WWUTT 123 Everyone Is Worthless (Romans 3:10-18)

Did you know that apart from God, you are worthless? Yeah, the

Bible says so. Without God, you're worth nothing. And you can do nothing. It is God who gives you meaning and strength when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. Yes, I am still trying to kick my cold. I have a pile of used

Kleenexes to my right. I'm sure that's TMI. And a bunch of empty water bottles to my left.

I haven't even been to the office at the church yet this week because I've been so miserable. But still committed to our study of Romans chapter 3, looking this week at verses 10 through 18.

If you want to open up your Bibles and join with me there. And over the course of this recording,

I will have to pause occasionally to sneeze and sniffle. OK, starting in verse 10, as it is written, 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 person. 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.

Yesterday we looked at verses 10 and 11. None is righteous, not one. No one understands.

No one seeks for God. Today we get to verse 12. All have turned aside together.

They have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one.

This one verse, which is actually Paul quoting from Psalm 14 and Psalm 53, the first three verses in both of those

Psalms are basically identical. Romans 3 .12 throws a bucket of ice water on two very popular concepts.

Number one, God loves you just the way you are. And number two, that everyone is basically good.

Going back to the start of that verse, all have turned aside. I think of Isaiah 53 .6,

all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.

But even in that verse in the Old Testament, we have the gospel, the next part of that verse, and the

Lord has laid on him, on Christ, the iniquity of us all.

As we get to later on, Isaiah 53 .10, it pleased the Lord to crush him.

What we deserved for our sin was the wrath of God, but Jesus Christ died on the cross in our place.

He took the wrath of God upon himself. All of our sins were imputed upon Christ, and then

Christ imparted upon us his righteousness so that when God looks at us now, he sees not our sin, but the righteousness of Christ.

Keep that in mind as I make the next point that I'm going to make here. This is important, but it can be confusing, and I want you to understand where I'm coming from here.

Romans 3 .12, all have turned aside, together they have become worthless.

Without God, you're worthless. Have you ever heard it said God loves you just the way that you are?

Not true. He hates you in your sin. Did you just say

God hates people? Yeah, I did, and we see it in the Bible. Psalm 5, God hates evildoers.

God hates those who breathe out lies, and as we're reading here in Romans 3, everyone breathed out lies.

In Proverbs 6, God hates feet that are swift to shed blood. He hates those who breathe out lies against another person.

God hates those who sow discord among brothers. God hates sin.

That saying God hates the sin but loves the sinner? Not true. In fact, that's nowhere in the

Bible. That was said by Mahatma Gandhi. It's not anywhere in Scripture. God hates sin, and he hates sinners.

But we read this, John 3 .16, God so loved the world that he gave his only son, and whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

In Ezekiel 33 .11, God desires that none should perish, but all would come to repentance. So understand this.

God loved you enough not to leave you in your sin, not to leave you as an object of his wrath, children of wrath, as is described in Ephesians 2 .3.

He loved you enough to send his son to die in your place, and God crushed him.

His wrath was poured out on him. Christ took that upon himself. So now when God looks at you, he sees not your sin, but the righteousness of Christ.

God loved you enough to do that for you. See, there was a time when we were not worthless.

Notice that verse says, together they have become worthless. When God created Adam and Eve in the garden, male and female, he created them in his own image.

We read this in Genesis 1. They were created in the image of God, and God looked at them, and it was very good.

But then Adam and Eve sinned. Sin came into all of mankind. We are all willing participants in Adam's sin.

None of us can blame Adam for that, because we all participate in this sin. We're all guilty of this.

All of us have taken the gifts that God gave to us for his glory. The mind and the body that he gave to us, the very breath that he breathed into us to give us life, and we used it to blaspheme him and proclaim our own glory instead.

And what we deserve for that is death. The Bible says we become enemies of God. We are haters of God.

No one seeks after God. And so what we deserve is destruction. But God loves us enough not to let us remain in that place.

But while we were yet sinners, as it says in Romans 5, 8, God demonstrates his love for us, and that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life.

That's Romans 5, 8 through 10. If you want to mark that in your Bible, we'll definitely be getting to that later.

So all have turned aside. Together we have become worthless. It is God who gives us worth.

It is Christ who makes us worth something. I mean, just consider the words that Jesus spoke to his disciples in John 15, 4 through 5.

Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.

For apart from me you can do nothing. You can do nothing without Christ.

But remember Philippians 4, 13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, right?

What is the opposite of that verse? I can do nothing without Christ. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

But without Christ, I'm nothing. I'm worth nothing. I can do nothing. Man, we see this throughout the scripture.

Psalm 144, man is like a breath. His days are like a passing shadow. James 4, 14, what is your life?

You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. We read in Ecclesiastes chapter 1, all is vanity and is worth nothing.

But Christ is the one that has rescued us and made us worth something. He has restored to us the intention that we were made for in the very beginning, to glorify

God. We have been made able to do that because of the sacrifice of Christ.

1 Peter 2, 25, kind of bringing Isaiah 53, 6 back around in circle. 1 Peter 2, 25, for you were a string like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and the overseer of your souls.

All have turned aside, together they have become worthless. The next part of Romans chapter 3, verse 12, no one does good, not even one person.

No one does anything good. Really, no one? I mean,

I just saw the atheist guy down the street, shoveling a lady's sidewalk. He was doing something good for someone else.

Yeah, but if you don't do what you do in Christ or to the glory of God, then it's all just self -righteousness.

You're just proclaiming your own goodness. You're saying, I can be good just fine without God. I don't need you at all.

And God will destroy a person for that kind of pride. Nobody walks into heaven proclaiming their own glory.

They get to heaven singing God's praises and His glory. The Bible says no one is good, not even one person.

The thoughts of man are evil from his youth, Genesis 8, 21. Even the best things we do are in his filthy rags before God, Isaiah 64, 6.

We're liars, haters, sexually immoral, faithless. We are idolaters. God will judge such persons to an eternity in hell, which is what we deserve for our sin,

Revelation 21, 8. It is only Christ who rescues us from the wages of sin, which is death.

The free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, Romans 6, 23. It is in Christ alone we have our meaning and purpose.

It is in Christ alone that we are made good before God. No one deep down is basically good.

It's funny that I'm recording this episode right after my wife and I just watched this TV show where a couple of federal agents were protecting this woman on a plane.

She was about to testify in a court case. And she's going, you know, there's nothing for you guys to worry about because basically deep down everyone is a good person.

And the whole episode was showing that no one really believes that. They're suspecting all these people on this plane who could be devising in their mind getting at this woman.

No one really thinks that a person is basically good or you wouldn't be locking your doors late at night when you go to bed.

We know the evil that men can do. No one is basically good.

It is God who makes them good. We are acceptable before God because we have been given

Christ's goodness. Only He makes good. So trust in Christ and be saved and receive eternal life.

God, I pray that as we go from this lesson you continue to convict our hearts. Help us to repent from our sins and give us your goodness.

Seeking to do the things that are pleasing to you, that are a reflection of the

Jesus Christ who saved us, whom we follow, who gives us eternal life.

Thank you for the meaning and purpose that we find in Christ alone. And we pray these things in His name.

Amen. This is a production of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.