Romans 3:27-28a “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith…”

When it comes to the practice of religion, most people are inclined to rate themselves way above average. Paul tells us, “No. We all stink.” Here is the problem. First, people tend to see religion mostly as a matter of morals. Over 20 years ago a reporter walked into my office looking to dig up some dirt on a semi-famous member of the congregation. Somehow the conversation turned to whether religion has value at all. The reporter said something like, “Well, I suppose it’s okay for morals and such.” The confusion didn’t start with her. The idea that religion is mostly about good behavior is at least as old as the Apostle Paul.

The other problem is that people water down God’s holy standards in order to make his demand for good behavior manageable. We often settle for “pretty good” ourselves. We then project this same willingness on God. But it doesn’t work that way with him. He is a holy God, and we are talking about matters of life or death, eternal blessing or eternal loss.

Let’s say that Boeing came out with a new airplane, and you were going to be a passenger in one for the first time. You happen to run into an engineer, and ask him if the plane flies. “Pretty close,” he says. “We got almost all of the engineering right.” Are you still going to get onboard?

Even if religion were mostly about morals, boasting would be excluded. “Pretty good” or “almost perfect” will get you killed. And honestly, we are “not good at all” and “not nearly perfect” by the standard of God’s holiness. Then Paul tells us that there is an even more compelling reason that boasting must be excluded from our relationship with God. “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith…”

Boasting is excluded because we are justified by faith. Understand what faith is. It is not the one little work that God demands of us, as though believing God was doing something. Faith is receiving, not doing. Picture the beggar with his hand out. Whether that hand is a big paw, or dainty, delicate thing; whether it has a powerful squeeze or is weak and crippled, the Lord can still come along and slap that multi-trillion dollar check for his grace into it. It’s not about the tiny, little faith (which is only trusting someone else to get the job done). It’s about the great big God who is giving faith his great big favors.

Faith receives God’s justification. The Lord regards us as righteous, holy, perfect people not because we have actually lived that way, obviously. He is willing to justify us, he will stand up and defend us as this kind of people because Jesus was righteous, holy, and perfect for us. Because he already served the sentence for our sins, because his blood and his death expunge the record of our crimes, even the ones to come, God passes the “not guilty” sentence on you and me. Faith simply trusts that God’s promise is true. He doesn’t consider us righteous because we lack sins. He considers us righteous because in love he chooses not to look at them.

If this is how we are justified, if this is how we escape our criminal record, then boasting would be more than a little silly, wouldn’t it. I am old enough to remember the Watergate scandal. About a month after President Nixon resigned, President Ford pardoned him for all his crimes. I don’t want to get into whether that was a good idea or not. But if President Nixon had then begun boasting about what a good person he was, what a fine record of public service he had, because all criminal record had been removed, that would be more than a little inappropriate, wouldn’t it?

In the same way, it would be inappropriate for us to boast about our relationship to God because we have been justified by faith. It excludes all boasting.