathsheba. One night Bathsheba is taking a bath. At that time King David was supposed to be on the battlefield. But instead, he is walking on the roof of the palace. And he sees her and he wants her and he gets her because he is king and she gets pregnant and now he is in trouble. He tries to cover his sin by sending her husband, Uriah, to Bathsheba. But Uriah was too loyal to go back home and rest. He slept at the palace with other king’s servants. So David kills Uriah and brings Bathsheba to his palace, and she becomes his wife. Then, God sends Prophet Nathan, who tells the parable of the little sheep. David gets furious at the guy who steals the one little sheep. Nathan says to him, “You are the man!” And David says, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nathan in the name of God says, “The Lord has taken away your sin.” Yes, God is merciful. But if you were the father of Uriah listening to this thing. The Lord has taken away his sin. You would say, “Just like that? He raped my daughter-in-law. He killed my son!” Any judge on the bench who does that is impeached. God should be impeached except for one thing. God killed his Son to show that he is righteous as well as merciful. God killed his Son to show that he wasn’t scorning the life of Uriah or the sanctity of Bathsheba. So why did Jesus have to die? The holy God cannot let sin go unpunished. He kept his promise to send and sacrifice His Son to bear our sins. Jesus is the only one who can take away the sin of the likes of a David – you and me!
Saved through Faith
“That if you confess with your mouth,
"Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart
And now we are closing in on the climax of the gospel. The fourth key verse is Romans 10:9. We are saved through faith. (cf. Eph 2:8) But what is that faith through which we are saved? First, saving faith is to confess, “Jesus is my Lord.” In Jesus’ time the Roman Empire declared that Caesar is Lord and required all the people in the empire to acknowledge it. Many of the early Christians refused to comprise this confession and died a martyr. With this background to acknowledge Jesus as Lord is a life-and-death matter. It requires a serious commitment. It means Jesus is the absolute Master of everything. It means we are not the lord of our life. It means we are His servants. It means we no longer go wherever we like, meet whomever we like, spend time and money whatever we like. Instead, when he says, “Go,” and we go. When he says, “Stay,” and we stay. Trust and obey.
Second, saving faith is to believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. In Romans 3:25 Paul says that we are made right with God when we believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood (NLT). In other words, to acknowledge or admire Jesus as a great man, or as an inspirational example is not saving faith. So Paul proclaims in 1 Corinthians 2:2, “I resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified!”
Third and last, saving faith is God’s gift. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (ESV). Faith is a divine evidence and conviction. When the Holy Spirit has the eyes of our soul opened and enlightened, only then we see the spiritual world, we see the eternal world. And we have the assurance that Christ loved me and gave himself for me, as well as he so loved the world. We have the assurance and hear the Holy Spirit himself bear witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. And we have surpassing peace and unspeakable joy. How can this be? With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Repentance is God’s work. Regeneration (born-again) is God’s work. Assurance is God’s work. Salvation belongs to God. Praise God!
In Numbers 21 the people of Israel keeps complaining against God and against Moses, “There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the Lord sends poisonous snakes among the people, and many are bitten and die. And they repent and ask Moses to pray to the Lord. So Moses pray for the people. And God says to him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. Anyone is bitten and looks at it will live.” Verse 9 says, “… Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.” There is no logical connection between the bronze snake and healing. Only one condition here is faith. Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up (John 3:14) … And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself (12:32). So look to Jesus by faith! Look to Jesus as you are! Look to Jesus now! He is ready. He is waiting for you. He is at the door! Let your inmost soul cry out,
[1] Timothy Keller, Romans 1-7 For You: For reading, for feeding, for leading, (The Good Book Company, 2014), Kindle Locations 892-897 of 2850.
[2] John Piper, “The Most Important Paragraph in the Bible,” Desiring God (http://www.desiringgod. /messages/the-most-important-paragraph-in-the-bible).
All Lost
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
(Romans 3:23, NIV)
The first key verse is Romans 3:23. We are all lost. We are all under sin. Verse 23 is an important starting point of the gospel because it tells us who we are and where we are. In this verse God diagnoses our condition – our true corruption, our true need. He says, “No one is righteous. No one is seeking God. No one does good, not a single one!” Imagine three people try to swim from Hawaii to Japan. One cannot swim at all; he sinks as soon as he gets out of his depth. The next is a weak swimmer; he flounders for sixty feet before drowning. The third is a championship swimmer and swims strongly for a long time. But after thirty miles he is struggling; after forty he is sinking; after fifty miles he drowns. Is one more drowned than the others? No! It doesn’t matter at all which swam further; none were anywhere near Japan, and each ends as dead as the others.[1] In the same way, the religious person may trust in morality and the unreligious person may indulge in sensuality, and neither comes close to a righteous heart. Here Paul is not talking about fruits of sin, but about the root, our sinful nature (cf. Eph 2:3). The religious person may not be as sinful as the unreligious person. But both of them are equally lost, equally condemned to perish. We “alike are all under sin” (3:9). By nature, we are not morally good. By nature we are morally bad. You may say: “Paul, I am not that bad. I don't steal, kill, lie much, or swear much, and I give to some charities.” But that is not the main question. The main question is: Do you love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength? Do you love his Son, Jesus Christ? A natural man may search profoundly for the truth, but he does not honor God, love God, or obey God (cf. 1 Cor 2:14; Col 3:6). This is God’s diagnose of our condition: we are all lost.
The Point of No Return
“For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
(Romans 6:23, NIV)
Jesus, God’s Way of Salvation
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
(Romans 5:8, NIV)
Saved through Faith
“That if you confess with your mouth,
"Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart
that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
(Romans 10:9, NIV)
And now we are closing in on the climax of the gospel. The fourth key verse is Romans 10:9. We are saved through faith. (cf. Eph 2:8) But what is that faith through which we are saved? First, saving faith is to confess, “Jesus is my Lord.” In Jesus’ time the Roman Empire declared that Caesar is Lord and required all the people in the empire to acknowledge it. Many of the early Christians refused to comprise this confession and died a martyr. With this background to acknowledge Jesus as Lord is a life-and-death matter. It requires a serious commitment. It means Jesus is the absolute Master of everything. It means we are not the lord of our life. It means we are His servants. It means we no longer go wherever we like, meet whomever we like, spend time and money whatever we like. Instead, when he says, “Go,” and we go. When he says, “Stay,” and we stay. Trust and obey.
Second, saving faith is to believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. In Romans 3:25 Paul says that we are made right with God when we believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood (NLT). In other words, to acknowledge or admire Jesus as a great man, or as an inspirational example is not saving faith. So Paul proclaims in 1 Corinthians 2:2, “I resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified!”
Third and last, saving faith is God’s gift. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (ESV). Faith is a divine evidence and conviction. When the Holy Spirit has the eyes of our soul opened and enlightened, only then we see the spiritual world, we see the eternal world. And we have the assurance that Christ loved me and gave himself for me, as well as he so loved the world. We have the assurance and hear the Holy Spirit himself bear witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. And we have surpassing peace and unspeakable joy. How can this be? With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Repentance is God’s work. Regeneration (born-again) is God’s work. Assurance is God’s work. Salvation belongs to God. Praise God!
In Numbers 21 the people of Israel keeps complaining against God and against Moses, “There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the Lord sends poisonous snakes among the people, and many are bitten and die. And they repent and ask Moses to pray to the Lord. So Moses pray for the people. And God says to him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. Anyone is bitten and looks at it will live.” Verse 9 says, “… Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.” There is no logical connection between the bronze snake and healing. Only one condition here is faith. Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up (John 3:14) … And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself (12:32). So look to Jesus by faith! Look to Jesus as you are! Look to Jesus now! He is ready. He is waiting for you. He is at the door! Let your inmost soul cry out,
Come in, come in, blessed Jesus!
Come in today, Come in to stay,
Come into my heart, Lord Jesus!
[2] John Piper, “The Most Important Paragraph in the Bible,” Desiring God (http://www.desiringgod. /messages/the-most-important-paragraph-in-the-bible).
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