Jeff Durbin | The Gospel and Its Benefits

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So today, I want to talk, as we talked about the foundations, from Romans, the book of Romans.

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We've talked about the foundations. What do we stand on? Where is our hope?

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What's the reference point? Is it our emotions? Is it our own internal monologue?

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Is it our feelings? Our perception? Is it church tradition?

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Which I need to make a remark about that. God has built His church.

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Amen? He brought His church on time and as planned. The kingdom of God, all that was promised in God's word, arrived on time and as planned.

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Jesus said that He would build His church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. He has a kingdom that will endure forever.

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It's an everlasting kingdom which will not pass away. He's the King of kings and Lord of lords. And God has worked in His people, by His Spirit, throughout

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Christian history. And Christian history is amazing at moments. I call it a glorious mess.

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Glorious because you see the work of the Spirit of God in history. The consistency of the Christian church around so many essential things from God's word.

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But also a mess because you're dealing in church history not with inspired men writing, but uninspired and fallible men.

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So you see the glorious mess of church history. And tradition can be good. How can it be good?

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So long as that tradition is anchored in what? Scripture. The authority of God's holy revelation.

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Right? And so we have great standards in history that I think express so much truth from God's word.

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Like the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. That's the confession of faith of our church. You also have the

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Westminster Confession of Faith, which is a fantastic confession of faith. Ours is better because of baptism.

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That goes without saying. I'm just joking. My Presbyterians. Actually most of my heroes of the faith are all

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Presbyterians. I think they outnumber my Baptist heroes by like 10 to 1 probably.

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So I love to joke with my Presbyterian brothers and sisters. And our church is actually filled with Presbyterians, which bothers a lot of Reformed Baptists.

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But they know what they're committed to and they know what's coming up across the pulpit. But tradition can be good.

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However, that tradition is good and it is right so long as it is anchored in the authority of God's word.

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It's coming from Scripture. It's an explanation of truth from Scripture.

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So tradition can be good. However, we're not Trinitarians. We don't believe in the triune nature of God because somebody pulled rank on us in church history and told us so.

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You see it really throughout church history in some amazing ways. Even with Augustine or Augustine, however scholarly you are, you even see in moments where he's defending the truth where he essentially admits.

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He said, let's not go with the church councils and what these people have said or even what I've said. Let's go to the

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Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as a basis for what's actually true. You see that throughout history.

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That principle of sola scriptura or a revelational epistemology. How do I know?

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I know because God says. That's the rock that we stand on. So we've laid down that foundation and last night we got to pour over the truths of Scripture about God's sovereignty, his rule and his reign over every detail of his creation, including the details of our salvation and the grace of God in our salvation, even to the degree that God promises to not only save us, but to keep us until the end.

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And God even grants repentance and faith to dead people, dead sinners and hostile rebels.

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We've learned that and seen that God promises eternal life, eternal life, everlasting life to those who love him and trust in Jesus.

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But today I wanted to speak about how does that actually take place? What's the mechanism that God uses in the gospel to make that possible?

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Because this extends to so many areas of theology that are important for us to live for and to die for.

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But it also is very personal. It's very intimate. These are the truths we have to stand on throughout our lives as followers of Jesus to know how we actually have peace with God.

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And I don't believe there's a better way to do that than to simply let the words of Scripture speak. I mentioned to you, you heard me say it a couple times already, that proof texting at points is kind of unavoidable.

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When someone says, well, why do you believe that? You have to say, well, because of this verse here and this verse here.

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And proof texting is in some sense unavoidable. But proof texting can also be dangerous because we are grabbing texts out of their context, maybe without an explanation.

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And so I think one of the best ways to actually delight in the gospel is to just let the text speak, follow the direction of the argument and the discourse.

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And so what I want to do is just let Holy Scripture speak to us today to talk about what does

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God do to bring people, to bring sinners into a place of reconciliation and peace with him?

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Because let's be honest, that's everything. I mean, that is everything. There are so many important things in the

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Christian life and there are so many important Christian truths, truly. However, this one is central because the main issue is whether or not

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I have peace with God. As a matter of fact, when we think about the people right now that are on the sidewalk out there, when you think about your motivation and my motivation to go and speak with them and talk with them, you know, maybe there's a sinful tendency in some to want to go out there and to fight with them to win a debate, to make them look dumb, to refute them and to make it obvious that they've been refuted.

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And to some degree, I think, you know, we deal with that as sinful people.

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We want to just simply win. But in reality, if you think about it in terms of love for God and love for them, why would we go out there to engage with them?

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In the end, it's because we want them to have peace with God. We want them to know Jesus. We want them to experience the forgiveness that we've experienced.

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And so the essential thing for all of us at all points in our lives and with everybody we interact with is the gospel.

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And how do I have peace with God? And so to do that, let's go to Romans. This how it opens is actually,

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I think, incredible. If you didn't know, the first seven verses, the first seven verses of Romans are actually one long running sentence.

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Did you know that? The period comes at verse seven. And so this opens up, of course, with Paul addressing and Paul says,

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Paul, a slave of Messiah Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the

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Holy Scriptures concerning his son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead,

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Jesus Christ, our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, to all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our

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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He's clearly very excited, right? He's preaching right here as he's writing under the inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit. But this opens up with this fantastic moment where he is so thrilled about what

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God is doing in the church in Rome. Notice what he says here. He hasn't actually gone there yet and visited them yet.

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He wants to. He says this in verse eight. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

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So he's very excited about what's happening in Rome. God is doing what he promised.

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He's bringing the gospel to the nations. And that is actually one of the clear to me, clearly beautiful things about what the apostle

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Paul is doing here is he's connecting this story of the gospel, this story of Jesus Christ to the

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Old Testament scriptures in a way where he does it obviously. He says, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the

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Holy Scriptures concerning his son. Now, this is what's really important. I've been emphasizing that the authority that the apostles are pointing to and even

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Jesus pointed to at points in his ministry was the authority of God's previous revelation.

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And that's how the gospel is wrapped up. Paul isn't bringing the gospel to the first century world in such a way that he is saying like, hey, this is a novelty.

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Here is a new thing that God has done. Maybe there was failure in the past and God's doing this new thing now.

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We didn't expect this. That's not how the gospel comes into the world. Actually, this is a continuing story with one author.

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God's telling this story. He promised this beforehand. We were waiting for it in anticipation.

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When was the moment that God was going to send Mashiach where he was going to bring salvation and redemption to the whole world?

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All the nations were going to be drawn to God. They're all waiting for that moment. And now Paul and the rest of the apostles are telling that story.

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This is what God promised beforehand. This is his story of redemption, forgiveness and salvation.

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What was brought into the world, sin and curse and fall, God is dealing with in Jesus the

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Messiah. And so Paul says, this is God's gospel, the gospel of God, the good news of God.

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And he's saying this was promised beforehand in the Holy Scriptures. And then he makes a connection that I just want you to see in terms of what our mission is with this gospel.

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It's not just about me. And I want to address this just very briefly because as we talk about justification and peace with God, it's important for us to, of course, delight in and thank

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God for this peace that I have with God, this personal, yes, intimate relationship with a living

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God where I've experienced peace and forgiveness. We need to not lose that. However, we have to recognize, and this is,

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I think, a deadly error in modern evangelicalism, that the gospel is not simply about me and my own private romantic relationship with Jesus.

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That's really important. We've sort of relegated the gospel to sort of like Bible studies in basements and it's about my own personal romantic relationship with Jesus where in reality,

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Scripture is much bigger than that when it talks about the gospel. Actually, Paul addresses it when he talks about the gospel of God, the good news of God that God had promised.

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Well, what specifically did he promise? He promised all these things about Jesus, but he also did this, verse five, through whom we have received grace and apostleship, here it is, to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

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Did you know that in this amazing word from God in Romans, chapter one,

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Paul starts with that. Here's the point, to bring about the obedience of faith or the obedience that comes from faith among all the nations for the sake of his name.

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Now watch this, go to the last chapter, verse 16. I'm sorry, chapter 16.

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How does he end? Verse 25, chapter 16.

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Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through, here it is again, the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal

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God, and here it is, to bring about the obedience of faith.

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So the apostle Paul bookends his systematic explanation of the good news with that declaration that the point of this is to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations.

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What did Jesus come for? He came for the worlds. He came for the world, not just for me individually.

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He came for the world, he came for the nations, that was the story. As a matter of fact, if you know the Torah, if you know the prophetic writings, there's something that Paul is saying here that actually should start sounding familiar to you.

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If you've just started your annual Bible reading plan and you're going through the book of Genesis, something should already sound familiar to you.

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It sounds like Paul is actually quoting from Genesis 49 .10, the promise that this Shiloh was coming, this one was coming, and it says this in Genesis 49 .10,

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and to him shall be the obedience of the nations. And here now

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Paul is saying the prophetic writings said this is going to happen, this is God's gospel, it's God's good news about his Messiah, and we came for the nations.

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That's what we came for, not just me, it's the world. And so that's the mission of the church is to bring this good news to the world,

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God's promise of salvation and reconciliation and peace to all who trust in his

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Messiah. And so Romans opens up with that, Paul's telling them I'm excited to see you, I'd love to see you, to impart some spiritual gift to you, and so there's the opener, he's excited about the gospel, he's excited about what

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God is doing in them, and then verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written the righteous shall live by faith.

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There's the start, the gospel is the power of God for salvation, it's God's good news to the world that God uses to bring life and forgiveness and peace, it's the power of God for salvation.

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Paul says I'm not ashamed of that gospel, I know the story, I know where the world is going, I'm not ashamed of his good news.

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And then the powerful point that has been so central to the debates we've been having for hundreds of years over how a person is actually made right with God, how do you have peace with God?

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And then Paul quotes from in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written the righteous shall live by faith.

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You will live and not die, you will stand and not fall by what? By what?

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Faith. That's the answer. And now Paul begins his explanation.

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4, verse 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

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For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.

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For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.

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So they are without excuse. So Paul opens up and he actually explains something about God's wrath, something that we don't like to talk about very much today.

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We don't want to talk about a God who is wrathful, a God who is actually just, a God who is opposed to sin and rebellion.

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How many evangelical leaders have you seen over the last couple of years who have yielded on matters of sexual ethics and said, you know, maybe

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God's not really concerned with that. Maybe I would do a gay wedding and we just need to love our neighbor.

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And, you know, we've got people in our church here who are gay and part of the LGBT community and they serve here and they give here.

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People say that boldly, proudly, as though it were something that was noble. We don't want to talk about the wrath of God against sin.

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We want to talk about a God who is simply love and he is mercy. And the truth is, I don't believe that we have even fully plumbed the depths of God's love and mercy in our own minds because it is so incomprehensible.

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However, we just want the love of God that's shown in the cross. But we're missing something if we see the cross and only see the love of God.

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What you ought to see when you see the cross is not merely the love of God and the mercy of God for sinners, but you should see also the justice and wrath of God that put

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Jesus on that cross. And that's the point that the Apostle Paul is going to make later. This is the reason for Jesus.

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Here's why he had to come. He's a propitiation for our sins. This is why Jesus had to die.

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It's not merely the love of God. It is the wrath and the justice of God against sin because God is a holy

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God. He is a holy God. And so Paul opens his explanation of the gospel with a discussion about the wrath of God.

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That's how he starts. And I want to argue actually that when we do our evangelism with just trying to drop love bombs on people and just talk about the love of God and manipulate their emotions to come to Jesus, we are not giving them the gospel.

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And perhaps that's why the American church is so filled with false converts, people who profess the faith in Jesus but know nothing about Jesus, know nothing about Scripture, know nothing about the gospel.

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They won't stand for righteousness because they've never fully understood why Jesus went to that cross in the first place.

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God is opposed to sin. God hates things. He hates sin.

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God is opposed to sin. We are rebels against God. And Paul says the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

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That is the human problem. Paul argues here that it's not as though the power of God and the nature of God and His existence are foreign concepts to the sinner.

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They just don't know. People will say that oftentimes. They'll say, well, what about the people that are in some far off country that are worshiping idols?

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What about them? They've never heard of Jesus. It's like, yeah, what are they doing there in that foreign country? What are they doing? They're worshiping the hay, the stubble, the stone, the stuff, the sky, the tree.

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They're worshiping. They can't help but worship because they're made in the imago dei. They're made in the image of God.

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They know the true God. It's not a lack of light. It's not a lack of evidence.

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Paul says the problem here in humanity is a suppression of the truth.

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Is that we know the truth very well. Paul argues here actually that we know as fallen people the truth so well.

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God has made it known to us. He sent the message to every single person.

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The problem isn't that it doesn't get through. It's that we don't want it. That's the problem.

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We suppress the truth and unrighteousness to the degree that Paul actually says this. To the person that says, what about that human being in some foreign country that's never heard of Jesus?

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Are they condemned? Paul says, actually, we're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness.

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Everybody knows the true God. They don't want God in their knowledge. And actually, they are unapologetus.

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They are without a reasoned defense. You know the word apologia. You know that word from Peter.

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In 1 Peter 3 .15, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to give a reasoned defense.

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And apologia, it's actually a kind of courtroom language where you would give a defense for your case.

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You would give a reasoned defense. You would give an argument for your case. The word apologia.

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We call our church apologia church. Pastor James hates that as a Greek teacher. But, you know, it was just easier.

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Apologetics, apologia. So, apologia is the Greek word. It's a reasoned defense. Christians are commanded to give a reasoned defense for the hope that's within us.

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And to do it with what? Gentleness and reverence. Gentleness and respect.

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The Apostle Paul here uses the same word about the unbeliever. And he says this. They suppress the truth and unrighteousness so that they are without a reasoned defense.

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Nobody in their judgments, nobody on the last day will be giving a reasoned defense for their case before God.

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All will be evidence. All will be known. All the secrets declared. And Paul is saying here,

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God has wrath against sin, unrighteousness, and ungodliness. Everybody knows

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God. They suppress that truth. And so Paul says this. In verse 21.

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For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.

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Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

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And so they know Him. They don't want Him. They profess to be wise. They're actually fools.

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And what they do is they switch the true God and the knowledge of the true God for something that is substandard.

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Some other kind of God. They worship and serve the creature rather than the creator.

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That's what we do. That's the problem of humanity. John Calvin said that the human heart is an idol -making factory and it is never idle in creating idols.

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It's always producing them. It's always working on them. We're always trying to find satisfaction elsewhere.

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So the problem of all the different gods of humanity are answered right here by the Apostle Paul. God has wrath.

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People know God. They don't want the true God. He's made the revelation of Himself clear to all of us.

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We suppress that truth. We're left with that excuse and we switch God for an idol. That's the story.

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And here's the consequence. And it explains much of what is around us today.

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Verse 24, Therefore God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who was blessed forever.

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Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

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So the Apostle Paul starts to work through the arguments about sinful humanity.

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Everybody knows Him. They don't want Him in their knowledge. They switch God for idols. And so what God does is He gives them over to what they want.

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You don't want me? I'll give you what you want. Here, I'll give you over to your sin. And by the way, that's the most terrifying place to be with God.

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And I want to say to the believer, to my brother and sister in this room, one of the greatest things that you and I should actually delight in and rejoice in is when we are convicted over our sin.

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Right? Oftentimes I think we misinterpret in our process of sanctification the conviction of the

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Holy Spirit. Right? We feel grief over our sin. We hate our sin. We're in tears.

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God, why? Why did I act this way? Why did I say these things? Lord, Lord, why do I do these things?

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We feel just this sort of desperation like I hate what's left in me and all these things that I'm pursuing.

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I don't want to live this way anymore. And I love when I have a new believer in front of me who's just in tears, grieving over their sin.

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Like, why am I still acting like this? Why am I still doing this? I hate this. I'm just smiling. This is so awesome.

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Were you thinking like this before? When you were in your sin? When you were in your rebellion against God?

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Were you thinking this way before? Were you hating your sin like this? No. That's evidence of the

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Holy Spirit in your life and that's how the victory comes. God hasn't handed you over to your sin.

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Rejoice. Confess. And rejoice in the forgiveness you have in Christ. Walk with Christ.

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Walk with God. Rejoice over that conviction because this is clear in Romans chapter 1.

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God hands people over to their sin as judgment. When you can delight in your sin, pursue your sin, not hate your sin, accept your sin, be confident in your sin, you've been given over to your sin.

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And so, you know, at times as Christians today, of course we admit, right? You look out in the culture around about us and you think, my goodness, what's going on?

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What's going on with the culture around us that was so seeped in the Christian worldview and received the benefits of the gospel and the law of God across culture and society?

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What's happened to us that in a very short time period, we have people actually living in ways that are just astonishing.

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Astonishing. The things that are going on in public streets with parades and drag queen story hours and all of the acceptance of sin and people just boasting about their sin.

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They're proud like Sodom. I mean, you can't even at times get on social media without having to quickly scroll past something when you were going to try to message a friend because you're just getting bombarded with all kinds of evil.

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And it's happened so fast, so quickly. Just consider you used to have in the 50s in this nation, public service announcements against the homosexual.

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Think about that. Think about that across the United States of America, homosexuality, homosexual acts and behavior were actual criminal acts.

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You could be criminally charged for such things. And it's within a generation of us.

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We've gone from a place where it was considered to be a crime because of the law word of God in culture and society to now it is fully accepted.

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And not just fully accepted, you and I are expected to applaud. We are expected to not just accept it, we are expected to applaud and to celebrate it.

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And that's within a generation. And so what's that evidence of? Not people having victory over God.

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Not people having victory over God. What's that evidence of? It's evidence of God's righteous judgments.

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You want your sin? You want to love your sin? I will let you have your sin along with all of the consequences

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God gives you over. Clearly in Romans 1 Paul says that people know and they suppress the truth about God and so God gives them over to their sin.

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You want your false idols? I'll let you have them. You want your sin? I'll let you have your sin so you'll degrade your own bodies.

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You will distort the very order of creation. You will unravel the creative purpose that I made for men and women.

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I will let you have your full destruction. So when we see the culture around us going this way we need to recognize it the way that scripture calls it out.

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This is God's righteous judgment. He is giving people over to their sins.

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So Romans chapter 1 then Paul goes on in verse 28. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge

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God God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

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They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness. Here we go. Evil. Covetousness.

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Malice. They are full of envy. Murder. Strife. Deceit. Maliciousness. They are gossips.

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Slanderers. Haters of God. Insolent. Haughty. Boastful.

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Inventors of evil. Disobedient to parents. Foolish. Faithless. Heartless. Ruthless. Though they know

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God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die. They not only do them but give hearty approval.

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Give approval to those who practice them. Now you read that today.

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You read that and you go, sounds like where we're living today. Right? That sounds like where I'm living today.

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That's true. That's the result of people's sin. There is a way out through the gospel and that's what

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Paul is explaining here. There's a way out of this pit. But this is where humanity is.

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And what Paul then does is he goes on to now address the person who is lurking in the background.

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The proud Jew who believes that because they are physically descended from Abraham, they have some special position.

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Because they actually have the oracles of God. Because they have the scriptures. That puts them into a special position.

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So you can sort of hear what Paul is addressing in the background. The Jew who just heard the

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Apostle Paul pointing to the idolatry and the sin of humanity and going, yes Paul, you go get those

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Gentiles. Those pagans. Those idolaters. Go after them Paul.

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I'm with you all the way. And what Paul does now is he turns his argument now to the

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Jew. The boastful Jew who thinks that because they're physically descended that somehow makes them part of the seed.

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Or that they have the scriptures. That they have some special right or privilege before God. And that somehow makes them right with God.

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And Paul then addresses them. I'll do the summary of it. But basically you know the story here. You're not justified because you hold the scriptures.

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If you think that's the way, you'd have to actually do what's in that law and in those scriptures.

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But you don't. You tell people not to lie. You lie. You tell people not to commit adultery. You commit adultery.

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Do you think somehow that you're going to be right with God? Because you're holding the Bible? Because you hold the

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Bible. You've got the Bible. Somehow you're right with God. That's not how this works. That's not how it works.

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And so the Apostle Paul now indicts the Jewish person in the first century that thinks they have some special privilege and justification merely because they're holding the law of God and they have the

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Bible. You don't do the things that are in that book Paul says. You're not even doing them.

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And so on to chapter 3. In 3, now the universal indictment.

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He says in verse 9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all.

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

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That means everybody, right? That means that's a shorthand for saying the whole world.

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Jews and Greeks. Jews and Gentiles. Everybody are under sin. You're not in a special privileged place because you're

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Jewish. You don't somehow avoid original sin or being a sinner or being condemned because you are

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Jewish and hold the Bible. The Gentiles are condemned, yes, and you are condemned. This is a universal indictment.

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And so Paul now takes all of those verses, this collage from the Old Testament he creates and he says, here it is.

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As it is written, what's the basis for his arguments? Let's point to it again. What's the basis of his argument?

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What is it? The Scriptures. He's an inspired apostle. He is. He's an inspired apostle.

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We have to grant that, right? He has authority as an apostle, of course. But when he wants to actually place a solid foundation for his gospel and how you know what he is saying is true, where does he go?

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He goes to the Word of the Living God. He goes to prove it from God's own words. His previous revelation, which is the pattern through Scripture.

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And so the Word says none is righteous, no not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God.

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Alright, that's it. We're done. We're done. If this is true, if this is true, then all of the religions of mankind collapse with their attempts to climb to God through their good deeds.

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They all collapse. This is a claim of exclusivity.

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Here is the Christian anthropology. Here is the Christian view of man, mankind.

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No one's righteous. Really, Paul? Like nobody? He says no, not one.

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If you're confused about where he's going with this, nobody's righteous.

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Are you speaking of generalities here? Like, you know, there's some like Moses, right? He was a righteous guy. How about Abraham, righteous?

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David? Nope. Solomon, right? He's the wisest guy. He's righteous?

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Nope. How about Paul? How about you? Are you right?

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No, not one. Nobody is righteous. Not even one. No one understands.

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No one seeks for God. You gotta stop for a moment there and just consider as you think through that, because you're thinking like probably you're a foreign person right now, like a good

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Calvinist, hopefully. And you're thinking, yeah, no one seeks for God, so that could help us in terms of explaining like your will has fallen.

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You ain't searching for God. You're not climbing for God and trying to cooperate in any way. There's no synergism possible here at the beginning of this at all, right?

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Like you're thinking in that way, but like I think we need to think about it in a different way as believers. Here's a room full of Christians in this room today on the other side of the world from Israel 2 ,000 years later.

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The claim of scripture and the gospel from the inspired apostle is that nobody seeks for God. Not one. And yet, there's a room full of people right here that are seeking for Jesus.

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Trust in Jesus, right? So how'd you get here? If no one is seeking for God, and you are in this room trusting in Jesus, seeking for God, it is

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God who sought you. It is God who pursued you, because no one's looking for Him, because we are enemies of God, haters of God, unrighteous, suppressing the truth of God and unrighteousness.

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Do you see how the story flows? Now Paul continues. He says this, as though it wasn't bad enough, all have turned aside.

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All, not some. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good.

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Not even one. So all of the human attempts to get right with God through our good deeds and our obedience are immediately rejected by the apostle

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Paul. The inspired apostle says you're not righteous, you're not good, you don't seek for God, and no one does good.

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Nobody. So that's the position of fallen humanity.

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That's the position. We are not good. Our throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive.

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The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

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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.

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Can I remind us, brothers and sisters, very humbly, that the apostle Paul here isn't describing a class of humans amongst other humans.

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He actually just made the argument that Jews and Greeks, that means the entire world, are under sin.

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And let me describe it for you. For Jews and Greeks, everybody, they're like this.

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They don't fear God. They're not good. And that's our condition.

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Now that's the point. We need to communicate to the world. And every person we speak to.

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I mentioned last night, if you trust in the sovereignty of God and you understood the condition of mankind, you wouldn't try to take the sharp edges off the gospel.

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You need those sharp edges. God uses the good news to bring people to life. When you shave off the edges, you're not giving the gospel that gives people life.

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Paul doesn't do that here. Paul's not shaving off an edge. He's not minimizing the impact.

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He's not minimizing the damage. You can't either. It's not to say that we should delight in telling people you're a disgusting sinner and a wrathful.

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You can't do that. Enjoy that. Tell the story though. You're not righteous. You're not good.

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You are you don't fear God. You are lost. You're an enemy of God. You are dead in your sins.

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You need redemption. You need forgiveness and salvation. Tell the story the way that it is because Paul actually begins his gospel up front.

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It's loaded with the very bad news. This is God's good news but it's good news for a reason.

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It's good news for a reason because there is a very terrible story about you and I.

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And this is good news that starts with your true condition before God.

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And now Paul goes into the joy of the gospel and how God actually accomplishes this.

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He says this in verse 19. Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

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I've always thought this particular verse doesn't get enough air time and it should.

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We'd love to get to the next verse. For by the works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

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We love that part. Law can't justify you. It's just going to expose your sin. But in verse 19 it says that actually the law will only shut you up.

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Right? The law isn't going to justify anybody. It's just going to close your mouth because when you and I are standing before a holy

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God with his holy character and his holy law placed before us the only thing we can do with our mouths is close them.

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And Paul's point there is the law isn't going to justify anybody. It's going to close your mouth and shut you up.

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But here's what's even more impressive about this. It's not just shutting up the mouth of Jews.

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The people who are entrusted with the law and the oracles of God. Paul makes the point that it's the whole world that will be held accountable to God.

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The law of God is going to be used to condemn of course the

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Jews who violated it but also those in the world who are made in his image that also violated.

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The law of God is not just for the people of God it's for the world. These are

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God's standards. And God holds the world accountable and it will close their mouths and so of course

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Paul says in verse 24 by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

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So you can take that every religion that tries to co -opt the Christian gospel and then distort the message by saying yeah it's some of God and some of me.

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It's some of God and some of me. It's just these details over here. It's just this stuff you need to do over here plus God's grace.

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It's just sort of like cooperating working this out sort of a two way system grace and works in some way.

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Works of law whatever they might be and the grace of God. Paul says by the works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight for through the law comes knowledge of sin.

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The law just exposes you. One of my very good friends. I love him so much. Living Waters Ray Comfort, Mark Spence, EZ, all the guys over there.

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Let me tell you those guys are just absolutely amazing men. They believe what they say.

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They believe they are godly men. I love them so much. They've actually helped. Living Waters has helped to fund some of our abortion work in states.

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They actually just helped to fund Kentucky so I thank God for them. And they helped to fund Louisiana last year.

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Those men are amazing men. And one of the ways that I love that Ray gets this across when he's evangelizing is when he asks somebody, have you ever loyed?

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Right? Have you ever looked at a woman with lust? Right? How he says that. He gets across the point here that through the law comes the knowledge of sin that when you really sit down and start working through it, every single person recognizes, yeah,

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I'm a liar. Yeah, I've hated somebody in my heart. I'm also a murderer. Yeah, I've stolen.

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Yeah, I've looked with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart, sexual immorality. Yeah, I've coveted all of those things.

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You recognize you're getting into just a few of the commandments and you recognize you're guilty of pretty much every single one.

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And so if you stand before God on judgment day as a violator of his law, what do you look like?

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You look like a liar? You look like an adulterer? You look like a murderer? You look like a thief? That's what you and I are before a holy

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God. And that's the point here is that you can't take the law and spread it out in front of you and say, okay, let's do this.

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Let's see how well I've done. Because every one of us is not righteous. We're not good. And every one of us has failed to keep that law.

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And that's why the message of Christ is so glorious. Because though we have failed to keep the law,

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Jesus is the one who comes and he keeps the law before a holy father in the place of his people.

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He has a righteousness that actually can stand before God's judgment seat. And he takes the death that we have deserved, that we should have, and then he conquers our greatest enemy by rising from the dead.

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That's why the gospel is so glorious, is that Jesus is the law keeper that you aren't. He's the righteous one that you and I are not.

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That's the hope that we have in the gospel and that's why it is called gospel. That's why it's called good news. And so Paul goes on.

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He says this, verse 21, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

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See that point again? Law and the prophets. This is what it's connected to. They bear witness to this. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

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So what was the problem just before us in chapter 3? Nobody's righteous.

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No, not one. No one does good. And now Paul turns to the good news and saying, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

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The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. How do you do it?

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How do you go from a place of not righteous to the righteousness of God? How? Faith.

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Faith. Not the law. It is faith. And so Paul then goes on to say, for there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

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That's everybody again. Universal indictment. And are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

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And I love this section here because the universal indictment comes. The law is incapable to justify you or to save you or to make you right before God.

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It just shuts you up. But now, here's how God does it. It is through faith. The law and the prophets testify about this and it is through faith.

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And then he says this, it takes place this way. You are justified by His grace as a gift. If you actually get to the original languages there,

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Paul is actually seeming like he's stuttering there. He's saying the same thing twice. Justified by His grace as a gift.

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That's the same thing. Grace as a gift. So really, salvation is through the redemption of Christ.

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And what is it exactly, Paul? It's a gift gift. Right? I love that.

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What exactly is this? It's a gift gift. A gift gift. By His grace as a gift.

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A gift gift. Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. He pulls us out of our slavery.

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That redemption. But notice the word here, justified. It is used a lot in the

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New Testament. Here's a very important key thing right now. Because it has everything to do with us delighting in God's grace and our assurance.

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What does Paul mean here by justified? The word here, in a way, is righteousfied.

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It's the same word that's there in righteousness. It's a declaration of righteousness and proof that Paul is using a courtroom type word.

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That this is a legal declaration is in his own words. Let's move ahead here to chapter 8.

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How is Paul using the word justified? You know this section.

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In 8 .31, when Paul summarizes these blessings of the gospel, he says,

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What then shall we say to these things if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

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Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is

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God who justifies. Who is to condemned? Christ Jesus is the one who died.

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More than that, who was raised, who is the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Here's the point.

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When Paul is describing justification, God justifying, he puts it in that courtroom context.

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Who can bring a charge against God's elect? Charges are brought in courts.

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That condemnation, that place where you're in the seat and the judge is there. Paul's point is this. Who's going to bring any charge against God's elect?

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Who's going to bring a charge against you? Against you? Against me? Who's going to bring a charge when the judge is the one who's already declared me righteous?

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Do you get the point? That's Paul's argument. Who can bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies.

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He declared righteous. Can you imagine? Can you imagine standing before God and arguing against his declaration of righteousness on a person?

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He's the actual judge. He's the one that's freed them from condemnation. He's the one that's declared them righteous.

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You've received a declaration of righteousness. And if you're in Christ, if you're a believer in Jesus, the point

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Paul is making here about justification is that when you trust in Jesus, your faith is in Jesus, God has made that declaration of righteousness.

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It's a past tense reality for believers. When God brought you to himself and you trusted in Jesus, you were declared righteous.

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Here it is. Not because you truly are. You're not. But because he is.

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And you are in Christ wrapped up in his perfect righteousness. How can

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God declare a wicked person righteous? Because you're hiding in the one who is righteous.

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You're in Christ. You're covered in his righteousness. God isn't looking at your record and your clothes to see how white and how pure you are.

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God is looking at the righteousness of Jesus. That's the point. He declares you righteous as a gift to the redemption that's in Jesus.

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What takes place on that cross is redemption. It is Christ bearing my guilt and shame and my sin and condemnation.

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And it is me receiving his righteousness. Paul goes on to make that point next. And so that's chapter 3.

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God moving us into how does, how does this operate? What's the mechanism? How does

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God actually do this? And this is where it gets more powerful, I believe. After he says that all have sinned and fall short of the grace of God, we're justified as a gift gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom

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God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by what?

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Faith and works? Faith and obedience? Faith and cooperation?

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How does Paul, the inspired apostle, say a person is to receive this gift?

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By what? Faith. Oh, that's too easy. That's too easy.

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That's too easy. That can't be. Are you telling me that God redeems people and saves people through faith?

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Nothing else is required. They don't have to, they don't have to fix themselves up. They don't have to be good enough and there's none righteous.

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No, not even one. There's none who does good. What are you talking about? They don't have to obey the law. The law's gonna justify nobody.

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It's only gonna close your mouth. So how does a person receive this? Through faith. It's a gift. It's a gift gift.

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Paul's point there is you receive this through faith through this propitiation that was provided by Jesus.

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And I think a lot of times, if we're honest, you see a word like propitiation, it's so out of use in our world.

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You see it and you just sort of go right past it as a believer. I don't really know what that word means, kind of high above my pay grade, but it sounds awesome.

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Whatever it does, it's pretty good. Propitiation is that the best way to quickly do it without doing a whole sermon on it, is that God puts forward

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Jesus as a propitiation. He receives the wrath in full and exhausts it.

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The wrath of God is diverted away from the sinner. It's diverted away from the sinner and it's fully absorbed in Jesus Christ.

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Kind of like Passover where the wrath of God passes over the house on account of the blood of the

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Lamb. Same idea here. And so God puts forward Jesus as a propitiation.

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The wrath moved away from you. It moved away from me. And it's fully absorbed and exhausted in Jesus.

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And Jesus' final words were what? It is what?

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Finished. Nothing's left. It's a once for all sacrifice, Scripture teaches.

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Once for all. It is able to perfect forever those who draw near to God through Him. It is done.

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Not to be repeated. Not to come back to Sunday Mass and have to have it represented again and again and again and again.

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It is finished and it is through faith. And let's be honest, man -made religion says that's far too easy.

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There must be more. And that's why this is so gospel. That's why this is such good news.

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Paul goes on and he explains the purpose. This was to show God's righteousness because in His divine forbearance

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He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

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This is potent. It is very powerful and it is unique, unique, unique to the

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Christian faith and message of the gospel. Think about, let's just take one example, a

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God like the God in Islam. They deny that Jesus Christ is the divine

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Son of God. They say He's a prophet, peace be upon Him. They deny that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins.

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They say that's not necessary. But they say this, Allah is holy and we are sinners. They admit that.

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Allah is holy and we are sinners. And so you have to ask the question, is Allah just?

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Yes, He is the most just. So He's holy and He's just. Right. And we are the criminals in His universe.

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Right. And so what you're saying is that one day this holy and just judge is just simply going to let criminals go in His universe.

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Do you know any human judge that does that? Can you imagine now, this was a court of law, the judge is on the bench, the criminal is in the room, there's eyewitnesses, there's video testimony, he's confessed to the crime.

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Can you imagine that he's really guilty and the victims are sitting behind him in that room. And the judge goes up to declare, and the judge says, you are forgiven.

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You're guilty, but I let you go. You've been trying really hard. You've been doing better.

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Every victim sitting behind the criminal will stand up and wring their hands.

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You can't do that. There are victims here. This person has murdered.

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This person has done this and that. You are supposed to be a just judge to execute justice.

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Now in Islam and in other man -made religious systems, they have that same problem that cannot be solved.

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Their God is good, their God is holy in some sense, more righteous than us in some sense.

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We're the criminals in the universe and we're expected to believe that these just gods are simply going to let criminals go.

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It's a problem of injustice that man -made religion cannot solve, but the gospel solves the problem.

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Because God doesn't simply say, I really like you, I'm going to let you go. He cannot do that without violating his own standards of justice.

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So what does God do to reconcile people to himself? God in the person of Jesus Christ comes as the righteous and obedient one to receive the penalty due to us in himself so that God can be just because he has not ignored any sin.

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He is not simply letting you go. He does not say, I love you so much I'm going to let you go,

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I'm going to give you a pass. No sin in human history, not the smallest sin, not the idle thought, will get a pass.

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Every single sin in the history of humanity is going to be dealt with by this just judge.

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Either in the sinner who doesn't know Jesus, they will be held accountable for them for all eternity, or it was satisfied and answered in Jesus.

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Every sin in human history will be dealt with justly by God. That's Paul's points.

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He's a propitiation. God passed over these previous sins. They were waiting in the person of Jesus Christ so that God may be just and the justifier, the one who has faith in Jesus.

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And then so Paul goes on. Then what becomes of our boasting? That's a good question, right?

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This is all a gift gift. It's all Jesus. It's all through faith. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.

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By what kind of law? By law of works? No, but by the law of faith, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

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We hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. People will often ask who are opposed to God's revelation as the standard.

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They're opposed to like sola scriptura. They'll say the Bible doesn't say anywhere that Scripture alone, or sorry, faith alone.

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Sorry. They'll say the Bible doesn't say anywhere they were saved by faith alone. Well, it says it actually a lot of places.

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Let's open the Bible. Let's go to the descriptions. But here is actually a place where the

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Apostle Paul is explaining the gospel and how a person is justified and what does he say in Romans 3 28.

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He says, for we maintain that a man is justified, declared righteous by faith apart from the works of the law.

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Now you have Paul describing faith and works. And what he says is this, is that we are justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

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Apart from the works of the law. What is faith apart from the works of the law? It is faith over here by itself.

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It's faith alone. Do you get that? Faith and works are both discussed here. And Paul says it's without this, so it's faith by itself.

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What's that? Faith alone. We are justified by faith alone. And so, this will of course lead people not understanding the gospel itself into thinking, okay, so what you're saying we can just have faith in Jesus and go on sinning?

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Well, that's not real faith. You clearly didn't really believe if you want to live that way. But Paul makes an argument after this whole discussion about it's faith alone apart from the works of the law and it's all

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God and it's a gift, gift. He makes the argument at the end in verse 31.

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He says, do we then overthrow the law by faith by no means.

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On the contrary, we establish it. See, the Christian message isn't that now that we have faith, we are free from that horrible law of God.

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By the way, if you feel that way about the law of God, you don't understand the character of God or the law of God. You see, the gospel actually says because we are saved by faith alone apart from works, we now establish the law.

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Why? Because we're in Christ. We're forgiven. We're declared righteous. We have peace with God and we're filled with God's spirits.

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We're new. We're alive. We're new creations. Now we have a new disposition towards the law of God.

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We actually love the law of God. We long to actually fulfill and obey that law which is precisely the promise in the new covenant.

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Jeremiah 31, 31 God says he's going to do what with the law? No longer stone tablets on the outside of the people of God, but something that's actually written within us.

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That new internal desire to obey. Spirit wrought obedience.

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And Paul makes the argument that because we're saved by faith, we actually establish the law. And here, by the way,

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I want to end with the benefits. In chapter 4,

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Paul says, If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

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For what does the scripture say? There is again foundation. There is the authority. What does the scripture say? Abraham believed

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God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Credited to him as righteousness. Charged to his account as righteousness.

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Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as is due.

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And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

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We all understand this. This isn't ancient and has no relevance today. The point Paul is making is if you have a job and you're working, what you get isn't a gift.

01:00:01

It's a wage. Nobody walks into their boss' office and would tolerate the boss like, hey,

01:00:07

I have a gift for you. Look, it's this beautiful package. It's all wrapped and nice. It smells like Christmas. And they say, here you go.

01:00:13

I just wanted to give you this gift. And you're excited and you pull the ribbons off and tear the box open and open it up and at the bottom is your paycheck for the last two weeks.

01:00:24

You'd say, uh, excuse me, you owe me this. Where's the gift, bro?

01:00:30

Right? Looking under the table like, you tricking me? Because that's not how gifts work and that's

01:00:37

Paul's point. Is that if you are working for this, then what you're getting would be a wage and not a gift and that's not the gospel

01:00:47

I'm presenting. That's the point he's making. If you're laboring for this, if you're working for this, what you're asking for is a wage and the gospel is gift, not wage.

01:00:58

It's gift, not earned. But notice the words here. They are potent and, again, man -made religious systems cannot answer this.

01:01:08

They don't like it. In the Joseph Smith translation of the New Testament, which is, of course, not a translation.

01:01:15

It's just him going on through the Bible, taking out what he doesn't like and adding what he wants in there. In this section here, if you read the

01:01:22

Joseph Smith translation, he actually changes the words because it doesn't make any sense to him. The words here, look at them with me.

01:01:32

And to the one, verse five, who does not work but believes in him who justifies the wicked, the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

01:01:45

Joseph Smith looked at that and said, that doesn't make any sense. God declares righteous the wicked?

01:01:53

He declares righteous the ungodly? And so in the Joseph Smith translation, he changes it to God does not justify the ungodly.

01:02:05

You see, now, pause for a moment. This is very important. Can you come with me for just a second on this? It's very important.

01:02:11

What do religious systems say, even the ones that try to counterfeit Christianity? You gotta be good.

01:02:18

You gotta be obedient enough. You gotta be holy enough. You have to polish yourself up for God to look at you and say, you're good.

01:02:27

We're good. You have to not be so ungodly. You gotta be righteous in yourself for God to look at you and declare you righteous.

01:02:36

But what does this say? What does the word of the Lord say? It says that God justifies who?

01:02:43

The ungodly. The same ones that were not righteous. The same ones that were not good just a moment ago.

01:02:50

The same ones who don't seek for God. The same ones whose mouths are shut before the throne of God because of his justice and his judgment.

01:02:59

It says that God declares righteous the ungodly. And here is what the text says.

01:03:05

It says, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom

01:03:12

God counts righteousness apart from works. Wait a minute.

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He justifies the ungodly. Christ is the propitiation. We're redeemed to him.

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We're declared righteous. And it says that God counts you righteous apart from your works.

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That just ripped the ground out from underneath systems like Roman Catholicism.

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Because they want a system that says through your good deeds and through your penance and through your sacramental work and all the things that you're doing, maybe one day

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God will count you righteous because you were good enough, acceptable enough, you performed enough, you did enough for the sacraments, whatever the case may be.

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But this actually says that God declares righteous the ungodly and that he counts you righteous apart from your works.

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And then this. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Did you hear what happened there? Brother or sister, did you hear that?

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Through faith we are counted righteous, though in ourselves we are not.

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God counts you righteous apart from your works and he will never count your sins against you.

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So how does God do this? Through the propitiation that's in Christ, through his work and through his effort, his life and his death and his resurrection and it is through faith and it is apart from works, it is through faith alone and here are the benefits.

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You're declared righteous. Here's the benefit. God counts you righteous apart from all your good deeds, apart from all your works and God will never count your sins against you again.

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It's not hard to wrap your mind around. It's hard to sometimes receive that like it's such a gift that he will never count your sins against you.

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They're finished. They're already answered for. They're already dealt with.

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You and I have a perfect righteousness in Jesus Christ where we are counted righteous in him forever and our sins will never be held against us.

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Now more can be said here but I want to land on the summary Romans 5 .1 What's the final?

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Therefore since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. The peace that you and I have with Jesus Christ, the peace that we have with God is a true peace.

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We've been declared righteous. We're counted righteous in Jesus. God will never hold our sins against us again.

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It's all to his glory. There's no boasting in us and the result is peace with God. No temporary cease fire.

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Right? We like to think about that in some ways in our own daily walk with God. Right? You ever fall into that trap?

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You've got to reject that. You've got to confront that in yourselves. You've got to go to the word of God and allow yourself to be healed from that.

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We oftentimes think like well again like I've said this weekend, I'm doing good with God now. Better in my sanctification so now

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God and I are good. Right? We're no longer at war on Monday because I'm doing really well today. No, this peace is a peace that results from justification that God has already declared because of Jesus work not yours.

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And that will never change. Not on Monday, not on Tuesday, not on Wednesday. You and I through faith in Jesus because of the mighty

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Savior he is we have peace with God. It's true shalom. It's true peace.

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It's an everlasting peace. And that is the hope of the gospel. That is the grace of God and that's the assurance that we have in Jesus.