Turning the Tables (Romans 2:1-5) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: most people would say, I'm a good person, right?

Or, those people are worse than me.

And maybe especially with what we talked about last week, right?

Maybe you're thinking, well, I know that maybe I'm, I know I'm a sinner, but

I'm not as bad as those people, right?

Well, here in Romans two, Paul is gonna turn the tables.

He's gonna say, well, maybe you think those people over there deserve

God's wrath, but what about you?

So our main point tonight is to take your own sin as seriously as God does.

Take your own sin, as seriously as God does.

When we look at other people and see their sin, what we're gonna find out

tonight is that actually makes us just as guilty when we look at other people

and see all their sin and say, oh, well, I can't believe they're doing that,

or I can't believe they're doing that.

It actually points the finger back at us because we expose our own sin because

we are guilty of the exact same thing.

So look up in your Bibles at Romans chapter two, verse one.

Therefore, when you see it, therefore in the Bible, what do you ask?

What's the therefore, therefore, right.

Well, the thing that Paul just said in verse 32 of chapter one says these

people, they know what God says, but.

They don't just approve the people who sin or they don't just know what God says.

They approve the people who sin.

They celebrate people's sin.

Right?

It is like these are like the worst kind of people, right?

They're not just sinning.

They're proud of it.

They're not just sinning.

They're telling other people, Hey, you should go keep sinning.

That's great.

They have parades about how they should be proud of their sin.

He's saying these people, maybe Paul, maybe you're thinking as you read this.

Oh yeah, I'm not, I'm glad I'm not like those people.

Then what does Paul do?

Therefore, because of that, right?

Or based on that, you have no excuse.

Oh man, he's like talking to an imaginary person, right?

You have no excuse.

Every one of you who judges for in passing judgment on another.

You condemn yourself because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

Verse two, we know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those

who practice such things, right?

So everyone knows that the, that sinners, these who do these things and, and

live this way deserve God's judgment.

But then he says by saying that you're actually condemning yourself because you.

Do the same things as the people that you say deserve God's wrath.

Verse three, do you suppose?

Oh man, you who judge those who practice such things yet do them yourself, that

you will escape the judgment of God.

So what Paul's doing here in this letter, right, he's, he's establishing something.

We talked about his thesis, right?

Was that, that the gospel shows us God's righteousness.

And the first thing about that is that God's wrath is righteous.

These next few chapters, chapter one, chapter two, chapter three,

are all about God's wrath and why God is righteous, why it's the right

thing for God to show his wrath.

And what Paul is saying is God's wrath isn't just right

for those people over there.

It's also right when it's directed at you.

You deserve God's wrath too.

Not just those people over there, not just those really bad sinners, not just people

who say bad words at school, but you.

You deserve God's wrath too, because you, by noticing that those

people are sinners, you're noticing the things about yourself too.

You are put, you are actually putting yourself in the

same bucket as those people.

But Paul's audience, they might not be thinking they're under God's wrath, right?

They're saying, well, those gentiles who do those bad things, right?

But we're Jews.

We know about God.

We're God's chosen people.

We have God's promises.

Heard all these things from God, and maybe you are thinking,

well, I grew up in the church.

I know all these things about God.

I have, you know, liked church.

I, I like God, I, I I do all these things for God.

I serve in his ministry.

Maybe that's what you're thinking.

I, I grew up, my family's a Christian.

We, we do the Christian things.

What Paul would say to you is that it's not just those people out

there that deserve God's wrath, it's the people in here too.

Everyone deserves God's wrath just because you know more about

God and more about his word, more about what he says is wrong, right?

Verse one was talking about you can, you can tell when people sin,

you know, oh, that's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong, that's wrong.

Oh, yeah.

They shouldn't be doing that.

They shouldn't talk like that.

That person, you know, with really the, you know, sin is idolatry

and, and it's really clear.

They worship themselves.

Maybe you can say all those things.

You, you notice all these things about people at school.

In your family, you notice all the sin in your siblings and you're

like, yeah, I, I'm really good at noticing other people's sin.

I'm really good at knowing what God says.

I know a lot about the Bible.

What Paul is saying is just because you know a lot doesn't mean that

you can escape God's wrath just because you know the right thing.

Just 'cause you know right from wrong.

Just 'cause you notice other people's sin.

Doesn't exempt you, doesn't set you apart from God's wrath.

In fact, it actually makes you more guilty.

So our first point tonight is don't assume that knowledge equals righteousness.

Don't assume that knowing more makes you righteous, makes you holy.

Don't assume that knowing more means that you don't deserve God's

wrath as much as those people who don't know, who don't go to church.

Don't serve in kids' ministry who don't know right from wrong the way you do.

Don't assume that it's, it's really easy to assume that it, it's really easy to

assume that because you're associated with church, because you, your parents

are Christians because your dad's a pastor because your parents serve that.

Oh, I, I must, I must be okay.

I'm not as bad as those people.

I know God hates all sin, but he must hate their sin more.

And that's simply not true.

Don't assume that knowledge equals righteousness.

And, and I think it's, it's funny 'cause we do this a lot with, with knowledge

and, and a lot of other things, right?

For example, I, I know a lot about sports.

I know a lot about, I, I could tell you about the strengths of Cover two or

Cover four and why you should run, you know, why Peyton Manning hates Cover four

and how it doesn't work and whatever.

I could tell you all that stuff.

I could tell you about random baseball players from the 2000 tens, and me

and Matt were actually doing this quiz the other day on Sparkle, which was

naming like random baseball players from the 2000 tens, and we crushed it.

We did great.

I, I know a lot about sports.

It doesn't mean I'm an athlete, right?

Know a lot about sports doesn't mean I can swing a bat or throw a touchdown just

because I know a lot about something.

Actually, it actually makes me feel worse when I do play the sports, right?

Because I know how it's supposed to be and I'm like, yeah, it's not me.

I'm not doing that right.

I can't, I can't do that.

Knowledge actually makes you more accountable.

It doesn't make you.

More righteous, knowing what's wrong actually heightens

what you should be doing.

So just because you know more, just because you, you've heard all the right

things and can regurgitate the right answers in small groups and impress

your, your leaders and trick your parents into thinking you're a Christian, it

doesn't make you any more righteous.

It actually actually puts more responsibility on your plate.

Just because you know a lot doesn't mean you are righteous.

There's a few.

What I'm gonna be doing with a lot of these points is, so

every point is an assumption.

Don't assume something, and I'm gonna give you some common lies that I think

would be really easy for you to fall for.

Okay?

So our first lie, seeing other people sin means I'm holy.

Seeing other people's sin means I'm holy.

That's our first lie.

That you are probably really tempted to buy is, oh, well, I notice all the things

that my friends are doing wrong, right?

I, I notice when they're just drawing on their worksheet and not taking notes.

I notice when they're goofing off in small groups, I notice when they're

disobeying their parents or they're gossiping at school or they're living a

double life, I notice all those things.

That means that I'm holy,

not true.

That's a lie.

Just because you notice other people's sin does not mean you are righteous.

Does not mean that you're a good Christian, does not mean

that you are right with God.

The Pharisees, right?

They were really good at calling out other people's sin and then they did

not get along with Jesus very well.

So seeing other people's sin does not mean you are holy.

Actually, it makes your sin worse because you should know better.

If you're so good at calling out other people's sin, why

don't you call out your own?

That's what Paul is saying.

Are you, is your knowledge really helping anyone?

No.

Right.

You're just being prideful and looking down on people.

You're not loving others.

You're, you're pridefully comparing yourself.

You're saying, well, I'm better than this person.

Right?

You, you, you know, all these things that people should be doing, and all your

knowledge does is puff you up and make you prideful and put other people down.

It's not loving anyone, it's not helping anyone.

It's not good for anyone.

All it's really doing is making you more accountable to God because you're seeing

all these bad things other people do, but maybe your heart is really prideful,

just like the people you're calling out.

Another lie that you might be tempted to buy is that knowing a lot about

the Bible makes me a Christian.

Knowing a lot about the Bible, makes me a Christian.

That's not true.

James two talks about this.

He says, you know that God is one great.

Even the demons know that, you know, God exists.

You know, all the best arguments for, for why God exists.

You, you know how to explain the Trinity to someone.

You can, you can ace the, the gospel test and do the umbrella and all that stuff.

Great.

That doesn't save you, that doesn't make you a Christian.

Knowing a lot of information is helpful, but it doesn't do anything for you.

Unless you trust Jesus, unless you love Jesus, unless you love people.

So it's easy to buy the lie and to assume, oh, I know a lot about the Bible.

That means I'm a Christian.

I grew up in church.

I memorized verses.

I am familiar with all these passages.

That means I'm a Christian.

That's not true.

Knowledge doesn't make you a Christian.

What's the result of your knowledge?

That's what I would ask you is the result of your knowledge worship.

Love for God, right?

Is what you learn about God, what you learn from his word?

Does that make you worship God?

Or does that make you look down on people because you're like,

oh, I know more than them.

I'm, I must be holier than that, that person, they don't know how

to pronounce Habakkuk, but I do.

I must be a great Christian.

God doesn't really care whether you can pronounce Habakkuk.

God cares that you understand the message of Habakkuk and love him because of it.

And trust him because of it.

Similar.

The third lie would be knowing that the gospel, knowing what the

gospel is, means that I'm saved.

Right?

Knowing the gospel means I'm saved by the gospel.

Not true.

Not true.

There's a lot of people that know the gospel that aren't saved

and similar, right?

You're, you're equating knowing with trusting.

You're equating knowing with loving.

That's not true.

So don't, don't make the mistake of assuming I know a lot, I know the gospel.

I've heard it before.

It doesn't mean you're a Christian,

or maybe you even know that knowing the gospel doesn't save you, it still

doesn't mean you're a Christian, right?

Unless you believe the gospel.

Unless you embrace Jesus, you say, Jesus, I trust you.

I need you to give me righteousness.

I don't have any.

I need you to take away my sin.

I can't do that, and I want to turn for my sin and live for you.

That's what saves you not knowing that.

So what Paul is saying here is that God's wrath rightly falls on

everyone no matter how much you know.

And in fact, his, his wrath, you could even argue, falls heavier

on you because of what you know, because you should know better.

So don't assume that knowing things means that you're righteous.

So that phrase at the end, right?

It's, it's easy to trick yourself that you will escape God's judgment, right?

Well, I know that those people are gonna go to hell, but you can trick

yourself into thinking, well, I probably won't because I know these things.

Or, I'm good.

I'm good enough.

But it's also easy to trick yourself because you assume that you can.

You can wait.

You can become a Christian later.

And that's exactly where Paul goes with our next verse.

So look at verse four with me here.

So we just talked about, Hey, do you think you can escape God's judgment

verse four, or do you presume that means like to assume something to presume

means like, oh, you think something's gonna happen and it really doesn't?

Like, maybe you presumed that the, um, that the Packers were gonna

destroy the Browns last week and then they actually lost to the Browns.

You, you maybe presume that and you thought it was gonna

go one way and it didn't.

Right.

You think one thing's gonna happen and you don't.

So, or do you presume on the riches of his kindness, God's kindness

and forbearance, that means like.

He's really good at putting up with you.

You presume on his kindness, his forbearance, his patience, not knowing

that God's kindness is actually meant to lead you to repentance.

God's not just being patient with you so you can do whatever you want.

The reason that God hasn't unloaded his dump truck of wrath on you that

you've been building up is not just because God's like, oh, well, it's fine.

No big deal.

Just keep living your way.

It's 'cause he is being patient with you because he wants you to repent.

So our second assumption that I don't want you to to fall for is don't assume

that God will be patient forever.

Don't assume that God will be patient forever.

So I am younger sibling.

And um, I'm very grateful that I have a very patient, older brother

because when I was growing up, I prided myself on being very annoying.

Like if you told me I was annoying, I took it as a compliment.

I was like, thanks.

That's great.

So I was very annoying to my older brother and he was probably like,

I don't even know how he was this patient, especially 'cause he wasn't

even a believer for most of that.

And I don't know how he did it.

He was super patient, but because I knew he was patient, it made me

think I could get away with stuff.

I would actually bother him more because I knew he was patient.

'cause I knew my brother was really nice and I knew he wouldn't hit me back.

I knew he wouldn't go tell my mom.

I knew he wouldn't just knock me out.

Right.

He could have, I knew he wouldn't do it, so it actually

made me more annoying to him.

'cause I knew I could do whatever I wanted.

I think some of you guys might be doing that with God,

you know, God's patient and so you say I can become a Christian later.

God's patience actually makes you less inclined to repent of your sin because

you say, I can do that when I'm older.

I know God's patient, I know God's kind, so I can wait.

He'll, I'm sure he'll give me a chance.

I can just go through high school.

And then when I get, uh, when I get to college, maybe I'll think about it.

And then actually when I have a fun college experience and, and live it up

in college, then I'll become a Christian when I settle down because you think, oh,

God's patient, I can, I can just do that.

You're assuming that God will actually keep being patient.

You don't know that God doesn't have to be patient.

You realize that, right?

And even if you're a Christian in the room, right?

I think it's easy for us to assume, oh, I'm a Christian.

I'm saved, I'm forgiven.

God will be patient with me.

I can.

I can deal with this sin later.

I can keep watching those videos.

I can keep saying these words.

I can keep doing these things.

I can keep thinking these thoughts because God's patient, he'll forgive me.

It's okay.

There's not a lack.

There's a lack of urgency there.

'cause you're like, oh, I'm a Christian.

I'm safe.

So this goes both ways.

Don't assume that God will always be patient with you.

So our first lie that I want you to not buy is that one.

You can become a Christian later.

That's the first lie.

I can become a Christian later.

Now the the truth I want you to replace that with is you might not have later.

You might not have later.

You could die in a car accident tonight.

You could.

You might not have later, but also you might not want

to become a Christian later.

Remember what we talked about in chapter one?

God might hand you over to your sin and let you, he says, fine,

you don't want me Keep sinning.

And he might hand you over to your sin and you'll never want to become

a Christian in the first place and you'll, you'll never turn from your sin.

You're presuming on God's patience.

You're assuming that, oh, I can pick and choose whenever

I want to become a Christian.

You realize that becoming a Christian is a gift.

God doesn't have to let you become a Christian.

You have no right to become a Christian.

You like maybe you've never thought about it before.

You have no right to become a Christian.

God doesn't have to let you into his family.

God doesn't have to to let you get Jesus righteousness.

God has every right to send you to hell.

You have no right for even the chance to become a Christian.

So don't assume that you can become a Christian later because

you might not have later.

You might not want to later and you won't even make it till later.

God doesn't have to let you repent.

He can hand you over to your sin and let you keep sinning.

And I know that's intense.

I know that's heavy, and I'm telling you this because I love you.

That's the same reason God tells you this.

He's patient with you because he's kind.

God is so kind.

He lets you like my older brother, keep offending him so

that you might repent one day.

Because if God wasn't patient with you, he would send you to hell and

you wouldn't be able to repent.

God is so patient with you and so kind.

Even as Christian, right, as Christians, we still sin.

And God doesn't say, well, too bad you're done.

You're unadopted not part of my family anymore.

I'm taking away Jesus righteousness.

You're done.

You're not justified anymore.

God doesn't do that.

He's so patient with us.

He wants us to repent.

That's the point of God's kindness is, is to lead us to repentance.

The reason that God hasn't killed you yet is because he wants you to repent.

So don't assume that you can become a Christian later.

I also don't want you to assume another lie that you might believe is that nothing

bad happens right away when I sin, right?

And this goes for Christians and non-Christians.

If you're not a believer, you think nothing bad happens when

I sin, I can get away with it.

I know maybe God knows about it, but he's not gonna do anything about it.

It's fine.

Or I can get away with it.

It's okay.

Well, really, that's not true, right?

You can't, you can't escape the consequences of your sin

because one, every time you sin, if you're not an unbeliever, it

hardens your heart towards God.

You're saying you're, you're actively rejecting God.

Or every time you hear a sermon like this and just ignore it

and, and wait till next week.

Wait till whenever or say, oh, well, not right now.

You're actually making it harder for you to become a Christian because

you're hardening your heart towards God.

So bad things happen when you sin.

Even if it's not like, oh, I sinned and then I got caught

and I got consequences for it.

That could happen.

But also it impacts your heart and I think the Christians in the room,

hopefully you, you feel this when you sin.

You feel that that relational distance from God.

You've offended God, it's harder for you to pray.

It's harder for you to love people.

Your sin always hurts you and God and others.

We actually were talking about this with my community group last night.

We were talking about how envy actually makes it hard for you to love

people you don't really think about.

Oh, envy, that's like a private sin.

It doesn't impact other people.

If you're envying someone, it's really hard for you to love that person, right?

It's really hard for you to pray for that person.

It's really hard for you to be rejoicing with that person.

It's really hard for you to bless that person.

So your sin actually also impacts your relationship with others too.

So actually there are consequences for sin even if you don't feel them in the moment.

And then the third lie that you might believe is that my sin is okay

because God is patient and kind.

So it's not a big deal, right?

God will forgive me anyway.

Not a big deal.

Just because God is patient doesn't mean he's okay with your sin, right?

Just because God doesn't do anything about your sin, doesn't mean it's okay.

Just because I would poke my brother and annoy him and throw pillows at

him and take away his blanket when we were sleeping and roll off the

bed with it, doesn't mean that it's okay for me to do those things.

Right.

So just because God doesn't do anything about your sin in

the moment doesn't, it's okay.

It is so easy as a Christian to say, well, God will forgive me.

It's okay.

I can give into this temptation.

Not a big deal.

That's simply not true.

You have to think about God is actively being patient.

It's not like God's default is like to not feel anything about your sin.

God's default is to be just to be righteous in wrath towards sin, and

he is actively patient to say, I'm not going to pour my wrath out on you.

I'm going to to be patient and withhold my wrath from you.

So God's patience is meant to lead you to repentance, even for Christians.

Maybe it's an individual sin that you're, you're working through and

you aren't taking it very seriously.

And the reason God hasn't exposed you yet is because he

wants you to repent on your own.

He doesn't wanna do it the hard way where he has to expose your sin to other people.

He, he wants you to repent and, and not have to do it the hard way.

So God's patience is meant to lead you to repentance, and it's because

he's kind, he loves you and he doesn't want you to, to keep living in your

sin, which will kill you, right?

He doesn't want you to, to keep licking that knife and choking on your own blood.

He wants you to, to turn from that and repent.

So eventually what we're gonna see here is that Paul points out

that these people have the exact same problem as everyone else.

Right.

Even the self-righteous people, even the people who know a lot about God,

even the, in this case, the Jews who were God's chosen people and had God's

promises and, and had this whole history of, of God associating himself with them.

Even these people have the same problem as the people from chapter one.

So look at verse five of chapter two, but because of your hard and imp

penitent, that means like unrepentant.

Your heart and impendent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself

on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

So what Paul is saying here is that your, your unrepentant

heart is piling up God's wrath.

That's kind of crazy to think about it, right?

Like imagine if every time you sin.

You like put, imagine like you have this like big, this big like dump truck,

like a dump, like, and every time you sin, you put a rock in it, and every

time you sin, you put a rock in it.

You're storing up wrath for yourself and one day God is

gonna dump that avalanche on you

if you're not covered by Jesus.

Jesus didn't take God's wrath for you.

One day you will suffer for all of your sins, every single one,

and it's hanging over your head.

You're storing it up.

Maybe you think you're getting away with your sin.

You think no one knows about it.

You're storing it up and you're piling it up and it's a, at any

moment it could avalanche down on you,

and one day that will happen.

And it's the right thing for God to do because you, we want people to do that.

We, we want God to do that for, for bad people, right?

We want God to do that for Hitler.

We want God to do that for murderers.

We want God to do that for pedophiles.

But what about for me and you?

We deserve the same thing because we have the same problem.

You see that it's a heart problem.

It's not a knowledge problem, it's a heart problem.

So our third assumption is don't assume that your heart is in good condition.

Don't assume that your heart is in good condition, that your heart is alive.

The Bible says your heart starts off dead, your heart starts off hard, and God

needs to do something to it to make you.

Alive to, to give you a real true life.

So don't assume your heart is in good condition.

You might assume, for example, when you buy a car that the

engine is in good condition.

That might be an assumption you have.

So I bought a car almost a year ago, actually more than a year ago.

I bought a car and I was like, great, I got a car 'cause my

other car got hit by a tornado.

Long story.

Um, and I was like, cool, I have a car.

This is gonna be, this is awesome.

And I made sure I got a white car.

'cause in Texas it's like a million degrees in the summer.

So that way, you know, and not, not any black interiors.

'cause I was like, this is gonna, I don't want an oven for

a car, I want a car for a car.

So I was like, great.

So I had this car and like a month later, um, uh, some, the check engine light comes

on and I was like, that's super weird.

And I couldn't, my RPMs wouldn't go above two, like 2000.

So I have like, I'm like, I driving on the freeway.

My, my pedal's like on the floor and I'm going 60 miles an hour and

my RPMs are not going above two.

And I was like, okay, this is really bad.

So I take it to this shop and I take it and they like said they fixed it

and whatever, and I was like, great.

And I was driving, um, Ezekiel and Carson and Caleb to winter revival.

Um, the same thing happens.

We're getting on DNT, we're going south to to winter.

Revival, same problem, exact same problem.

Um, so I take it back and this is like in, this is like six months

later, or no, four months later.

So I took it back and they were like, oh, that's weird.

I wonder what happened, you know, and they try to figure it out and all

this stuff, and they say, well, we put more oil in the engine, just drive it

around some more and see what happens.

I was like, thanks guys.

So I did that and I think I had to take it back one more time and then

it seemed fine and it was great.

Then on the way back from summer Revival, I was driving with you

two and, and, uh, miss Allie.

And, um, I literally turned to her and I was like, watch

my, watch my car break down.

And literally like 30 minutes later, same thing happens.

Check engine lights on, pedals on the floor.

I can't go above.

And so this is a year later, same exact problem.

So I, uh, took my car back.

To this place, which praise the Lord for warranty.

Um, 'cause I didn't have to pay for any of this.

Um, so I took my car back.

I didn't have my car for all of August.

Um, they were trying to figure out what was wrong with it and all this stuff

and they ended up replacing the engine.

Like I got a new engine for my car for free.

Uh, but I got a new engine for my car and so far it works great.

Um, but allegedly it's fixed now.

What I learned is not to assume that my engine was in good condition,

just because they fixed it.

I didn't assume.

So now what I do is I try to break my car, um, because what happens is when

my car, when I accelerate, like to get on the freeway, that's when it happens.

So every time, actually, every time I, I'm at Ezekiel's house for partners.

I accelerate really fast when I leave to see if it'll break the engine.

And so far it hasn't done that.

Um,

um, anyway, but I, I assumed right?

You would assume, oh, I, I got a new car, it should have a good engine.

Right?

Or you assume I took my car in the mechanic, it should have a good engine.

Right?

And I learned very quickly to not assume that.

I think a lot of people assume that your heart.

Is in good condition that your heart is primarily oriented towards good things.

You assume, oh, there's a country song about it.

Most people are good.

You assume that, oh, my heart is, my heart likes God.

My heart doesn't like sin.

You assume that about yourself and that's actually not true.

'cause what do we just hear about our heart?

Our heart is, is hard and unrepentant.

Okay, so the first lie that I don't want you to believe is that good

morals and what I call churchianity.

Actually I didn't come up with that phrase, someone else did.

Um, good morals and churchianity means you have a good heart.

That is not true just because you have good morals.

Just because you, you know right from wrong doesn't mean your

heart is in good condition.

'cause actually everyone has a hard heart, right?

A good outside doesn't mean you have a good inside.

Just 'cause your car is clean doesn't mean the engine works.

So don't assume that good morals and growing up at church means

you have a good heart actually.

Your heart loves sin.

Your heart loves sin.

Your heart looks for opportunities to sin.

Your heart actually doesn't need even need to be taught how to sin.

It figures out how to sin on its own.

Another lie you might believe is that procrastinating.

Repenting isn't being hardhearted because you think, well, I'm not

rejecting God, I'm just putting him off.

I'm just saying I'll do that later.

Now, as you all know, procrastinating is still rejecting, right?

Like if I, if I said, Hey, we talked about bad textures a couple weeks ago, right?

A bad texture.

Really what they're saying is, you're not important to me, right?

Because we all know if you are really like super, super, super important to them.

Like if they had a crush on you or you had a right, they would respond immediately.

Right?

You know that, you know that if, if, if the right person texts them,

they'll respond, but you're not a priority, so you're not gonna

get the immediate response right.

When you're pushing off repenting, whether as a Christian or not, you're

telling God, you're not important to me because I have better things to do.

I have more important things to do.

Procrastinating saying I'm, I'm gonna become a Christian later.

What you're saying is, God, you're not worth my time right now.

You're worth my time later, right?

Like if for example, you're saying, well, you know, God, I'll

become a Christian after college.

What you're saying is, God, you're not worth living for in high school.

You're not worth it.

It's not very important for me to live for you.

That's what you're telling God.

So don't believe the lie that that procrastinating isn't being hardhearted.

Don't believe this is, this is really the biggest one.

Don't believe the lie that God's wrath isn't really for

me, it's for everyone else.

Because that's really what this all comes down to, right?

Is we believe that God's wrath is for those people.

Hell is for those people, but not for me.

I don't deserve it.

Sometimes even Christians, we become a Christian and then eventually

after we grow in holiness and after we, we kill some sin, we think, oh,

I'm really not that bad anymore.

I don't really deserve God's wrath 'cause look how much I've grown.

And that's dangerous even for us Christians, right?

Because we can think, oh, well, look how good I am now.

We're really taking credit for God's grace, right?

What we're doing is saying, well, look, look how awesome I am.

I don't deserve God's wrath anymore.

'cause of all the good things I've done, that sounds like someone who's

trusting their own righteousness, right?

So if you're a Christian and, and you're saying, you know, what God's

wrath is, is really for those people I know, like I used to deserve God's

wrath, but now that I'm a Christian.

You know, I'm, I'm a good person.

Now that's kind of prideful 'cause the only reason is 'cause of God's grace.

Right?

So, God's wrath is, is really for you, specifically you, your sin, the things

that you have done, the things that you have thought, the things that you have

felt, the things that you've wanted, the things that you've prioritized.

God's wrath is, is for you.

And so when we confess our sin, right?

As a Christian, when you confess your sin to God, or for the first

time when you, you want to become a Christian and you turn from

your sin, you can't sugarcoat it.

You can't make excuses for your sin, right?

You can't say, well, um, that person made me do it, or they just made me so

anxious, or I just can't, I'm, I just lost my patience 'cause they did this.

That's, that's saying, that's sugarcoating your sin.

Right.

And becoming a Christian means getting a new heart, right?

Not getting better, right?

Like with my car, they kept putting oil in the engine, but

I really needed a new engine.

And I, I hopefully for, for some of you who aren't saved in this room, I hope

you're, you're realizing that you, your sin doesn't just need you to do better.

You don't just need to, to start reading the Bible more.

You don't just need to to pray more.

You don't just need to, to stop saying those words or stop watching those

videos or stop playing those games or stop listening that music if, if you're

not a Christian, you need a new heart.

You need God needs to, to make you a different person because the person

that you are, the person that we all were before, Christ is under God's wrath

opposed to God, hardhearted, unrepentant.

If you're a Christian, that's who you used to be.

Don't sugarcoat that, right?

Don't, don't forget that.

And if you aren't a Christian, don't try to just put more oil in the engine.

When you really need a new engine, you need a new heart.

You need God to change you, and you need Jesus righteousness for

everything, not just for your worst sins, but for all of your sins.

Let's pray and we'll go to small groups.

God, we are grateful that you are patient and kind.

We're so thankful that you love to forgive and so I pray even after we

talked about, uh, some hard things about sin and your wrath, I pray

that we see that your wrath is.

Is good because we want a God who is just, we want a God who punished his sin.

But unfortunately, we are part of that problem.

So I pray that we are more grateful for the gospel.

I pray that we are more, um, thankful for your grace.

And I pray for any students in this room who aren't saved, that they would not,

um, keep rejecting you and keep putting off and believing lies about themselves

or about you, but rather they would turn from their sin and put their trust in you.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.