Today, we said goodbye (happy retirement) to our Pastor at church. He has been in our congregation for 16 years and is retiring from ministry after 25 years as a Pastor. It was a bittersweet moment because he has earned this day and we are happy for him to enjoy the days ahead; those days that he’s dreamed of his whole life. Yet selfishly, we didn’t want him to leave because we enjoy his voice and words of encouragement each week. One of the scripture readings we heard today were the verses below. 

Occasionally, the verses just say it so well that I really don’t need to comment – these are those types of verses. I want to leave you with these comments as you read about faith and the law. Whether you have spent your life as a Pastor or spent it doing things that you aren’t proud to admit, the one thing that unifies us a brothers and sisters in Christ is our faith that Jesus is our redeemer and His death is what justifies us before God, our Father. A Pastor and a sinner will see each other in Heaven because of God’s Grace and our faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:19-30

¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. ²⁰Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

Righteousness Through Faith

²¹But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. ²²This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, ²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ²⁵God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— ²⁶he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

²⁷Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. ²⁸For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. ²⁹Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, ³⁰since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. ³¹Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.