Romans 03 Round Two: The Law is Perfect... Gee Thanks

What if the Law wasn’t a ladder to climb but a mirror that reveals the truth we’d rather avoid? Romans 3 confronts our illusions of “good enough” and then opens a door no human could build. We walk through Paul’s tight logic—why everyone is under sin, why the Law removes excuses rather than earns credit, and how God remains just while declaring sinners righteous through Jesus.

We unpack the tension people still feel today: if grace saves, do rules matter? Paul says faith doesn’t trash the Law; it finally fulfills it. Once we trust Christ, the standard of holiness moves from an impossible demand to a transforming desire. We explore how justification by faith humbles our pride, dismantles religious elitism, and invites both insiders and outsiders into the same grace. Along the way, we tackle common objections—Does more sin mean more grace? Is God unfair?—and show how Paul’s answers cut through the noise with clarity and courage.

You’ll hear why “but now” is the hinge of hope, how Jesus’ sacrifice satisfies justice without sacrificing mercy, and what it looks like to cling to Christ like a drowning person grabs a life preserver. This is not a call to try harder; it’s a call to trust deeper, then walk forward with joy. Join us as we move from exposure to rescue, from boasting to gratitude, and from fear to a faith that actually changes how we live. If this helped you see Romans 3 with fresh eyes, subscribe, share with a friend who needs hope, and leave a quick review to help more people find the conversation.

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Series Context
• 0:41 Community Shoutouts And CTA
• 1:04 Why The Law Matters And Hurts
• 2:40 Setting Up Romans 1–2
• 3:56 Reading Romans 3: Advantages And Objections
• 6:02 All Under Sin: Psalm Quotations
• 7:34 Purpose Of The Law: No More Excuses
• 8:41 Enter Jesus: Righteousness By Faith
• 10:15 Faith, Not Works; One God For All
• 11:01 Do We Void The Law? Fulfill By Faith
• 12:05 Main Takeaway: Cling To Christ
• 13:46 Closing Prayer And Encouragement

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the BibleBreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's Word together. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Romans chapter 3. If I'd give this one a title, it would be The Law is Perfect. Gee, thanks. If I didn't realize how bad a person I was, now I do. So thank you so much. We're going to look at the reason why God gave the law, the Old Testament first five books of Moses, why that's important, and why it also stinks at the same time. But as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share, and subscribe the video. Make sure you hit that subscribe button, just knock it in the face. And also, if you're listening to this on the podcast, you are my favorites. I love you so much. Make sure you are sharing this as well. You are posting it on the social medias, all the things. Leave us a five-star review. Go to Facebook, to the Facebook group, Bible Breakdown Discussion. And I would love to know what you were getting out of this. I have this picture in my mind. So while we're messing around with this new style, I have this picture in my mind of you and I sitting across the coffee table, sharing a cup of coffee, and just gushing about God's word together. And that's what I love to do is I just see myself as a fellow traveler with you and as a tour guide through God's word. God has written this to reveal himself to us. And so why wouldn't we want to read his word? And it's a lot of times because we feel like we don't understand it. And so that's why one passage at a time, we're digging into God's Word. And the more we dig, the more we find. And this is one of those. And I'm going to ask you this question. I don't, I don't know if you've ever done this before, but um, my wife is brilliant. Okay. If you know my wife, you know that she is very intelligent, especially when it comes to things like math. Like she's really good at it. And I cannot tell you how many times I have gone up to her and I have said, Hey, babe, can you help me with this math issue? Like trying to figure out something, whatever it is. And she will say, Sure, but I tell you what, let me tell you how to do it. And she doesn't do this as much anymore, but she used to would tell me especially, let me show you how to do it so that you can do it yourself next time. And I would say, No, no, don't do that. I'm not great at math. Just just tell me. She's like, no, let me show you. And so then she would show me this complex method of figuring out this math problem. And I would say, Thank you so much. You have now confirmed for me that I'm an idiot. Can you just give me the right answer? It just what was intended to be good only confirmed that I'm never I'm never gonna be good at math. All right, that is not my gift. Well, that is exactly what's going on in Romans chapter 3. The apostle Paul is writing this letter out ahead of him going to the city of Rome. He wanted to visit the city of Rome. We're gonna see in chapter 16, he got a lot of friends that are already in Rome and he's shouting out everybody, what's up, what's up, what's up? He's talking to him, it's gonna be great. But before that, he is sharing with them this is the gospel, this is the good news. The theme of Romans is that the greatness of God, the beautiful thing about God and all creation is that the creator came for all of us. And so he has to start off with it being bad news before he can get to the beautiful thing, which is the creator came for all of us. So in chapter one, he says, Hey, you know what? God did something great, we don't need to be ashamed of it. But at the same time, what we do need to be ashamed of is that at some point all of us turned from God by doing all these horrible things. Chapter two, yesterday, was saying that those who don't have the law have no excuse. Those that do have the law have no excuse. All of us are found needing God. And so what he's gonna do today is in chapter three, he's gonna say, God's faithful and that he gave us the law, but we're gonna see what he gave us the law to do, and then he's gonna talk about the beauty of Christ. So let's dive into this. So if you have your NLT Bible with me, you got your coffee cup ready, let's dive into God's word together and let's read this and we see. Um, just I just let's just get into it. It's gonna be great. Chapter three. Then what's the advantage of being a Jew? Is there any value in the ceremony of circumcision? To which all guys are like, uh, yeah, let's talk about that for a minute. Verse 2 yes, there are great benefits. First of all, the Jew is entrusted with the whole revelation of God. Other words, the five books of Moses, the Torah, the law of God, where God made a covenant with mankind. Chapter three, or verse three. True, some of them were unfaithful, but just because they were unfaithful does not mean that God will be unfaithful. Of course not. Even if everyone is a liar, God is true. As the scriptures say about him, you will be proved right in what you say, and you will win your case in court. But some say, our sinfulness serves as a good purpose, for it helps people see how righteous God is. Isn't it unfair then for him to punish us? This is merely a human point of view. And the answer is stop being an idiot. Of course not. Like, imagine that for a moment. Imagine you have kids and you set up rules in your house, and one of your kids comes up and says, You know what, mom, you know what, dad? I'm gonna break every one of those rules just to prove how good those rules are. Do you want to be punished now? Or so they're like, that's the you know, Paul's being nice and he's saying, You're an idiot, let's move on. If God were not entirely fair, how would he be qualified to judge the world? But somebody else might still argue, how can God condemn me as a sinner if my dishonesty highlights his the truthfulness and bring him more glory? And some people even slander us by claiming that we say the more we sin, the better it is. Those who say such things deserve to be condemned. Or Paul's being really nice, but he's saying, those people can they they deserve to be beat up. They're idiots. Because what Paul was doing is he was going around the Gentile world and he was saying, Look, you don't have to be a Jew to be a Christian. You need to follow the principles of the Old Testament. You need to follow that because those things help you become right with God and know God, but you're ultimately saved by grace, not by works. So you don't have to be circumcised in the flesh because you get circumcised of the heart. You don't have to go to those feasts, you worship God in other ways. And so a lot of the Jewish people are coming behind him and going, he's just saying, sin all you want. And he's saying, Can someone slap that dude for me? That is not what I'm saying at all. This is what he's saying. Verse 9. Well then, should we conclude that the Jews are better than others? No, not at all. For we have already shown that all people, whether Jew or Gentile, are under the power of sin. In other words, all of us have fell short of the glory of God. And he says it like this he's quoting from an Old Testament book of the Bible. I believe it's Isaiah, nope, excuse me, it's Psalms, and he says this no one is righteous, not even one. No one is truly wise, no one is seeking God. All have turned away, all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one. Their talk is foul, like the stench of an open grave. That's disgusting. Their tongues are filled with lies. Snake venom drips from their lips, good heavens. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, they rush to commit murder, destruction and misery are always following them. They don't know where to find peace. They have no fear of God at all. Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given. For its purpose is to keep people from having excuses and to show the entire world how guilty they are before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. So there you go. The reason why the law was there is to show us the perfect holy standard of God. So chapter one of Romans says we all turned our back on God and went our own way, and we fell into this depth of sin. Chapter two says, not only do we fall in the depth of sin, but it's not just Jews, it's not just Gentiles, it's everybody. Everybody is an equal opportunity offender by God's law. So what he's saying so far is then God sent the righteous law, the first five books of Moses. He sent the law to then show us where we had fallen from, the righteous holy standard of God. So we're down here, down at the bottom, if you're listening to this, and then God puts the the marker way up at top and goes, This is what holiness looks like. The problem is, is we look from the bottom up at the holiness and we go, That's a long way up there. As a matter of fact, that's an impossible standard. And the answer is that's true. It's impossible. Turns out we need a savior. Enter Jesus. Verse 21. But now God has shown us a way to be made right with Him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the written writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is the truth true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned. We all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty of our sins. For God presented Jesus as a sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe about Jesus sacrifice, sacrificing his life, shedding his blood, and this sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past. For he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe, that is, to put their trust wholly and completely in Jesus. Can we boast then that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No. Because our acquittal is not based on being perfect, obeying the law, it is based on faith. So we are made right with God through faith, not by our ability to perfectly obey the law. Verse 29. After all, is God the God of the Jew only? Isn't he also the God of the Gentiles? Of course he is. There is only one God, and he makes people right with himself only by faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles. Well then, if we emphasize faith, does this mean that we can forget about the law? Of course not. In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law. So quickly, Paul is saying, we don't get saved by being perfect. We don't receive forgiveness by being perfect. We don't, we don't, we don't. So then let's just throw the law out. Absolutely not. It's the law that helps us understand what God's holy standard is. So then once we are free from our sin, we're able to walk toward that holy standard, not so that we can be received, but because we already have been. He's talking about some deep stuff here. So let's review and we'll finish up our time together. Chapter one, everyone turned their back on God. Everyone fell into this depth of sin. Chapter two, doesn't matter who you are, Jew or Gentile, all have fallen short of the glorious holy standard of God. Chapter three. Then God sent his law to show us how far we had fallen, not to shame us, but to show us what perfection looks like. So that we would look up and realize we needed a savior. Then came Jesus. Jesus who became that perfect sacrifice for us, so that by putting our hope in him, allowing his perfect sacrifice to wash away our sin, we could then be made right with God through our open, open declaration of faith in Christ Jesus. That doesn't mean we throw away the law, it just means now the law becomes the way we live out our faith with God, not so that we can have faith in God. So what do we do with this? I think the main thing that we do is we realize that we need a savior. We need Jesus. Jesus didn't come to make us feel better, He came to bring dead things to life. Salvation is not deciding, salvation is declaring and giving our lives completely over to Him. It's the idea of get with me the mental picture of someone who is drowning in the ocean. They're drowning in the ocean and someone throws out a life preserver to them. Well, they can just believe that that life preserver is there, or they can cling to it with everything that they have. Jesus isn't interested in just you just believing that he exists, or even that he's God. But what are you gonna do with that belief? What we do is is we cling to him with all of our heart, say, I need salvation. We declare him openly and allow him to wash away all of our sin. And if you've allowed Christ to do that, God has become the righteous, holy standard for you. And so now you get to run after him, you get to live in his kingdom, you get to pursue holiness, not so that you'll be received by him, but because you already have been. And that's the glorious good news that the most beautiful thing in all the creation is that the creator came for us. Let's pray together. Father, thank you so much for your goodness. Thank you for sending your son to die on the cross for us, to be that righteous, holy standard that we couldn't attain to. All of us listening to this at some point in our life have sinned. We want to admit it, God, we've sinned many times. But you, God, did the thing that we couldn't do. You were the perfect sacrifice. You washed away our sin. You made a way for us to be made right with you so that we could live in your presence. And we celebrate that today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. One of the beautiful things ever is that in all of creation, the Creator came for us. And his word says this in Romans chapter 1, verse 16. It says, For I am not ashamed of the good news about Christ. Why? Say it with me. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes. I hope you have a good time reflecting on this and reflecting about God's goodness. And I will see you tomorrow for Romans chapter 4.