Sermon

[Romans 3.21_31] 2026.08.02 How Can God Forgive and Still Be Good?  

Sermon Title:  How Can God Forgive and Still Be Good?  

Passage: Romans 3:21-31

Big Idea: Since all have sinned, all are justified by faith in Jesus Christ, whom God presented as an atoning sacrifice to show his righteousness.

1.      The righteousness of God comes through faith in Christ

2.      The righteousness of God is demonstrated through the atonement of Christ

3.      The righteousness of God is received with empty hands

A few years ago, I got lost in the streets of Newtown after I dropped my parents at the airport.

If you’ve been there, you’d know that the streets are very narrow.

Back then, I had a big Toyota Landcruiser; we call it the big red car.

As I was driving the big red car very slowly in one of the narrower streets, I was too close to one of the cars that was parked on the side.

As a result, the side of Big Red was all scratched.

The other car, though, had only a minor scratch on its side-mirror.

I was very sorry about it and got out of the car to look for the owner.

I couldn’t find him and so I left a note with the person who saw the whole thing.

I still haven’t heard from the owner yet; I’m not even sure whether he’s seen the very tiny scratch.

However, if he does call, I would be happy to pay him.

He might say, “No worries, mate. I couldn’t even see it” or he might say, “That’s $1,000 please!”

I would’ve loved him to just let me off the hook, but I also understand if he wanted me to pay up, though probably not $1000.

Sometimes, when we think about forgiveness, we tend to think of it as letting someone off the hook.

The person might have done something wrong, but if it’s not too bad, we might tell him to forget it; we might tell him that he’s off the hook.

But what if it’s something bad?

What if I crashed into his car?

Would he still let me off the hook?

Over the past few weeks, we’ve read that there’s no one righteous, not even one, in God’s eyes.

All of us have sinned against him.

Shouldn’t God just let us off the hook?

Shouldn’t God just forgive us?

But what if we have committed big sins, like murder?

Should God still let us off the hook, then?

How does God justify the unrighteous and still be good?

That’s what we’ll be looking at today.

And so, please open up to Romans chapter three, beginning from verse 21.

We’ll see three things:

The righteousness of God comes through faith in Christ

The righteousness of God is demonstrated through the atonement of Christ

The righteousness of God is received with empty hands

Before we begin, let’s pray, “Father, please help us see your righteousness and your mercy even more clearly, that we may praise and glorify your name even more willingly, even more joyfully, for we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen”

1.      The righteousness of God comes through faith in Christ

From Romans chapter one to Romans chapter three, the Bible has shown us that those outside Israel stood guilty before a holy God, and that those inside Israel, who had the law, stood guilty too.

More than that, the Bible tells us that even those of us who are believers in Christ, left to ourselves, are no better than anyone else.

And so, last week, we read that ‘There is no one good, not even one’.

And the last verse we read was this, “For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.”

According to God’s perfect justice, God’s perfect righteousness, not one of us can be justified by the works of the law.

Not one of us is good enough for God.

Yet God has revealed a righteousness of his own, apart from the law, and it comes to us through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ — to all who believe, with no distinction (vv.21–22).

My daughter Caitlyn showed me this little meme earlier this week: “Du bist gut genug” It’s German for “You are good enough”.

Has anyone seen it?

Well, I haven’t heard the whole song, so the singer may be good enough for something, or someone, but not for God.

“Aber wir sind nicht gut genug für Gott”.

But we are not good enough for God.

However, after explaining to us that we are not good enough for God, the Bible has a beautiful word for us.

It’s the word, “But”.

We are not good enough for God, however, verse 21, “But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets.”

We are unrighteous, but… We are guilty, but...

Usually when we hear that, it sounds like an excuse that we’re making for ourselves.

However, the reason for our hope, despite our guilt, is what God has done.

God has revealed a righteousness apart from the law.

This righteousness from God is found apart from the law.

It’s a righteousness that’s not earned by us keeping the law.

It’s a righteousness that we didn’t get by being a good person, inside or outside.

This is a righteousness, a right standing before God, for guilty sinners who didn’t keep the law.

And though this righteousness has been revealed by God to be apart from the law, it’s also one which the Law and the Prophets attested.

This righteousness does not contradict God’s laws; instead, it’s affirmed by God’s laws.

The law says that this righteousness apart from the law is good.

What is this righteousness?

Verse 22, “The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe,  since there is no distinction.”

To have faith in Jesus Christ is to trust in Jesus Christ.

It is to believe who he is and what he’s done.

To have faith in Christ is to have Jesus as the focus of our faith.

Believers of Jesus trust Jesus.

Believers of Jesus don’t just believe in anything; they believe in Jesus.

And because believers believe Jesus, they have God’s righteousness.

God’s righteousness comes to those who believe in Jesus.

Believers have God’s righteousness not because they’re good, not because they’re better, but because they trust in Jesus, the best gift that God’s given us.

It is through believing in Jesus alone that we receive God’s righteousness.

This is the only way.

Jesus is the Only Way.

A few years ago, there was a very popular Christian song.

The chorus goes like this: One Way, Jesus, you’re the only one that I could live for.

One Way, Jesus, you’re the only one that I could live for.

The Bible tells us that there is no distinction.

God has only given one way, and the name of that way is Jesus.

Why is there only one way?

Our memory verse, “For all have sinned  and fall short of the  glory of God;” There is no distinction between how we’re saved.

It’s not one way for the Christians, and another way for the atheists, and a third way for the Buddhists.

There’s only one way, because all have sinned, every one of us has sinned and we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God.

Everyone is in that category, without distinction, whether the person was born before Jesus’ times or after Jesus’ time,

Whether the person had heard the gospel or not.

That’s because in the beginning, we, the human race, were made to reflect God’s glory.

But because we have sinned, because we chose to turn our backs on God, we became sinners, and we’ve fallen short of God’s glory.

Rather than reflecting God’s glory, we’ve become inglorious.

Rather than walking as children of light, we live as creatures of the dark.

There is no distinction; all have fallen short!

Everyone in this church has fallen short, and everyone outside of the Church has fallen short.

There are no loopholes; there is no alternative way to see God’s righteousness.

If you want to see God’s righteousness, if you want to experience God’s righteousness, Jesus is the only way.

Every now and then, someone would tell me what if there was a hypothetical person who didn’t hear about the good news of Jesus.

Wouldn’t it be unfair for that person to not be saved?

Surely there’s another way that God justifies the person!

Surely there’s another way that the person can make the person good enough to enter heaven.

There are some, of course, who use that question to try to say that God is unfair.

However, every now and then, there are those who are genuinely concerned for those who have never heard about the gospel of Jesus.

They’re genuinely concerned that those who have not heard will not be saved.

And so what do they do, they become missionaries.

They become ministers.

They give up the relative material safety, they forsake this world’s fame, and they go to people who have not known about the gospel of Jesus, because they’re genuinely concerned for their eternal destiny.

As for those who only treat the eternal destiny of people as a curious philosophical question, they are often still unaware of how far we as a people have fallen away from God’s glory and how deserving we are of God’s judgement.

Indeed, they are often unaware of their own predicament.

These are the ones who need to go beyond asking a superficial question about the hypothetical unbeliever to the unbeliever staring at themselves in the mirror.

They need to ask themselves, “For all have sinned, for I have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God. God’s word speaks to me now. Have I turned back to him?”

And they need to pray, “God save me, an inglorious sinner”.

They need to turn back to God by trusting in Jesus, as they trust his words, trust in what he’s done and to trust him with their whole lives, holding nothing back.

It’s only as they put their faith in Jesus that they will have the righteousness of God.

I was going through Romans chapter 3 last week with the youth and told them that “No one is righteous, not even one.”

However, one of the youths kept reminding me, “Except for Jesus. No one is righteous, except for Jesus.”

He was so eager to get to this part of Romans chapter three.

And he’s right, of course.

No one is righteous, except for Jesus.

Jesus is God’s righteousness revealed.

There will be times this week, when you will feel guilty for the sin that you’ve done or you will be made to feel guilty for a sin that you’ve committed.

And it’s appropriate that you feel the weight of your sin and come before Jesus in repentance for forgiveness.

However, once you’ve confessed your sin, thank God for forgiving your sins, because of Jesus.

Because you have placed your trust in Jesus, your sins are forgiven.

You have been justified.

You have been made right.

As another Christian song reminds us, “When Satan tempts me to despair, and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see him there, who made an end to all my sin.”

Thank God for justifying you, an inglorious sinner, in the glorious Jesus Christ!

2.      The righteousness of God is demonstrated through the atonement of Christ

While some people made the mistake of seeing that having one way to God is too restrictive, others say the very opposite.

They may say, “God is not restrictive; he’s too lenient! How is it fair that the worst offenders in our society can be forgiven just like that? How is it just that they’re made righteous when they did such heinous crimes? No,” they say, “God is too lenient, too soft. They did the crime and they should do the time (in prison).”

However, what they don’t realise is that though God shows his mercy through Jesus, he also shows his righteousness through Jesus.

For the righteousness of God is demonstrated through the atonement of Christ.

Look with me at verse 24, “they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

To redeem means to pay something in order to bring something or someone back.

It’s a little like this.

A few weeks ago, Jenny and I took the youths to bowling.

For each person who bowled, we got a voucher that we can use to exchange for a little gift at the shop in the bowling alley.

I got this little water gun and also this little basketball.

To get these, I need to give the person at the counter my voucher to redeem these.

I redeemed these gifts for myself.

God has paid the greatest price to declare us right in his eyes.

Our justification came freely for us, but it came at a great price for God.

Contrary to popular belief, forgiveness is not cheap.

Forgiveness is not free.

Forgiveness is not soft.

God has paid a great price to redeem us, to purchase us, so that we can be forgiven.

It would’ve been unjust for God to forgive us without dealing with the injustice that we’ve caused and the sins that we’ve committed.

We ought to have paid for our own redemption, but we couldn’t.

Just as this little basket ball had no power to redeem itself, we couldn’t redeem our way out of God’s judgement.

The price is far too high for us to pay.

However, God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, paid the debt that we owe God, so that from now on, there’s no distinction, for only one way to be justified, to be declared right before God.

It’s only through belief in the Lord Jesus and the redemption he brought that anyone can come before God justified, declared right in God’s eyes.

Far from being unrighteous in forgiving us our sins, God shows himself to be supremely righteous.

The Bible tells us there are at least two ways that God shows his righteousness by the redemption that he made through Jesus.

Look with me at verse 25, “God presented him as the propitiation by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed.”

In the Bible, Jesus is described as the propitiation.

The word propitiation means giving something to a God that turns his anger away from us.

God is rightly angry at us, but he presented us with Jesus, the propitiation, to take away his anger towards us.

Jesus, the Perfect and Holy One, who had always obeyed God and never sinned, died on the cross, to be the propitiation for those who trust in him.

It’s because Jesus the Perfect One died, spilt his blood, that God’s anger towards our sin and our wrongs can be turned away.

If God just overlooks our sins and pretends they are not there, God would be unrighteous.

We had committed sins against God but God showed his restraint by not punishing us as soon as we sinned.

If God did, humanity would not have been going for as long as it’s been.

But now, by the death of Jesus, the price for our wrong has been paid for.

If we trust in Jesus, all the sins we’ve committed, those sins that God had restrained himself from judging us for, God forgives because of Jesus.

God can rightly look at us and not be angry at us, because of the death of Jesus.

God shows his righteousness through the redemption, the propitiation of Jesus.

Look with me also at verse 26, “God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.”

God has declared those who have faith in Jesus as righteous.

In the propitiation of Jesus, in his death on the cross, God has said those who trust in Jesus are made right with him.

This is something that lasts not just for a day, but forever.

Those who have faith in Jesus are not those who simply ticked a ‘cross’ to say that they believed in Jesus.

It’s someone who has faith, a living, continuous, life-encompassing faith, that defines who he is as a person.

It’s not someone who says that he’s a Christian on Sunday morning and then becomes someone else on Sunday afternoons.

It’s someone who lives by faith in Jesus, knowing that God has justified him, made him righteous, because they believe what God’s done in and through Jesus.

This is a person who recognises that God is just, that God is righteous, to forgive an inglorious sinner like him, because God himself had paid the price to make inglorious sinners righteous.

When I was in high school, there was a popular song by a rock musician called “Poison”.

The guy who sang it was “Alice Cooper”.

Alice Cooper used to go to Church.

In fact his father was a minister, as was his grandfather, as was his father-in-law.

As a young man, he knew about Jesus.

However, as he grew older, he got into music and drugs.

His drug addiction was so bad that his wife threatened to leave him.

He then looked at himself in the mirror and saw blood coming down his face.

He could’ve imagined it because he had taken so many drugs.

He was scared of what’s going to happen to him, not just physically, but spiritually, and so he turned back to God.

He said that the doctrine of God’s justice and Jesus’ sacrifice, that is God’s righteousness and Christ’s propitiation, helped him come to Christ “I came to Christ because of my fear of God,” he confessed.

Alice Cooper abandoned Christianity in his youth, did many bad things, but found forgiveness and righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ.

Our God is righteous and he demonstrated his righteousness through the redemption of Jesus Christ.

He’s paid a great price to set believers like you and me free from the tyranny of sin.

How have you responded to his mercy?

Have you experienced the joy, the relief, that comes from knowing that your sins are forgiven?

Or are you still burdened by your sin, still unwilling to confess your wrongs in the presence of the Holy God?

This week, make it your goal to confess your sins before God, daily, and to find his forgiveness in Jesus, daily.

If possible, confess your sins to a fellow brother or sister this week, and ask them to pray for you.

Share the joy of knowing that God’s paid for your sins in the Person of Jesus Christ, so that you can be called righteous in God’s eyes.

Also, write down one household within ten minutes of us — one of the 75 we are praying for by the end of 2026 — and invite them: to church, to a home group, to Father’s Day on 6 September.

Don’t keep the news about God’s forgiveness with yourself; share that joy by bringing that person to church so that they can hear about it.

3.      The righteousness of God is received with empty hands

Since God had paid the full redemption price for our sins, we have nothing to boast before God, for the righteousness of God is received with empty hands.

Look with me at verses 27-28, “Where, then, is boasting?  It is excluded. By what kind of law? By one of works? No, on the contrary, by a law of faith. 28 For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.”

We have absolutely no reason to boast in a gift that God freely gave us.

Earlier this week, I bought a little gift for my nephew Micah.

Micah loves fans.

It’s a phase he’s going through.

As soon as all the cousins and uncles and aunties found out, many of us started to buy fans for Micah.

He now has a fan collection.

You can call him a fan of fans.

Micah didn’t buy any fan; he didn’t earn it.

We gave fans to him purely out of our free will.

And it’s a relatively safe thing to buy (not the metal fans, only the child-safe ones).

Rather than seeing the fan as just another toy, he associates the fan with the person who gave it.

“That’s Grandma’s fan” or “That’s Uncle David’s fan”.

He doesn’t just recognise the gift; he recognises the giver.

Like Micah, we have received a beautiful gift from God.

We’ve received the greatest gift from God.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son.

God gave us his precious Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

We receive God’s gift with an empty hand.

That’s what faith is.

Faith is receiving God’s gift of Jesus with empty hands.

We can bring nothing to God to exchange for this gift.

We can only open our empty hands to God and receive with gratitude.

Faith can be described with two words: Trust and Treasure.

Those who have faith in Jesus will trust in Jesus.

We will trust what he has done; we will also trust that what he says is good.

Because we trust him, we will follow him and obey him.

We will also treasure him.

Jesus is God’s gift that we treasure above everything else.

We will hold on to Jesus even if everything else falls away.

Those who recognise how precious Jesus is will treasure him.

Those who don’t recognise who Jesus is won’t treasure Jesus, because they haven’t received Jesus as God’s gift.

Jesus, the treasure of God, is for all, for, as verses 29-30 tell us, “Or is God the God of Jews only?  Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, ³⁰ since there is one God  who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.”

Whether you’re a Jew or a Gentile, whether you’re young or old, whether you’ve known Jesus all your life or you’ve just started to show interest in him, this precious treasure from God is for you.

God wants you to know Jesus, to trust Him and to find God’s own righteousness through him.

In a while, you’ll see this in action; you will see the Gospel.

I will invite those who believe in Jesus to come and join us in the Holy Communion.

Those who come to the Holy Communion don’t have anything in their hands.

They come with empty hands; but they receive the wine and the bread, which symbolises what Jesus has done for us.

If you believe in Jesus, if you have realised how important he is and want to trust and treasure him, then come, this table is for you.

Come with empty hands, trusting in nothing that you’ve done but only in what Jesus has done.

How does God justify the unrighteous and still be good?

God can justify the unrighteous and still be good because he himself had paid the price that we ought to have paid by presenting Jesus as our propitiation, by redeeming us through Jesus.

It’s as we trust in Jesus that we receive God’s righteousness, which justifies inglorious sinners like us.

Since all have sinned, all are justified by faith in Jesus Christ, whom God presented as an atoning sacrifice to show his righteousness.

Three questions for us to think about.

1. When I imagine standing before God, what am I actually leaning on — Christ’s faithfulness, or my own record of church, family and effort?

2. Who is the person I secretly think needs this gospel less than I do, and what does “no distinction” mean for the way I speak to them this week?

3. God has already turned his wrath from me at the cross — so what sin am I still hiding from him, and who will I bring it into the light with?

You can also read through the Church Devotionals to help you read and pray about this passage this week.

Friends, since all have sinned, all are justified by faith in Jesus Christ, whom God presented as an atoning sacrifice to show his righteousness.

Let’s pray, “Father, thank you for your mercy to us in Jesus Christ. Thank you for presenting him as the propitiation for our sins. Please forgive us for our sins, for the way we live our inglorious lives. Father, please turn our hearts towards you, that we may live a life of joyful obedience, being confident that you have made us righteous in God’s eyes, and at the same time, not taking this for granted. Indeed, we dare not take your grace for granted, for we have nothing to boast in and of ourselves. Rather we boast in you, our great and glorious God, who with the Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus are to be praised forever and ever, and in whose name we pray, Amen.”