None Righteous, No Not One

We are continuing in our sermon series, Romans, Purest Gospel.

And this morning we're going to be looking at Romans 2, actually the whole chapter.

So we just read 1 through 11, but this morning we're going to survey Romans 2, the whole chapter, and then into 3, 1 through 20.

So it's over 50 verses that we're going to be actually working through this morning.

So here's what my attempt is even though we're going over 50 verses to be shorter than last week.

That's my attempt, right?

So there's going to be a little bit of a survey.

We're going to kind of stay maybe a little bit up in that 10,000-foot sphere.

We might not be landing the plane as much as we have previously through other texts, but I still hope to be faithful to what the Bible is trying to communicate to us and show us Jesus in it.

Before we dive in, though, if you want to, you can download our app and actually go through sermon notes.

We offer fill-in-the-blank notes that you can follow along.

You can add your own notes as well to it so that you can save those, archive them, and use them for devotion in the future.

And then, you know, also one thing I've been thinking is I would love to see more people bringing their Bibles to Sunday morning.

Now, this is why.

We preach expositionally for a reason, multiple reasons.

One of the reasons, though, that we preach expositionally, which means we go verse by verse through the book of the Bible and we exposit or we extract from the text what it was originally intended to communicate to us.

So we don't uh uh uh isegete, read into the text what's not there.

We exegete, we pull out of the text what's there.

So uh we can talk through what all those words mean and everything at a later time.

Here's what we do, though.

One of the primary reasons we do expositional preaching is to model uh for you how to study the Bible.

Uh because as you go verse by verse through the scriptures, we're gonna show you how to study, how to extract from it what it's supposed to, but most importantly, our main ambition is to show you how Jesus is in every single text of the Bible.

Um, and so if you have your Bible, you'll be able to work through it with us.

You'll be able to mine those texts with us and see that.

Uh so I would love to see that as we work through it together on Sunday morning.

So just a little word of encouragement.

But this morning, uh we're gonna, as always, have the sermon uh or the uh scripture on the screen.

You can follow along in the fill-in blanks as well to be uh into what we're preaching on this morning.

So here's where we're at.

Last week we talked about the wrath of God, right?

We went through the end of Romans 1, and uh we saw where God's wrath, this is kind of the summary statement, God's wrath is poured out on all unrighteousness.

And then Paul started to work through what that looks like it means, right?

So uh he started to talk about idolaters and these people who have exchanged the immortal for the mortal, the uh incorruptible for the corruptible, they've fashioned false gods that actually look like the creatures God created rather than uh him himself, right?

Or they were even made in their own image, and then out from that issue of worship, out from that idolatry, flowed all this sin, right?

And it got into sexual immorality, uh, it got into uh slander, gossip, disobedience of parents, all these kinds of different sins flowed from fundamentally a worship issue.

Because they had traded the right worship of which they were supposed to worship God, the knowledge that was given to them about God and who he is for a lie.

And it caused their worship uh to be not what it was intended to, to be idolatrous, and then sin flowed through it.

So, Paul, if we understand, he's really making an anthropological analysis.

Okay?

So what this means is as we study mankind, anthropology, uh, he's making an analysis of our condition and state.

And so he's continuing that survey here.

And this, if if if Paul is good at something, it's making an argument.

He's a brilliant, brilliant arguer.

And he has set up all of this first part of Romans chapter one and two, and we're gonna go into three, setting up an argument, as if he was standing in court, and he's going to uh, with all full confidence and assurance, prove man is sinful and in need of a savior.

This is what he's doing.

And in two, the whole chapter three, one through twenty, this is kind of his closing argument.

This is the nail in the coffin before he steps down and gets us into the gospel and where our hope of salvation actually is.

Paul is going to bring it home for us.

He's working to show us that sin has permeated, impacted, and bound all of us.

Uh, you see, the background here is that we have to understand, as we talked about in the first sermon, Paul is writing to the church at Rome.

Now, this is a church he has not physically visited yet, and it's comprised of both Greek and Jewish Christians.

And so as he's pinning this letter, he has both of these audiences in mind.

So you can imagine, as he's writing this letter, and he just worked through what we went through last week, chapter uh 1, uh verses 17 through 32, you can imagine that uh the Jews who were hearing this letter, this portion of the letter, were uh like, yep, yep, yep, yep, Gentiles, idolaters, sexual morality, uh, yep, God's wrath is gonna be poured out on them.

Yep, sounds good, Paul.

I'm on it, right?

And they would have shrugged off or not seen themselves in that uh part of the text or of the letter that Paul was writing to them.

You see, they've listened to chapter one and in and agreed in full.

They would not have seen themselves in Paul's analysis of sinful Gentile people.

What Paul will draw his readers into now, though, is a discovery that though they are completely different cultures and hold completely different worldviews, they each find themselves under the universal commonality of sin.

And so where Paul's gonna bring this home is now focusing his attention on the Jewish listeners of this letter.

So if we look at verses 1 through 11 and we were trying to summarize those, we would see that God judges according to each one's work because he shows no partiality.

God judges according to each one's work because he shows no partiality.

So it doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, what your bloodline is, your pedigree, your heritage, none of that matters.

God shows no partiality when he is executing righteous judgment upon mankind.

Now, as I read this, there's a famous uh, well, I don't know famous, but one of my favorite preachers.

Uh his name is Paul Washer.

How many of you guys ever listen to Paul Washer's sermon?

Yeah, and then you cried afterward, right?

Probably.

Um so Paul Washer is one of my favorite preachers, and uh he has this famous message that he delivered at a youth conference.

It's called like a shocking youth message, if you look it up on YouTube.

Uh, but Paul Washer gets going about all of this kind of sin and carnality and secularism that uh uh these Christians participate in and so forth, so forth.

And he kind of takes a breath, and all these youth, I think it's in front of like thousands of youth, and uh they start clapping and cheering and they're going hard, you know, like, yeah, Paul, yeah, Paul.

And as soon as it like kind of slows down, he just looks at them and he goes, I don't know what you're clapping about.

I'm talking about you.

And it's just like mic drop, done.

Like it's over, everybody's just dead, right?

Um and and and and Paul, the apostle, not Washer, he's kind of doing the same thing right now.

He's saying, Okay, Jews, you you might have loved and cheered what chapters 17 through 32 talked about when I was describing the Gentiles' idolatry, their sexual morality, the wrath of God that's stored up for them.

You might have chapped and uh clapped and cheered, but he looks at them and he says, Therefore you have no excuse, oh man.

Paul's looking directly at his Jewish audience and making this statement.

And now he's gonna work through to help them understand you are in the same boat.

The Jewish reader would have been the people Paul Washer himself pointed his finger at and said, I'm talking about you.

You see, Paul's extensive list of sin that flows out of that idolatry issue in chapter one, the Jewish readers were guilty of.

And that's the thing.

If we would have stopped at chapter one and we would just looked at sexual morality, and then we would have just looked at homosexuality as a portrait of what that idolatrous practice looked like, we would have missed the whole point.

While that is an expression, it's not the point of what Paul's argument was.

It wasn't about sexual morality or homosexuality, it was about worship.

And from that bad worship, from that false worship, flowed all of this.

And it wasn't just sexual morality, but look at the list of what he used in chapter one.

He talks about this starting at 29.

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.

They are gossip, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents.

That one alone, like all your kids, just under God's wrath.

Um, that's true.

Probably shouldn't make that a joke about that.

But we will preach the gospel to them.

Insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil.

Uh, I went through that.

Foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Though they know God's righteous decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Paul's gonna see or prove and show evidence that this is also the Jewish readers of his letter.

You see, they have no excuse, because even in their passing judgment, from a position, right?

This is this is where they're passing judgment from.

His Jewish readers, from a position of those who have the law and have circumcision, there are no excuse because when they pass judgment, they know that they do the same thing.

You see, all wickedness and sin flows from a failure to worship God rightly, as he alone has determined.

And in the final analysis, the Jewish people also stand condemned and guilty.

And where Paul starts off chapter two with is you're hypocrites.

You're hypocrites because you judge these people from your position.

What's the position?

As God's chosen people, those who he has set his steadfast love on, whom he has given the law, who he has given the mark of circumcision to identify them as his people.

You from your position stand back and you judge those who do the exact same things you do.

You're a hypocrite.

They believe they were safe from God's wrath because of their position as God's chosen people.

We might find ourselves in that same situation at times.

It's a reality where I think that younger brothers get saved and become older brothers quickly.

We think because of the church we go to or the theology that we hold, or we think whatever it might be, that uh we're able to now sit from a position and cast judgment, knowing that we once participated in the exact same things, if not worse, and some of us even still do.

Paul condemns such hypocrisy.

And this is what he says: he says, here's what you don't realize the wrath of God will be poured out on all unrighteousness, and that includes you.

But here's the problem.

When God doesn't just outright destroy you when you sin, when he doesn't crush you under the heel of his boot because you sin or you know strike you with a lightning bolt from heaven, you presume on his kindness and you act as if he is not going to judge that unrighteousness in your life.

He said, Do you not presume on the kindness, on his kindness, the riches of his grace?

Right?

This is what Paul's talking about.

But do you not know that in his kindness and forbearance and patience, that it's meant to lead you to repentance, not for you to continue in the sin.

Just because God doesn't destroy us when we sin doesn't mean he's okay with it.

That he doesn't see it.

Like some of us act like a kid hiding behind a corner eating a candy bar we know we're not supposed to, right?

And you're just trying to make the noise quieter and you're hunched down like Gollum, just trying to, and you turn the corner like, I got you, right?

Uh we act like God doesn't see it when we sin, like he shrugs it off or he's gonna sweep it under the rug.

His kindness, that's his kindness.

And it's not meant for us to continue in that sin, it's meant to lead us to repentance.

And this is what Paul says he says, look, in case you were wondering, when you do that, when you sin and you don't allow his kindness to lead you to repentance, but you use it as a freedom and license to continue in sin, you because you're not being judged now, you're storing up wrath for yourself in heaven.

It's like making a deposit into a wrath bank, right?

And when you end, God's gonna be like, oh, you want the full deduction?

Okay.

We store up wrath for ourselves when we presume upon his kindness, when we don't allow it to lead us to repent to see his tender heart, and we continue in our own sin.

You see, he will deal with all sin when his righteous judgment is revealed.

Paul goes on to say in verse 8 about those who obey the truth, but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.

And this is this theme of the truth, right?

In Romans 1, he talked about they exchanged the truth for a lie.

Paul continues that in two, in verse 8, he talks about for those who are not obedient to the truth.

This is what we have to wrestle with as Christians, right?

Not even as Christians.

If you're a person breathing, you have to wrestle with this.

The question is not, am I going to believe that the Bible's true?

The question is, am I willing to submit to its truth?

You see, when you ask the question, Am I willing to believe that the Bible's true?

You're putting the authority of truth in your own court.

You get to dictate, is it true or is it not?

And if I get to dictate that it's not true, then I'm not uh presumed to be held accountable to it.

I can actually dictate on my own power and strength what truth is and what truth isn't.

But see, that's not how the Bible functions.

It doesn't put the ball in our court, it keeps the ball in its own.

And it says the real question is, are you gonna submit to it or not?

Because it is truth, it is absolute and authoritative truth.

And so as we approach ourselves with engaging with God in relationship, that is what we have to wrestle with.

The question is not, do we believe the Bible to be true?

The question is whether we're willing to submit to its truth.

As we work to understand our human condition apart from Christ, we have to wrestle with some submissive tensions.

All right, here's three.

Here's the three biggest submissive tensions you as a human being are ever gonna have to wrestle with.

Number one, am I willing to submit to the truth that sin exists?

Because what that means is that there's a holy God who has established holiness for his people to live in, and when we go against that, when we when we commit treason against that in our disobedience and our rebellion, that is sin.

And so that demands that there's something transcendent beyond us, some other figure who has greater authority and power to establish morality and ethics for us.

If not, then we all just get to dictate what morality is, right?

That's relativism.

And if you're an atheist, then a good atheist would say that there's no such thing as morality because there's nothing transcendent beyond us to establish morality universally for all people.

Therefore, I get to dictate whatever I do, and if I call it good, it's good.

If I call it bad, it's bad.

So, first question the first thing that we have to wrestle with in submission.

Am I willing to submit to the truth that sin exists?

Number two is am I willing to submit to the truth that sin is punished by God's wrath-filled judgment?

That's a tougher one.

Because here's the reality.

Many of us can probably look at universal morality as a thing, right?

We look at murder, child abusers, and we're all like, yep, that's sin.

And yep, that's deserving of God's wrath-filled judgment.

I'm okay with that, right?

Because I'm not one of them.

We set ourselves up in the same positions that the Jews did, the Jewish people in Rome did, as they were reading Paul's letter.

And that's why Paul knew that they were gonna do this.

So he writes, Who do you think you are?

You see, all sin, all unrighteousness is deserving of God's wrath-filled judgment.

Look at the list.

Like I said, disobedience to parents was one of them.

Amongst slanderers, murderers, adulterers.

So, two, am I willing to submit to the truth that sin is punished by God's wrath-filled judgment?

Three, this is the apex of questioning or submissiveness that we have to deal with.

Am I willing to submit to the truth that faith in Jesus' perfect life, substitutionary death, and glorious resurrection is the only way to be saved from God's wrath-filled judgment?

You see, those are the three biggest things that we're gonna have to wrestle with submitting to.

It's not, are they true?

That's not the question.

You're asking bad questions.

The question is, am I willing to submit to its truth?

Paul says that this happens to the Jew first, then also to the Greek.

The reason Paul's talking about this is that he's trying to help them understand their need for a savior.

The law is insufficient, circumcision is insufficient, you need a savior, and there has been provided one in Christ Jesus.

He's working to communicate the reality that our state of sin, our need for a savior, and Jesus being the Messiah are universal.

So when he says to the Jew first and then also to the Greek, he's putting the Jew out in front.

You're a sinner, you need a savior.

Jesus is that savior.

He's constantly trying to do that for them.

You see, when we look at the doctrine, and we'll get unpacked this a little bit more, but when we look at the doctrine of grace, known as total depravity, what we have to understand is that it's totalness, right?

So what it means is that all of us are sinful and all of us are in need of a savior.

That's kind of the root understanding of total depravity.

But total depravity doesn't just speak to the amount of which sin has affected us, right?

It's affected our wills, it's affected uh our desires, it's affected our abilities to choose what is righteous and good, uh, but the the scope, it also affects the totality of humankind, of mankind.

It has affected.

Sin has.

And that's what Paul's laboring to help them understand.

It doesn't just simply speak to our will when we look at total depravity, it speaks to the scope of its effect on every human being.

God's judgment against sin and unrighteousness is universal because God is not partial.

That's the that's the emphasis thrust of that one through eleven.

His judgment and his justice on unrighteousness is universal because God is not partial.

Partiality means to show favor toward a person or people group.

And we talked about this in a few sermons back when we looked at uh James and how we are supposed to treat people uh in our Christian life.

But but partiality is rooted in the understanding of God's justice.

And so when God would not be a just God if he showed partiality, if he showed favor, or if he could be bought or bribed in his execution of justice.

You see, that's the thing.

We have to realize God is a just God.

He's not simply merciful, kind, loving, he's not simply compassionate or empathetic, he is also wrath, he is also just, he is also uh um uh vengeful and jealous.

These are all different ways that the Bible describes who God is.

And so his justice would not be holy if he was partial.

You see, every aspect, we've talked about this a lot, but it's begs to remember, every aspect of God's person and character is submitted to his holiness.

Because his holiness dictates that the expression of that attribute or character is perfect.

It is perfect love, it is perfect wrath, it is perfect mercy, it is perfect justice, because God is holy.

But if God showed partiality, It would not be holy justice.

So to show partiality in matters of justice is condemned throughout the scriptures, and it stands in contrast with God in his justice, which is impartial, meaning that he will judge every single person according to their works.

He will judge every single person according to their works.

Doesn't matter what your bloodline is, what religious affiliation you have, what mark you bear on your skin, or uh which way you were brought into the church, God shows no partiality.

Now, if we're gonna take this next section, this is gonna be 12 through 25.

So we're gonna take this huge chunk of scripture here.

What we would look at as summarizing 12 through 25 is that religion is a powerless substitute for righteousness.

Religion is a powerless substitute for righteousness.

When we look at verses 12 through 16, we see that the law is not just written on parchment, but on hearts.

Right?

And this is what he goes through.

He goes through about if the Jew obeys the law because he's been handed to it on parchment, it's been written for him.

Okay, great.

But but when a Gentile obeys the law, not having it, not having it on parchment, is that not counted as righteous as well?

Is it because God's law is written on the hearts of men?

The law alone, though, bears no benefit.

Because here, here's why the law was given.

We had the law on our hearts, but that was insufficient for us.

It was sufficient to condemn us, it was sufficient to hold us guilty before a holy God, but it wasn't sufficient for us.

And so when we tried to skirt around it or we tried to uh avoid its consequences, what God did is he gave us the law on parchment.

And what that did is it was a condemning declaration.

It was given to us to clearly articulate what sin was.

That's why the law was given.

To articulate for us what sin is.

You see, without obedience to the law, the hearing of it is a practice in listening to your death sentence.

And this is what he's trying to help them understand.

Many of you listen, you've read, you've heard, you've sat under Pharisees' uh teaching, but you don't practice it.

And so what good is it then?

If you don't obey the whole thing in its entirety, if you fall in only one part, what benefit does the law have?

Paul's basically making the statement that without obedience to the entire law, the hearing of it is just simply a practice and listening to your death sentence.

Verses 17 through 24, then we see that they fail to practice what they preach.

Though they believe they have the moral high ground, they actually have sunk below the playing field.

And this is this is where Paul begins to get him against the ropes, right?

So if he's if he's making his final argument, he's trying to have this uh uh this analysis of the state of mankind, and he's getting ready to put the nail in the coffin.

At this point, Paul has his readers against the ropes.

They can't get away from him, and he's about to land a combination of these rhetorical questions, these statements that is going to help them see once and for all, you need Jesus just as much as the Gentile people do.

And there's these three questions, there are four questions that he asked them.

So presenting a list of rhetorical questions to show that they're no better because they have the law, but do not obey it.

And he asked, number one, do you steal?

Do you steal?

Though you preach, thou shalt not steal, do you not steal yourself?

And we have to try to understand ourselves in this too, because what we tend to do is when we look at the law, we try to understand it from a very black and white uh perspective, right?

I I didn't take something that wasn't mine.

But if we look at how God understands ourselves and the gifts that he's given to us, it's a much more robust reality than simply, I didn't take what wasn't mine.

You see, when he asks the question, do you steal?

He knows that this is a rhetorical question.

He knows that the answer is going to be yes.

When we look at a biblical understanding of stealing, stealing is not simply taking what is not yours, but also refusing to give what belongs to others.

Stealing is not simply taking what is not yours, but it's also refusing to give what belongs to others.

Our time, our talent, and our treasure belong to God and to neighbor before it belongs to ourselves.

So think about that.

Think about the times where you were greedy, selfish.

That's in that list of Romans 1, right?

Where we stole, where we not just took what wasn't ours, but we failed to give what was someone else's.

We've held back money, we've held back uh our own talent and abilities, we've we've held back our time and been selfish with those things before we gave it to God or before we gave it to our neighbor for their good and their joy.

I mean, how many times have you scrolled through a social media feed rather than reading your Bible?

I mean, let's just be honest, right?

You probably did that today.

That's fine.

You can we'll have a time of repentance.

You can come forward and smash your phone against the altar of sin.

Uh, but uh uh this is a reality, right?

We've done this.

We're guilty of this, okay?

And there's a plethora of ways that we've been guilty of this.

Then he asks number two, do you commit adultery?

Now many of us might say, I've never cheated on my spouse, I've never committed adultery physically, but we again, when we look at the teaching of Jesus, Jesus never like reduces sin, he elevates it, he sets the standard and the bar higher.

And when he's given his Sermon on the Mount, he talks about you may not have physically slept with another person, but if you've just committed the lust of the eyes, if you've looked at another person with lustful desire, you have committed adultery.

Adultery is when our affections are set higher on something or someone other than our covenant spouse, but also other than God.

Jesus in his teaching ministry, he looks at the Pharisees and he calls them an adulterous generation.

He calls them adulterers.

Now, I don't think all these Pharisees went around sleeping on their wives, right?

Or cheating on their wives.

What was Jesus talking about?

The context of this is that the Pharisees are demanding Jesus show them a sign to give proof and evidence that he is who he says he is.

And he looks at them and he says, You're an adulterous generation.

They were unwilling to have faith in God.

They elevated the law over the spirit.

They didn't even understand their relationship with God anymore because everything was about obedience to the law, keeping it to its extreme amount, even adding to it, things that were not there.

They were putting yoke of bondage upon their people because they were adding to God's perfect law in unnecessary and in violent ways.

Violence in the way it afflicted and oppressed God's people.

So Jesus looked at him and said, You're an adulterous generation.

Adultery isn't just physically, it's spiritually as well.

Number three, he says, Do you rob temples?

Do you rob temples?

And he's asking about idolatry.

It's in the context of idolatry.

And I love uh this statement from John Calvin.

He was a reformer from the 1500s, uh, who preached in Geneva most of his ministry, and he says that our hearts are a factory of idols.

Meaning that we constantly create new ones, even as we work by the power of the Spirit to put idols to death, the devil's at work creating new ones within us.

Idolatry is a never-ceasing war within each and every one of us.

Now, we might be tempted to think that idolatry is some like little character, right, that we bow down to and burn incense.

You maybe uh have been to uh uh some uh Asian restaurant where you see this weird gold chubby guy in the corner, and you're like, well, I don't do that.

But idolatry is much greater than that because it's not about external practice.

Again, that's just the symptom.

That's just how it expresses itself at different times.

Idolatry is about the heart.

And when we look at the Heidelberg catechism of uh question 95, this is how they explain what is idolatry.

So Heidelberg catechism was given to us in 1563.

Question 95 says this what is idolatry?

Answer.

Idolatry is having or inventing something in which one trusts in place of or alongside of the only true God who has revealed himself in the word.

There's two crucial things about that.

Idolatry is having or inventing something in which one trusts.

Where do you put your trust?

Where do you put your hope?

Where are you putting those things in today's culture and climate?

Uh uh you want to see the greatest idolatry of our nation?

Look at the 2021 election.

Right?

Uh uh look at the idolatry of the nation of money, right?

Where they'll make voting decisions based on a$2,000 check.

Look at the idolatry that we have.

And it's when we trust those things besides the only true God who's revealed himself in his word.

So Paul says, you're all guilty.

You're guilty of stealing, you're guilty of adultery, you're guilty of idolatry.

And finally, his closing question do you not break the law?

Do you not break the law?

This is redundant at this point.

Paul is saying sin is not in our actions alone, but in the very motivations of our heart.

And a lot of us want to say, Oh, I haven't done this or I haven't done that.

We place ourselves against other people, right?

We become the like the uh prosperous man in one of Jesus' teachings who goes before the altar to worship God and he looks next to him, this sinner, and he says, Thank you, God, that I'm nothing like him.

We do that constantly within ourselves, comparing ourselves.

And look, look at social media.

You know, you want to see what social media is built for?

Comparisonism.

You are constantly comparing yourself to everyone else on your social media feed.

Whether it be in your masculinity, in your femininity, the health of your marriage, the goodness of your kids, uh, uh, the the way your home is clean or looks.

And you know, you know that that home is a train wreck, but they just swept everything out of that four by four frame so that it didn't look that way.

You see, we have to find ourselves in the same place as who Paul is writing to.

We are guilty.

We are breakers of the law.

And then this whole movement of Paul's argument culminates in a dreadful statement.

The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.

You want to know why they're not coming to God, why they're not running to Him?

Do you want to know why that they worship idols and so forth at the rates of which they do?

Because of the way you act, the way you behave.

They see the hypocrisy.

Verses 25 through 29, then the Paul reveals to us that the works of religion come undone through our unrighteousness.

We cannot be saved through religious works or rights.

He talks about this.

You have the law, you have circumcision.

What good is physical circumcision if you break the law?

What good are these religious things that you participate in if you're going to be breakers of the law?

He's saying we cannot be saved through religious works or rights.

They have no power to begin with, and they're stripped of any presumed power in the face of our sin.

Again, religion is a powerless substitute for righteousness.

Then we go into chapter 3.

Verses 1 through 8.

Where am I out on time?

I need my glasses.

I'm getting glasses this week.

1048.

Alright, I got time.

Time?

Is that in it's like chess or time?

I don't know.

Anyway, verses one through eight.

Uh what Paul's gonna help us understand is that the law can't save, but it does condemn.

Chapter 3, verses 1 through 8.

The law can't save, but it does condemn.

And this is a reality that we have to really wrestle with.

Um, the works of the law will never be able to save us.

But the law itself is fully sufficient to condemn us.

You see, the law not only displays our sin, but it also displays the holiness of God.

The holiness of God that our sin demands judgment against.

And here's what Paul's saying: if you if you want to be judged by your works, we have to realize that when we are asking to be judged by our works, we're going to be judged against the holiness of God.

You see, oftentimes we fail to see that.

When we're when we subconsciously or even consciously try to work from the position that we would rather be judged by our works, we're comparing ourselves to another human being.

Right?

I'm not a murderer, I'm not a child abuser, I'm not a put whatever kind of sin or action that you despise in that place.

I'm not like them.

Right?

What's our default person that we always compare everyone and their mother to?

I'm not Hitler.

Um cool, super glad for that.

Um, but this is the reality.

We fail to see what God demands in his law.

He does not expect or set the standard or demand that you're better than the person to your right or left.

He demands that you are as holy as he is.

No man can stand under such scrutiny, such judgment, such perfect righteousness.

No man can.

You want to be judged by your works?

Good luck.

Because they're gonna be set against and measured by the holiness of God Himself, next to which no man can stand upright.

You see, we fail at keeping the law.

We fail at keeping the law.

We're going to constantly break the law.

We have broken the law, we will break the law.

And this is what we have to understand.

If we break just one part, we break the entirety of it.

So it's no use in saying that we haven't killed someone, it's no use in saying that I haven't robbed a bank, it's no use in saying any of these other things, because when you break one part of the law, you break all of it.

This is what James, Jesus' brother, helps us understand in James 2, 10 through 11.

He says, For whoever keeps the law, the whole law, but fails in one point, has become guilty of all of it.

For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, do not murder.

If you do not commit adultery, but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

Verse 10 is is the point, though.

Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of it.

I I mean, just think this last three months.

Here's a command of the of the law.

Uh remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

How many of you have have completely neglected and forsook that?

Right?

Yeah, I have.

Right?

Four kids, it's not easy.

Uh uh, and you you're just constantly working and doing and working and doing.

I mean, in this month alone, you've broken the entire law because you failed on one point.

We cannot break one part of it and be found not guilty of the rest.

Because in the end, in the end, it's not the law we're breaking, but it's God's holiness we're offending.

Understand that.

In the end, it's not simply just the law we're breaking, it's God's holiness we're offending.

That's why if we break one part, we're found guilty of all.

So, the law can't save us.

The law can't save us because no man can uphold it in its entirety.

It stands against us, not for us, declaring our guilt and condemnation.

The law was never about avoiding judgment, but about demonstrating why judgment was necessary.

You see, that's what we we when we're looking at our state of the condition that we're in because of sin.

The law was never given to us.

When we talk about the Ten Commandments, uh, you know, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit murder, thou shalt not commit all these ten things thou shalt not and shall do.

That was never upheld to us as some sort of salvific reality or hope.

It was upheld to us so that we might know we are sinners in need of a savior.

If we actually wanted to claim our works of the law as our justification, then let's see what it says about us.

Verses 9 through 20 of chapter 3.

If we're gonna summarize this chunk of scripture, we see that the law is a mirror showing us our sinful state in need of Jesus.

The law is a mirror showing us our sinful state in need of Jesus.

So if we if we wanted to be justified by our works of the law, if we thought that there was gonna be a hope of salvation and being good and nice and kind and obedient, uh here's what the Bible says.

What then?

Are we Jews any better off?

No, not at all.

For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.

As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one.

This is what our biblical assessment of the human condition culminates in.

None is righteous, no, not one.

And this is the foundational understanding of this doctrine of total depravity.

None are righteous.

None of us have any good within us.

We we don't have the ability to keep the law, we don't have the desire to keep the law, we don't have the strength to keep the law.

None of us in all of human history and the expanse of time in our existence are righteous.

Not one.

We not only cannot keep the law, we also don't desire to.

Our wills have been impacted and affected by sin.

We are totally depraved in its effect on us as individuals, but also in its impact of all humanity.

But see, verse 10 is just Paul's opening statement.

None is righteous, no, not one.

No one understands, no one seeks for God, all have turned aside, together they have become worthless, no one does good, not even one.

Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive, the venom of asps is under their lips, their mouth is full of curses and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

That's where you and I find ourselves apart from Christ.

That's where the rest of the world finds themselves apart from Christ.

And we have we have preached, we have uh we have uh exported a false and empty gospel that says you're good enough.

You know, what is that SNL ski?

You're good enough, you're smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like you.

No, God doesn't.

Because God doesn't send sin to hell, God sends sinners to hell under his righteous judgment.

None is righteous, no, not one.

Without God, we will never be reconciled to him, without his divine intervention, we will never pursue him even.

Look at that in verse 11.

No one understands, no one even seeks for God.

The seeker-sensitive church was such a joke, it continues to be one because no one seeks God on their own will and their own desire.

There's one seeker, and the Bible says that God is the seeker of men, not men the seeker of God.

It is God in His grace and kindness toward us, in His steadfast love and covenant that He's made with us that chases down each rebellious sinner that's working to run as far away from Him.

As they possibly can, and he just open field tackles them with his love and mercy and grace and says, You're mine now.

God seeks us, we don't seek him.

That's love.

That's grace.

Verse 20 says, For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight.

Please, please hear that.

By obedience, by works of the law, no human being will be justified.

Since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

The law is a mirror to our sinful state.

So John Calvin, who I quoted earlier, he also worked to help us understand three effects or purposes of the law.

This is purpose number two.

Purpose number one was to help us have a civil state.

This is if we were going to live according to God's will, this is how society would live.

That was purpose number one.

Purpose number three is that it's a light to the path of those who are in relationship with God as Christians.

It was kind of a way for us to walk forward because God's word is a lamp unto our feet.

But the second purpose that John Calvin put forward is that the law was intended to be a mirror of our sinful state, to show us our need for Jesus.

Because through the law comes knowledge of sin, not hope of salvation.

Through the law comes knowledge of sin, not hope of salvation.

So our main idea this morning is that none is righteous, no not one.

This is what Paul wants us to understand and hear from this.

None of us are born good.

None of us just need to try harder.

None of us need just a second chance.

None of us are good.

None of us are righteous.

None of us seek after God.

None of us understand Him.

None of us know not one.

This is the culmination of our state.

This is the all-encompassing reality of mankind.

This is why the church has to be on mission with the hope and message of the gospel.

Because people aren't going to come to Jesus on their own.

Unless the Spirit draws them, unless his effectual calling captures our hearts and calls us unto himself, and then he regenerates us or brings us from death into life by giving us a heart of flesh where once a heart of stone resided.

None of us will ever love God.

And here's how we we wrestle with this in a couple different ways.

I'm going to try and pick up the pace.

I'm sorry.

Number one, we practice unrighteous freedom.

This is kind of the younger brother in this in understanding this text is that we practice unrighteous freedom.

We refuse to understand the weight, consequence, and cost of our sin because we practice hyper grace.

We are like the ones who here in Paul's letter he writes to, and they're talking about, well, well, what about the unrighteousness in light of God's righteousness?

What shall we say?

God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us?

By no means.

But if through my light God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?

And why do I do evil?

Why do I, and why not do evil that good may come?

They're talking about if God's going to judge us, if he's going to judge us in his righteousness, then what's kind of the point, or why do this?

But we twist that and we say, well, if God is gracious and he saves us by his grace, then what's the purpose of me living holy anymore?

And we we practice hyper grace.

We abuse and cheapen the grace of God.

We refuse to understand its weight, its consequence, and its cost.

The blood of our Savior Jesus.

We wrongfully believe grace's freedom is an escape from judgment and not a joyful obligation to obey.

We wrongfully believe grace's freedom is an escape from judgment and not a joyful obligation to obey.

The law cannot save us, but it still condemns us.

It demands blood as payment.

It declares all of mankind is guilty before it.

And how dare we claim to be Christians and fool ourselves into thinking we can exploit the riches of God's grace by living however we want after we've been saved.

You see, a freedom that demonstrates itself in perpetual unrighteousness and unrepentant sin is no freedom at all.

It is a fool's snare and an arrogant man's noose.

Freedom from sin and its judgment means freedom to run toward righteousness and its blessing, not away from it in continued rebellion and disobedience.

I would not dare to tempt Jesus' kindness through a life that's claimed to be saved by grace, but shows no real transformation to the giver of it.

Matthew 7, 22 through 23, Jesus himself warns us of this.

He says, This, on that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?

And then, Jesus, I will declare to them, I never knew you.

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

Think about that.

Have any of you cast out a demon lately or ever?

Maybe one or two of you, but I'm gonna guess most of you aren't that on your Christian game.

What about mighty works?

Miraculous healings, or prophesy in the last 10 years, right?

So these might be stronger Christians than you, maybe more faith, more whatever, whatever it might be, right?

This comparisonism, it's futile.

But Jesus looks at them and says, I never knew you.

I didn't know you intimately, I didn't know you in relationship.

And how was this expressed?

Because they worked lawlessness.

Because they weren't being conformed to the righteousness of the one who gave them such grace to be saved in the first place.

So some of us we practice unrighteous freedom, but others of us we practice religious superstition.

We practice religious superstition.

Many of us believe that we are saved, not through true faith in the person and work of Jesus, but through some religious affiliation or superstition.

We're a lot like the Jewish people Paul's addressing here, who have the law, who have the circumcision, so they're good.

Well, how does that play out in today's culture?

Through infant baptism in the sinner's prayer.

I would submit in gentleness with some of my brothers who disagree with me on the point of infant baptism, that infant baptism in the sinner's prayer has condemned more than saved.

Because they tell us that a religious act, not true faith in Jesus, makes us right with God.

And it's more about escaping hell than submitting to Jesus' Lord.

How many times have you seen this in our culture?

Oh, I was baptized as a baby, I'm good.

Like I've been I've been forgiven of all my original sin.

I've been covered, I've been sprinkled, I'm okay.

Or how many times have you heard some pastor say, all you have to do is just repeat after me?

And if you say these words, you'll be saved.

That's a witchcraft incantation, not a saving power.

No baptism, no prayer, mimicked like a parrot, no church membership, no amount of giving, no work of compassion, none of your parents' faith can ever justify you or save you.

And we turn this religious superstition into some lucky rabbit's foot that we rub or magic eight ball that we hope comes out on the other end good, and we don't practice or teach that it's not about these actions.

It's about obedience to Christ.

It's about true faith in his perfect life, his substitutionary death, and his glorious resurrection.

It's about not escaping hell, but claiming him, Jesus, as Lord over all of your life.

That's what it's about, because we try to make converts not disciples.

And what happens is we fool thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people that they're gonna go to heaven because they did something, some little religious, superstitious act.

You see, the primary issue is we've got a great problem.

We stand guilty before God.

That's the problem.

We all universally stand guilty before God.

His wrath-filled judgment awaits us because we have sinned and broken his holy law.

But though we have a great problem, we have an even greater Savior.

Because Jesus fulfills the law in perfect righteousness.

Jesus fulfills the law in perfect righteousness.

Jesus is the only one righteous.

Jesus is the only one who can stand up to God's holiness in perfect righteousness.

Who perfectly obeyed, who submitted himself fully to the Father's will, who never sinned.

You see, it's not just his death and resurrection that give us hope, church.

But it's his perfectly obedient life that makes such hope even possible.

You see, a lot of times we just look at Calvary, we just look at the cross, or we just look at the empty grave.

That's wonderful, that's amazing, that's a part of the gospel, but it's not the fullness of which gives us hope.

Because if Jesus didn't go to the cross as a perfectly righteous, upright fulfiller of the law, then his death means nothing.

His resurrection means nothing.

It is hopeless for us.

Hope is possible because he was obedient.

Hope is possible because he was perfect.

Hope is possible because he fulfilled the law in perfect righteousness for us.

This is the great exchange.

This is something that we've been talking about in this sermon series.

That we can't, if if you look at Romans 1 and 2, you cannot walk away and say, oh, I'm a good person.

No, you're not.

If you're gonna submit to the truth of the Bible, you're gonna submit to the reality that you're not.

I'm not.

I definitely was.

I know, I know my past life.

There's no way in this world.

Now, my wife, she's different.

She's she's pretty close.

I'll just give her that.

I'm not.

I stand guilty, I stand condemned.

I need something to make me right before God.

Jesus is that.

Because when we put our faith in him, his righteousness becomes ours because our sin became his.

And he was dealt with the way that we should be dealt with.

Crushed under the wrath of the Father.

It wasn't the Roman cross, it wasn't the act of crucifixion, no matter how perfect they had mastered the act, no matter how torturous it was, no matter how much it ravished the human body in its practice and execution of the crucifixion, it wasn't that that made Jesus weep and sweat tears of blood in the garden.

It was the fact that he was going to be crushed under his father's wrath.

When he cried out, imagine, imagine, Jesus being uh put forward to some of the most excruciating way of death that mankind has ever known.

You'll see throughout the Gospels, he kept silent.

He kept silent, he kept silent.

When did he cry out?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

When Jesus chose in his own power and strength to finally cry out, it wasn't because he was whipped by the nine of cats uh the whipped by the cat of nine tails, it wasn't because thorns were were shoved into his forehead, it wasn't because his beard hair was plucked from his face, it's not because he was punched or spat upon, it's not because he had to carry the rugged cross up the hill of Calvary, it was because the Father turned his back on him, so that the Father would never turn his back on us.

That's when he chose to open up his mouth and cry out.

Jesus took our place.

When it says that the wrath of God is poured out on all unrighteousness, we see it most perfectly, and it poured out on Christ the Son in our place, that we might have the righteousness we need to stand justified before our Father through him.

Three things real quickly as I let us go.

I promised Pastor Jordan I would be shorter this Sunday.

I guess I'll owe him something.

Umber one, work from righteousness, not for it.

We have to get this in us, guys.

Work from righteousness, not for it.

You you can't, I said this a couple weeks ago, you cannot be more righteous than you are right now because it's Christ's righteousness in you, not your own.

You're gonna fail, you're gonna miss the mark, you're you're gonna disobey, you're gonna sin.

That's a reality.

But if you let that action dictate your relationship with God, you're pushing Christ to the side and you're communicating that it's your behavior and works that dictates how good you are with God, how much he loves you, how much he cares for you, how much intimately he wants to draw near to you, you're making it about your performance.

Stop it.

That's why we need to preach the gospel to ourselves every day.

How has how can God show more that he loves you, that he's for you, that he intimately draws near to you than to put his own son to death for you?

We have to work from righteousness, not for it.

There is nothing you can do that can make you in better relationship with God than you are right now in a transcendent cosmic state.

Can you feel more closer to God?

Can you feel more in touch with the Holy Spirit?

Can you feel more intimate?

Can you have righteousness manifested in your physical life?

Can you have holiness exhibited in the way that you live out your life?

Absolutely.

That's conformity.

That's being more like Christ of whom you've been saved by.

So work from that reality and see holiness persevere.

See righteousness displayed in your life, see it come to fruit and fruition.

Because it's there and it's real, and it's more real than anything you can try to muster up in your own strength.

Work from righteousness, not for it.

Number two, be a community of care, not criticism.

Paul starts off this whole argument: you're a hypocrite because you judge and you do the exact same thing.

Guys, if we're gonna if we're gonna be a community of criticism, let's just shut down.

Like, cut it off, let's go.

We're never gonna have health in that, we're never gonna have life in that.

We have to be a community of care because what's the reality?

We're gonna mess up.

We're gonna sin.

We're gonna fall short.

We're going to do these things.

And if we're a community of criticism, what we're gonna do is we're just gonna we're just gonna heap on burden and oppression and weight on people who already feel guilty, people who already are living under their own self-condemnation, people who don't want to be in that place.

But if we come alongside them and we try to help our brother up and we put their arm over our shoulder and we say we're gonna walk the mile with you, when we care for them, we're gonna see life.

We're gonna see more righteousness, we're gonna see the conformity of Christ in each and uh other's life.

We have to be a community of care, not criticism.

Because here's what happens.

When we're a community of criticism, we get the same exact statement that Paul gave to his Jewish readers.

That the name of God is blasphemed among the world because of you.

When we step back and we just become this culture or community of criticism, that's the fruit.

That the world blasphemes the name of our God because of us.

Let it never be so.

Instead of criticism, let's be a community of care that comes alongside, burdening even the weight of sin, shouldering it one with another, that life and righteousness might be the fruit of our labor.

Lastly, call them to worship, not works.

When we're looking at um evangelism, when we're looking at engaging with the world around us, too many times we call them to works.

Hey, do this, do that.

Hey, you you should you shouldn't cuss, you shouldn't watch that show, you shouldn't listen to that music, you shouldn't, whatever, whatever, whatever, right?

We we call them to works.

Listen, guys, if they stopped everything that they were doing that you didn't want them to do or you think they shouldn't do, they're still no better off.

Like we have to realize that.

If anything, we're just cultivating self-righteousness and a works-based salvation that is equally condemning as their paganism.

Is that really what you want?

To be like foolishly convinced that they're doing something to save themselves?

That's damning.

That's what we've been doing in the church.

We can't call them to works, we have to call them to worship.

Because when their worship is fixed, man, the works flow from that truth and that reality.

When we're worshiping God rightly as He'd dictated and demanded for us, works are an evidence and flow from it.

Your neighbor, your coworker, your whatever can stop doing tomorrow everything you think they should stop doing, and they will be no better off because their worship hasn't been fixed.

And so, how would we do that?

We preach the gospel, not works.

We preach the gospel, not works.

We tell them that Jesus should be Lord of their life, that they should be submitting everything in worship to Him, that their worship is off.

It's wrong.

And point out the idols that they have in their life, point out the things that they're trusting in more than they're trusting in Jesus to save them and give them a hope.

And you can see it evident as plain as day, what your coworkers and neighbors are putting their hope in, their trust in.

It's a worship issue.

So let's call the nations, let's call our city, let's call our family members and neighbors to worship not works.

Amen.

I'm over my time.

I'm gonna close down.

Let's pray.