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Romans 3:9 -20 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”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. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Beloved, all of us stand under condemnation. Listen, all of us stand in the need of salvation.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Biblical Talks.
Sermon of the Week.
In Romans, chapter 3, thewriter says there is no one
righteous, not even one.
There is no one who understands.
There is no one who seeks God.
All have turned their way.
All the light has becomeworthless.
There is no one who does whatis good, not even one Beloved.
(00:25):
People use every part of theirbodies to rebel against the word
and the will of God.
All of us I mean all of usstand under condemnation.
All of us are in need ofsalvation.
Let's listen to Tim Kelly as hepreached this great sermon
(00:52):
which says no one sees God.
Here's Tim Kelly.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Romans, chapter three , verses nine through 20.
What shall we conclude then?
Are we any better?
Not at all.
We have already made the chargethat Jews and Gentiles alike
are all under sin.
As it is written, there is noone righteous, not even one.
There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.
(01:23):
All have turned away.
They have, together, becomeworthless.
There is no one who does good,not even one.
Their throats are open graves.
Their tongues practice deceit.
The poison of vipers is ontheir lips.
Their mouths are full ofcursing and bitterness.
(01:43):
Their feet are swift to shedblood.
Ruin and misery mark their waysand the way of peace.
They do not know there is nofear of God before their eyes.
Now we know that whatever thelaw says, it says to those who
are under the law, so that everymouth may be silenced and the
(02:04):
whole world held accountable toGod.
This is the word of the Lord.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
The Bible we say every week is not so much a
series of little disconnectedstories, each with a moral.
The Bible is actually a singlestory about what's wrong with
the world and the human race,what God has done to put that
right in Jesus Christ andfinally how history then, as a
(02:43):
result, is going to turn out inthe end.
And that is the story of theBible.
And what we're looking at inRomans 1, 2, 3, and 4 is Paul's
version, st Paul's version, ofthat entire biblical story which
is also called the gospel.
And we are coming here in thispassage to the very end of his
analysis of what's wrong withthe human race which, though
(03:07):
it's a tiny little word, isfraught with profound meaning.
The Bible's answer to thequestion why what's wrong with
the human race is the word sin.
And Paul here is giving us akind of summary statement of the
biblical doctrine, you couldsay, of sin.
And when I was a new believerand just trying to work my way
(03:30):
around the Bible, I want you toknow that this particular
passage gave me fits.
It was a tough passage for me.
It seemed over the top.
Some of the statements, youknow it bothered me and I
wrestled with it.
But eventually itrevolutionized my way of
thinking about life and aboutmyself and about the world, and
I'll share a little bit of that,what I learned back then, with
(03:52):
you now.
But this is perhaps the mostradical and the strongest of all
the statements that the Biblegives us about what's wrong with
the human heart.
And we're going to learn threethings about sin here the
egalitarianism of sin yes,that's what I said the
trajectory of sin and finally,the cure for sin.
(04:13):
The egalitarianism of sin, thetrajectory of sin and the cure
for sin.
Now first and we're going towork pretty much through the
passage, in the very beginning,in verses 9 and 10, paul is
making a statement.
He's making a point that I'mgoing to call the egalitarianism
of sin.
He says over and over againthere is no one righteous, there
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is no one who understands,there is no one who seeks for
God.
But it's in verse 9, he saysthe most amazing things.
He says Jew and Gentile alikeare under sin.
Are we any better?
Not at all.
Now you have to remember Paul'slooking back to Romans 1, where
(04:55):
he's talking about the paganGentiles rolling in the streets
sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Okay, that's what these longlists of sexual practices and
evil, corruption practices ofcivil and corporate and
individual.
And then Paul identifieshimself as a God-fearing Jew
trying to obey the TenCommandments in chapter 2.
And he says are we any betterthan them, not at all.
(05:16):
Moral and immoral, religiousand secular, he's saying there
is no difference.
In fact, in the beginning hesays a liker under sin.
Well, what does that mean?
Well, if you want to understandwhat that means, you can scroll
to the bottom of the text,where it says in verse 19, the
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whole world is held accountableto God, and the word accountable
means liable.
It's a judicial word, it meansliable for punishment.
And what he's saying is nomatter who you are, no matter
what your record, no matterwhether you've lived a life of
altruism and compassion andservice or a life of cruelty and
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exploitation, we're all alike,we're all condemned, we're all
lost, we all deserve to berejected by God.
That's what he's saying.
Now, how could that be?
And that's actually getting topoint two, though.
Let me remind you of what weeven know from last week, if you
were here, in looking at Romans2.
Robbing and murdering people,and a moral, religious, upright
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Pharisee who thinks because ofhis good deeds and his
righteousness, god owes himblessing and people owe him
respect.
Paul is saying that, asdifferent as those look on the
surface, underneath those areboth expressions of the same
radical self-centeredness,radical self-absorption.
That is sin.
Now, how that can be, we'll getto in a second, because here's
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what I want you to see.
When Paul says all alike, arethey any better than us?
Not at all.
This is radical egalitarianism.
I want you to see what theimplications are.
Let me give you twoimplications.
The first implication is, ifyou're looking at Christianity
and I know some of you are ifyou're thinking about
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Christianity from like, well,what is this about?
If you're exploring it, if youwant to know more about it,
almost always you comeunconsciously with a preliminary
model, already determined inyour mind, for how this is going
to work.
Basically, most people come toChristianity where I'm going to
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explore this and you start tosay okay, somehow there's some
things this and that I must dofor God, and if I do this and
that for God, then God will beobliged to do this and that.
For me.
That's how spirituality works.
If I do this and that for God,god will do this and that.
For me.
That's how spirituality works.
If I do this and that for God,god will do this and that for me
.
That's the model in your head.
You kind of assume it.
You think you're exploring,though you already assume that
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model.
What you're actually exploring,you think, is what's the this
and the that Most people think?
Well, spirituality works likethis there is some kind of life
that is considered a good lifeand I must adopt it, and there's
a kind of life that's a badlife and I must reject it.
And then if I adopt a good lifeand reject and abandon the bad
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life, then God will do this andthat I'm just trying to find out
what is a good life?
What do I have to stop doing?
What do I have to start doing?
What will God do?
That's what you think ofexploring, but I want you to see
that the model is wrong,because, hear me, whatever Paul
is talking about when he callspeople to become Christians and
receive salvation, whateverJesus is calling us to do when
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he calls us to take salvation,they can't be calling us to
simply stop bad living and startgood living, because he's
saying here that the people wholive good are no better than the
people who live bad.
They're all spiritually lost.
Spiritually speaking, they'rein the very same place.
So if you think that what itmeans to become a Christian is,
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well, there's certain things Igot to stop doing and certain
things I got to start doing,then God will bless me.
You're wrong.
Well, what is it then?
I'm just trying to get you tosee that because you come in
with a grid, because you come inwith a grid, it doesn't
actually understand or acceptthis, because there's nobody
believes this except Christians.
No other worldview, no otherreligion, no other philosophy
says anything like this.
The fact is that, whatever itis that Jesus and Paul are
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calling you to in order to getsalvation, it's nothing like
anything you can conceive of.
You're going to have to listenreally carefully because it's
not on your mental map.
Whatever it is is a categorybuster.
I just want you to recognizethat, that it's unique, it's
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different, it's not what youexpect, and you're going to have
to listen carefully Because thegospel doesn't really fit in
the other human categories.
So, first of all, please keep inmind that, paul and Jesus, I
and me, when I call you tobecome a Christian, I'm not just
saying stop living like thisand start living like this.
Of course, I want you to changeyour life.
Change life is absolutelyimportant, but it can't be the
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main thing, it can't be thechief thing, it can't be the
central thing.
Why?
Because people who live goodlives and people who live bad
lives are all alike, accordingto God.
Now the other implication islet's just say you have embraced
Christianity and you say I am aChristian.
Well, do you realize theradical nature of this statement
(10:27):
?
Are we any better?
Not at all.
There was nobody, whoever lived,probably, who was more
dedicated and upright and moraland dedicated to his God, his
principles, to the Scripture,than Paul.
And yet when Paul it's justamazing if you read all the way
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through Romans Paul goes throughthat list of sexual practices
and various sorts of corruptionin chapter 1.
And then he gets to chapter 3and says Am I any better than
them?
Not at all.
For Paul to say I have come tothe conclusion through the
gospel, that the criminal who iskilling people and robbing
people and raping people in thestreet is equal to me, that I am
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no better than that person.
That is unbelievable and I wantyou to think about this.
Paul was a Pharisee and as aPharisee he would have
considered Gentiles as spiritualdogs and unclean.
And yet here he is now,dedicating his life to living
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with them, to living with theseracially other people.
Is it possible, before thegospel came to Paul that he
could have looked at hereticsand infidels and said we're
equal.
He could have looked at pagansand he could have looked at
libertines and immoral peopleand said we're equal.
Not on your life.
But now here's what's going on.
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A group of people, big swathsof the human race, that he would
have looked down on, that hewould have scorned that, he
would have written off that, hewould have shown no love and
respect for the gospel.
The doctrine of sin hasradically rehumanized the human
race for Paul.
Do you hear me?
Radically rehumanized.
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There's all kinds of peoplethat he would have looked down
on, caricatured them, thoughtwho has anything to do with it?
And now I'm no better than them.
These people are radicallyrehumanized in their mind.
Now, do you think this doctrineof total depravity and that's an
old theological term for thisdoctrine the idea that the world
is not filled with good peopleand bad people, but all people
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are lost, all people needsalvation, all people are sinful
?
Total depravity, the doctrineof total depravity will make you
look down on people?
Not at all.
Look what happened to Paul.
If you believe in this doctrineof total depravity and you
think it out and you take it tothe center of your life.
It re-humanizes the human race,all kinds of people that you
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would never give the time of dayto you now love and respect.
Why?
Because I'm no better.
Wherever you are socially, yoursocial location makes you prone
to look down your nose atpeople of certain races, certain
classes, certain nationalities,even your vocation does You're
an artist?
Oh, look at the traditional,middle-class bourgeois.
You're a traditionalmiddle-class bourgeois.
Look at these freaky, stupidartists.
You're conservative, you'reliberal.
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You really feel about yourpolitics?
Do you really look at the otherside and say I'm no better?
No, you don't say that.
You say we're a lot better.
And true.
No matter where, any place youare in the world, whatever your
racial or your cultural group,your national grouping, you've
got a history with another kindof person, another kind of
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grouping that you have alwaystended and your social location
makes you tend to despise them.
But if you believe in thedoctrine of sin, you're no
better.
Do you see the radicalegalitarianism of the biblical
doctrine of sin?
Secondly, we also learn hereabout the trajectory of sin.
Now see, we have to now dealwith the fact that a lot of
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people say this is just over thetop.
I did as a young Christian.
I looked at this and I see Paulsaying no one seeks for God.
Well, it sure seems to me likethere's an awful lot of people
spiritually searching andseeking to please God.
And then it says no one doesgood.
Well, that's wow.
Wait a minute, what do you mean?
Nobody does good.
But if you look more carefully,you will see that what Paul is
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giving us here is a definitionof sin that goes deep, and what
he's showing us is that sin isrelational before it ever
becomes.
If it ever becomes a behavioralthing like breaking the law,
it's relational before it everbecomes and it doesn't have to
become behavioral in breakingthe law.
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Why?
Because look at the word turnaway All have turned away.
And even look at the word seekno one seeks for God.
These are directional words andwhat it's talking about is
trajectory.
It's talking about direction,your aim.
Therefore, sin is not so much amatter of whether you're doing
bad things or whether you'redoing good things.
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Sin is mainly a matter of whatyou're doing.
You're doing for, and whatwe're being told is that sin
makes you want to get away fromGod, not go toward him.
Get away.
Sin makes you want to get outfrom under his gaze, get out
from under his hands, get outfrom under his control.
You want to be your own savior,you want to be your own Lord,
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you want to keep God at arm'slength and you want to stay in
control of your own life.
That's what sin makes you wantto do.
And, as we have often said, butwe have to say it now again,
there's two ways to be your ownSavior and Lord.
There's two ways to keep God atarm's length.
One is to be a law to yourselflive any way you want.
The other is to be very, very,very good and go to church and
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obey the Bible and do everythingyou possibly can and try to
live like Jesus so that God hasto bless you, so God has to save
you, in which case you'retrying to get control over God
and in that case you are notseeking God, you're seeking
things from God.
See, the text doesn't say no oneseeks blessing from God Of
course they do.
No one seeks answers to prayerfrom God Of course they do.
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No one seeks forgiveness fromGod Of course they do.
No one seeks spiritual feelingsfrom God Of course they do.
But no, paul's saying no oneseeks God.
And all your so-called servingand all your so-called doing
good is really for yourself.
It's away from God, it's awayfrom others, it's toward
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self-centeredness.
That's the trajectory.
Let me give you an example ofhow what looks like selflessness
and sacrificial love andservice is not.
Aa can tell you.
Listen, people involved in AAknow about this sort of thing.
What I'm about to describe toyou happens all the time.
I'm going to describe to you amarried couple in which one
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spouse is an alcoholic.
By the way, it could be thewoman rather than the husband,
it could be the, you know,rather than the husband rather
than the woman.
But I'm just going to make itthis way.
I'm going to have the husbandbe the alcoholic, the wife not.
And here's how it often works.
Often, husband's an alcoholic.
And so what does the wife haveto do?
Over the years?
She has to bail him out, shehas to make excuses for him, she
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has to clean up his mess, shehas to constantly rescue him.
And then, of course, she turnsto him and says Do you know what
I'm doing for you?
You see, I'm not leaving you,I'm staying with you.
I'm trying to keep thismarriage together.
I'm trying to keep our familytogether.
I'm trying to keep our familyeconomically afloat no help to
you.
And I have to do this and Ihave to do that.
And I have to do all thesethings because look what you're
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doing to me.
I suffer so much for you, Igive so much to you, and yet you
do this over and, over and overagain.
So she seems to be the onewho's serving.
She seems to be the one who'sgiving of herself right.
And yet AA will tell you howoften this will happen.
If the husband gets intorehabilitation and begins to get
better, very often the marriagewill fall apart.
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She won't like it.
She won't be able to deal withit.
Why not?
If she really loved him?
You want the best for theperson that you love.
If you love the person, youwant best for the person loved
him.
You want the best for theperson that you love.
If you love the person, youwant best for the person.
And the best thing for anaddict is to go sober.
If she really loves him, sheshould love to have him sober,
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but she doesn't.
You know why?
Here's what usually happens.
She needed him to be a mess.
She needed him to be a mess soshe could rescue him, so she
could feel good about herself,so she could feel worthwhile, so
she could feel in control, soshe could demand things of him
and other people, so she couldfeel very noble about herself.
She wasn't seeking him.
She wasn't loving him.
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She was loving herself.
She wasn't serving him, she wasserving herself.
She wasn't seeking him, she wasseeking things from him.
She was seeking power.
She was seeking power, she wasseeking control.
And underneath all of thatselflessness and underneath all
of that service, she was servingherself and she was being
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radically selfish.
She was doing all the rightthings but she was doing it for
herself.
And Paul is saying that is thecase with all of us.
Actually, nobody, unless theHoly Spirit comes in to change
your heart, nobody serves Godfor God.
Nobody's really seeking God.
They're seeking things from God.
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Nobody even serves others,because you always serve people.
You always serve God as long asit benefits you, so you can
feel good about yourself, so youcan make demands, so you can
feel noble.
No one seeks for God.
No one does good.
It doesn't mean nobody formallydoes good things.
Of course it is better to giveto the poor.
Of course it is better toforgive somebody than it is to
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harm somebody or to spend allthe money on yourself.
Of course I'm not saying therearen't such things as virtuous
deeds, but we're looking at theheart, we're looking at
trajectory and I want you toknow that when I I'll just
finish the little personal storyhere that early on in my
Christian life when I wasstruggling with Romans 3 and
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figuring this just seems overthe top.
You know, I feel like I do good.
I feel like I sought God beforeI became a Christian too, and I
just thought that Paul was justbeing over the top.
But I remember sometime earlyin my Christian walk and it
would have been in my early 20sI had a very bad patch.
Everything was going wrong inmy life.
I suppose.
Looking back on it I suppose,you know, I don't even remember
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the circumstances For all I know, looking back on it, it might
have been pretty weak tea, butat the time it seemed like the
end of the world.
And I was sitting there and Iwas praying and actually began
to say why should I be praying?
What am I getting out of thisrelationship with God?
It doesn't answer my prayers.
There's all these unjust thingshappening around me.
You know I've worked my fingersto the bone for this man.
And what am I getting out of it?
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And I had a thought.
I'll never forget the thoughtnow because I'm a Presbyterian.
I figure it was a hunch.
It's God speaking to me now inmy, in my mature theological
position.
As I think about it, itprobably was God speaking to me
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through a hunch.
It was this Now, only now, thateverything's going wrong in
your life.
Now we'll find out whether yougot into this faith to get God
to serve you or in order toserve God.
Now we'll know.
And I began to realize maybePaul was right that really every
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single part of my heart eitherdid bad things and now I was
doing good things, I was doinggood things for myself.
No one seeks for God, no one isrighteous, no one is really
doing good for goodness sake, orfor God's sake, or even for
other people's sake, but foryour own sake.
And that radicalself-centeredness is what's
making the world a mess.
And I came to see that I wasrunning from God even in my good
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deeds.
Do you?
I hope you do Now.
Lastly, how are we going to curethis?
I mean, this is a problem.
In fact, you know this middlepart of the passage.
Their throats are open graves.
Their tongues practice deceits.
The poison of vipers is ontheir lips.
Their mouths are full ofcursing and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shedblood.
They ruin and misery mark theirways.
The way of peace they do notknow.
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You know, whenever I look out ona Manhattan crowd.
Many of you look quitemarvelous, but this is what you
look like to God.
Night of the living dead.
Look at it.
It's amazing, spirituallyspeaking.
And this is the case underneathall of our doing good,
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underneath all the good deedsand working for charity and
trying to do the right thing andtrying to honor your parents
all the good deeds there's anger, there's touchiness, there's
turning on people if they harmyou.
There's a great deal ofdiscouragement on happiness
because God's not doing what heought to be doing.
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In my life, inside it's all amess and it's like kind of
spiritual leprosy.
You may look great on theoutside, but inside you're
falling apart.
It's like spiritual leprosy.
What will cure us?
And Paul here at the end, tellsus two things that are the keys
to the cure.
The first thing is at the veryend.
Every mouth may be silenced.
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Now when Paul says that, youmust remember that this is the
end of his exposition of why weneed salvation.
And starting in verse 21, we'llget to it next week he begins
to open us up to salvation.
He says, but now a salvation ofrighteousness.
But he's bringing us to thispoint and this is his way of
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saying you'll never be able toreceive Christ's salvation
unless you shut up spiritually,unless your mouth is silenced.
Now, what does it mean to beshut up?
To shut up spiritually, to haveyour mouth silenced, means no
excuses and no plan B.
See, if you say, oh, I know Idid wrong, god, but I can do
better next time.
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I know I've done these thingswrong, but I can turn it around.
I see my motives are bad, but Ican change my motives.
Shut up, see, as long as you'restill saying I know I can are
bad, but I can change my motives.
Shut up, see, as long as you'restill saying I know I can do it
, I know I can do it.
Paul says you haven't shut upand you're not ready for
salvation.
You can't receive the cure forthis sin unless you realize you
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can't fix yourself.
You realize that even trying tofix yourself makes yourself
worse, because every effort tosomehow put it together and be a
better person and really tryharder is really just another
effort in self-justification,self-salvation, self-sufficiency
.
You're just making yourselfworse.
And this condition ofspiritually shutting up and just
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being quiet so you can receivethe cure doesn't mean, by the
way, beating yourself up oh,I've done so wrong.
Shut up.
You're still centered onyourself.
You've got to get to the end ofyourself.
See, the only way to begin toget pulled out of the radical
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self-centeredness of sin isyou've got to get to the end of
yourself, and that means notjust saying, oh I'm so sorry for
my sin, I'll try to do better.
You've got to not only be sorryfor your sin, but even sorry
for the reason.
You did anything right in yourwhole life, which means you've
got nothing to do but receive.
There's nothing you can do now.
You've just got to wait andlisten.
John Gerstner puts it like thisBecause of the gospel, the way
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to God is wide open.
No sin can hold you back,because God has offered
justification to the ungodly.
Nothing now stands between youand God, but your good works.
Now listen carefully.
All you need is need.
All you need is nothing, butmost people don't have it.
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They've got.
Well, look at the good thingsI've done.
Shut up, but look at how badthese are.
I can really Shut up.
See, what he's saying here isall you need is need.
All you need is nothing, butmost people don't have it.
He's saying the way you openyourself to salvation.
In fact, the only way you canreceive God's salvation is not
(26:34):
just simply to repent of yoursins.
Pharisees repent of their sins.
When they do something wrong,they say, oh, I did wrong and
now I'm going to do better.
They repent of their sins andthey're still Pharisees.
If you want to become aChristian, you don't just repent
of your sins, but you alsobegin to repent of the reason
that you did anything right.
And now you're in a position tosay I need something completely
(27:00):
different than just help tolive the right way.
So, first of all, shut upSpiritual silence.
The second thing you need forthe cure is the fear of the Lord
.
Actually, the cure is there.
I never realized it until Istarted studying this passage
and getting ready to teach it toyou.
And look at this their throatsare open graves, their tongues
practice deceit, poison on theirlips, feet are swift to shed
(27:21):
blood, ruin and misery.
Why?
There is no fear of God beforetheir eyes.
Do you see, if they had fear,they wouldn't have all those
things.
The fear of God is the antidote,it's the cure.
The fear of God is the opposite.
The reason they do all thesethings is there's no fear.
So if you put in the fear, yougot the cure.
What is that?
See, here it is.
What is the fear of the Lord?
(27:42):
All through the Bible, fear ofthe Lord is a major concept.
It sure is.
Do you know how often it saysthe fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom?
It says it in Job, it says itin Psalms, it says it in
Proverbs.
What does that mean?
Wisdom means until you fear God, you can't even begin to think
(28:03):
straight about reality.
Well then, what is this fear ofthe Lord, if it's so important,
if it's the cure for my sin?
Well, the trouble is for us tofear the Lord sounds like being
scared of the Lord, and itdoesn't.
You know why?
First of all, if you actuallystart to look at the way the
text uses the word fear of theLord in the Bible, you hear
(28:24):
things like this Deuteronomy 10says what does the Lord, your
God, require of you, but to fearthe Lord, your God?
It says what does the Lord, yourGod, require of you, but to
fear the Lord, your God, lovehim and serve him with all your
heart and soul?
To fear God is to love him withall your heart and soul.
Well then, why do they call itfear?
Let me go on further.
Psalm 119 says because youfulfill your promise to me, I
(28:46):
fear you.
What?
Because you've been so good tome, I'm filled with fear.
And then Psalm 130, verse 4,which is maybe the classic test
but because you've forgiven me,therefore I fear you.
Whatever the fear of the Lord is, it's increased when you see
(29:07):
and experience God's salvation,his grace, his goodness, his
love.
It increases.
Well, you say, his goodness,his love.
It increases.
Well, you say.
Why Would he call it fear?
It sounds like you should callit joy.
Why fear?
The fear of God is joyful,humbling, awe and wonder before
(29:30):
the salvation of God.
It's called fear because youknow it's not just happiness
when you really see thesalvation of God and what it is.
On the one hand it affirms youto the sky but at the same time
it humbles you into the dust.
That's why it's called fear.
Let's call it the joyful fear,awe and wonder before the
greatness of God's salvation.
But it turns you out ofyourself.
(29:51):
It turns you away from thebeing curved in the
self-centeredness, because onthe one hand you're too humbled
to just be self-centered andyou're too affirmed to need to
be, and therefore, this joyfulfear is the cure, and it happens
.
When you see his salvation, yousay, well, what does that mean?
You mean, see his salvation.
You say, well, what does thatmean?
(30:12):
You mean, see his salvation.
What does that mean?
I'll tell you what it means.
Just think like this and let'sconclude like this Because you
don't seek for God, because youdon't seek for God, because you
don't seek for God, becausenobody seeks for God, god's
salvation has to be God seekingfor us.
(30:32):
You know there's a lot ofreligions that say, oh, human
beings can seek for God.
You know, if you just try hard,you can find him.
So God sits there and sayshere's the rules and here's all
the things that you need to do.
If you pick them up and you dothem, I'm sure you can find me.
In other words, in mostreligions salvation is you
finding God.
But in the Christian religion,in Christian faith, it's the
(30:54):
opposite.
Salvation is God seeking andfinding you.
And if you know what he did todo that, it'll fill you with
this joyful, humbling,sin-curing fear.
Let me just give you one storyto tell you about it.
God says in the Old Testament hegoes to one prophet named Hosea
(31:16):
and he says Hosea, you see thiswoman over here named Gomer,
marry her.
So Hosea says sure, I'm aprophet, you're God, you spoke
to me, I'll marry her.
And it's not long after he'smarried her, he begins to
realize that she has waywardfeet, that she is not being
faithful to him, that she isbeing sexually unfaithful to him
(31:36):
.
And as she begins to havechildren, she realizes they're
not his children.
In fact, he names one of them,not mine.
And finally her unfaithfulnessgets worse and worse and worse
and eventually she leaves him.
She just leaves him and leavesthe kids and goes off to one man
and goes off to another man andgoes off to another man and
(31:58):
finally that last man, becausein a sense she gets what she
deserves because she's sofaithless, she's breaking every
promise, she's lying, andfinally he sells her into
slavery.
And Hosea turns to God and saysRemind me why you asked me to
marry her.
And God basically says so, youwill know something about my
relationship to you Now.
(32:21):
You'll know what it's like forme.
Now.
You know what it's like to beme.
And here's what I want you todo, hosea, he says.
I want you to go where she isbeing bid on and I want you to
purchase her freedom and I wantyou to take her back, and then
you'll know what it's like to beme.
(32:44):
And so there's poor Gomer.
From what we can tell, she'sbeing bid on as a slave.
She's probably stripped nakedbecause they were so that the
buyers could see what they werebuying.
And she's standing there andsuddenly, to her shock, she
hears her husband's voicebidding and he purchases her
freedom and he walks up to herand instead of berating her, he
(33:08):
takes his cloak off and hecovers her nakedness and says
Now you will come home and be mywife.
Well, how moving that is, andit's nothing compared to what
God has done for you.
You know what God is saying toyou through Hosea.
Poor Hosea, he had to do it, soI could use this illustration
(33:28):
Ruined his whole life.
But guess what?
Poor Hosea, he had to do it soI could use this illustration
Ruined his whole life, but guesswhat?
It was worth it.
Because what God is trying tosay is Hosea.
In the end, he's saying to usthrough the word of God Hosea
just had to go next to the nextcity, but I had to come from
heaven to earth to find you.
You weren't seeking me, you,you weren't seeking me.
(33:56):
And for me to.
I had to seek you.
I had to find you and I didn'tjust have to reach, dig down in
my pockets to get the money outto purchase your freedom.
I had to go to the cross andthere I had to suffer and die.
I had to pay the penalty foryour sins.
I look at the sin.
Somebody's got to pay for it.
And I was stripped naked on thecross so that I could clothe
you with a robe of righteousnessand say you come home with me
(34:18):
when you see, not that, oh, weall have the ability if we
really try hard enough to gofind God.
But no, no, no, if you see thesalvation of the gospel, is God
seeking us, finding us, comingto us at infinite cost to
himself.
That will fill you with a holyfear, a joyful fear, and you
(34:40):
will find that the cure hasbegun.
Now let's pray Our Father.
We thank you that now, as wetake up the bread and the cup
and take the Lord's Supper,we're in a position where you
can drive even closer into thecenter of our being the cure for
sin.
We see that you sought usbecause we didn't seek you, and
(35:04):
you had to do it because if youhad sat and waited for us to
come find you, we never wouldhave.
We thank you, therefore, thatit's such a moving story.
What you have done for us, butmost importantly, is the
objective work of Jesus Christon the cross that opened a way
for us.
So now the only thing standingbetween us and you is this
(35:25):
belief that we still havecontrol of our lives, that we
can earn our salvation.
Help us now to set aside oursin, and even set aside our
righteousness, and receive yourfree salvation.
Cure our sin, cure our heart.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
Hello, my name is Michelle Tolliver and Biblical
Talks book offer for the monthof July is Saints, sufferers and
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(36:45):
Thank you for listening toBiblical Talks.
Welcome to Biblical Talks.
Sermon of the Week.
In Romans, chapter 3, thewriter says there is no one
righteous, not even one.
There is no one who understands.
There is no one who seeks God.
All have turned their way.
All the light has becomeworthless.
There is no one who does whatis good, not even one Beloved.
(00:25):
People use every part of theirbodies to rebel against the word
and the will of God.
All of us I mean all of usstand under condemnation.
All of us are in need ofsalvation.
Let's listen to Tim Kelly as hepreached this great sermon
(00:52):
which says no one sees God.
Here's Tim Kelly.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Romans, chapter three , verses nine through 20.
What shall we conclude then?
Are we any better?
Not at all.
We have already made the chargethat Jews and Gentiles alike
are all under sin.
As it is written, there is noone righteous, not even one.
There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.
(01:23):
All have turned away.
They have, together, becomeworthless.
There is no one who does good,not even one.
Their throats are open graves.
Their tongues practice deceit.
The poison of vipers is ontheir lips.
Their mouths are full ofcursing and bitterness.
(01:43):
Their feet are swift to shedblood.
Ruin and misery mark their waysand the way of peace.
They do not know there is nofear of God before their eyes.
Now we know that whatever thelaw says, it says to those who
are under the law, so that everymouth may be silenced and the
(02:04):
whole world held accountable toGod.
This is the word of the Lord.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
The Bible we say every week is not so much a
series of little disconnectedstories, each with a moral.
The Bible is actually a singlestory about what's wrong with
the world and the human race,what God has done to put that
right in Jesus Christ andfinally how history then, as a
(02:43):
result, is going to turn out inthe end.
And that is the story of theBible.
And what we're looking at inRomans 1, 2, 3, and 4 is Paul's
version, st Paul's version, ofthat entire biblical story which
is also called the gospel.
And we are coming here in thispassage to the very end of his
analysis of what's wrong withthe human race which, though
(03:07):
it's a tiny little word, isfraught with profound meaning.
The Bible's answer to thequestion why what's wrong with
the human race is the word sin.
And Paul here is giving us akind of summary statement of the
biblical doctrine, you couldsay, of sin.
And when I was a new believerand just trying to work my way
(03:30):
around the Bible, I want you toknow that this particular
passage gave me fits.
It was a tough passage for me.
It seemed over the top.
Some of the statements, youknow it bothered me and I
wrestled with it.
But eventually itrevolutionized my way of
thinking about life and aboutmyself and about the world, and
I'll share a little bit of that,what I learned back then, with
(03:52):
you now.
But this is perhaps the mostradical and the strongest of all
the statements that the Biblegives us about what's wrong with
the human heart.
And we're going to learn threethings about sin here the
egalitarianism of sin yes,that's what I said the
trajectory of sin and finally,the cure for sin.
(04:13):
The egalitarianism of sin, thetrajectory of sin and the cure
for sin.
Now first and we're going towork pretty much through the
passage, in the very beginning,in verses 9 and 10, paul is
making a statement.
He's making a point that I'mgoing to call the egalitarianism
of sin.
He says over and over againthere is no one righteous, there
(04:34):
is no one who understands,there is no one who seeks for
God.
But it's in verse 9, he saysthe most amazing things.
He says Jew and Gentile alikeare under sin.
Are we any better?
Not at all.
Now you have to remember Paul'slooking back to Romans 1, where
(04:55):
he's talking about the paganGentiles rolling in the streets
sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Okay, that's what these longlists of sexual practices and
evil, corruption practices ofcivil and corporate and
individual.
And then Paul identifieshimself as a God-fearing Jew
trying to obey the TenCommandments in chapter 2.
And he says are we any betterthan them, not at all.
(05:16):
Moral and immoral, religiousand secular, he's saying there
is no difference.
In fact, in the beginning hesays a liker under sin.
Well, what does that mean?
Well, if you want to understandwhat that means, you can scroll
to the bottom of the text,where it says in verse 19, the
(05:36):
whole world is held accountableto God, and the word accountable
means liable.
It's a judicial word, it meansliable for punishment.
And what he's saying is nomatter who you are, no matter
what your record, no matterwhether you've lived a life of
altruism and compassion andservice or a life of cruelty and
(05:58):
exploitation, we're all alike,we're all condemned, we're all
lost, we all deserve to berejected by God.
That's what he's saying.
Now, how could that be?
And that's actually getting topoint two, though.
Let me remind you of what weeven know from last week, if you
were here, in looking at Romans2.
Robbing and murdering people,and a moral, religious, upright
(06:26):
Pharisee who thinks because ofhis good deeds and his
righteousness, god owes himblessing and people owe him
respect.
Paul is saying that, asdifferent as those look on the
surface, underneath those areboth expressions of the same
radical self-centeredness,radical self-absorption.
That is sin.
Now, how that can be, we'll getto in a second, because here's
(06:49):
what I want you to see.
When Paul says all alike, arethey any better than us?
Not at all.
This is radical egalitarianism.
I want you to see what theimplications are.
Let me give you twoimplications.
The first implication is, ifyou're looking at Christianity
and I know some of you are ifyou're thinking about
(07:10):
Christianity from like, well,what is this about?
If you're exploring it, if youwant to know more about it,
almost always you comeunconsciously with a preliminary
model, already determined inyour mind, for how this is going
to work.
Basically, most people come toChristianity where I'm going to
(07:30):
explore this and you start tosay okay, somehow there's some
things this and that I must dofor God, and if I do this and
that for God, then God will beobliged to do this and that.
For me.
That's how spirituality works.
If I do this and that for God,god will do this and that.
For me.
That's how spirituality works.
If I do this and that for God,god will do this and that for me
.
That's the model in your head.
You kind of assume it.
You think you're exploring,though you already assume that
(07:53):
model.
What you're actually exploring,you think, is what's the this
and the that Most people think?
Well, spirituality works likethis there is some kind of life
that is considered a good lifeand I must adopt it, and there's
a kind of life that's a badlife and I must reject it.
And then if I adopt a good lifeand reject and abandon the bad
(08:17):
life, then God will do this andthat I'm just trying to find out
what is a good life?
What do I have to stop doing?
What do I have to start doing?
What will God do?
That's what you think ofexploring, but I want you to see
that the model is wrong,because, hear me, whatever Paul
is talking about when he callspeople to become Christians and
receive salvation, whateverJesus is calling us to do when
(08:37):
he calls us to take salvation,they can't be calling us to
simply stop bad living and startgood living, because he's
saying here that the people wholive good are no better than the
people who live bad.
They're all spiritually lost.
Spiritually speaking, they'rein the very same place.
So if you think that what itmeans to become a Christian is,
(08:58):
well, there's certain things Igot to stop doing and certain
things I got to start doing,then God will bless me.
You're wrong.
Well, what is it then?
I'm just trying to get you tosee that because you come in
with a grid, because you come inwith a grid, it doesn't
actually understand or acceptthis, because there's nobody
believes this except Christians.
No other worldview, no otherreligion, no other philosophy
says anything like this.
The fact is that, whatever itis that Jesus and Paul are
(09:22):
calling you to in order to getsalvation, it's nothing like
anything you can conceive of.
You're going to have to listenreally carefully because it's
not on your mental map.
Whatever it is is a categorybuster.
I just want you to recognizethat, that it's unique, it's
(09:43):
different, it's not what youexpect, and you're going to have
to listen carefully Because thegospel doesn't really fit in
the other human categories.
So, first of all, please keep inmind that, paul and Jesus, I
and me, when I call you tobecome a Christian, I'm not just
saying stop living like thisand start living like this.
Of course, I want you to changeyour life.
Change life is absolutelyimportant, but it can't be the
(10:06):
main thing, it can't be thechief thing, it can't be the
central thing.
Why?
Because people who live goodlives and people who live bad
lives are all alike, accordingto God.
Now the other implication islet's just say you have embraced
Christianity and you say I am aChristian.
Well, do you realize theradical nature of this statement
(10:27):
?
Are we any better?
Not at all.
There was nobody, whoever lived,probably, who was more
dedicated and upright and moraland dedicated to his God, his
principles, to the Scripture,than Paul.
And yet when Paul it's justamazing if you read all the way
(10:49):
through Romans Paul goes throughthat list of sexual practices
and various sorts of corruptionin chapter 1.
And then he gets to chapter 3and says Am I any better than
them?
Not at all.
For Paul to say I have come tothe conclusion through the
gospel, that the criminal who iskilling people and robbing
people and raping people in thestreet is equal to me, that I am
(11:13):
no better than that person.
That is unbelievable and I wantyou to think about this.
Paul was a Pharisee and as aPharisee he would have
considered Gentiles as spiritualdogs and unclean.
And yet here he is now,dedicating his life to living
(11:34):
with them, to living with theseracially other people.
Is it possible, before thegospel came to Paul that he
could have looked at hereticsand infidels and said we're
equal.
He could have looked at pagansand he could have looked at
libertines and immoral peopleand said we're equal.
Not on your life.
But now here's what's going on.
(11:55):
A group of people, big swathsof the human race, that he would
have looked down on, that hewould have scorned that, he
would have written off that, hewould have shown no love and
respect for the gospel.
The doctrine of sin hasradically rehumanized the human
race for Paul.
Do you hear me?
Radically rehumanized.
(12:15):
There's all kinds of peoplethat he would have looked down
on, caricatured them, thoughtwho has anything to do with it?
And now I'm no better than them.
These people are radicallyrehumanized in their mind.
Now, do you think this doctrineof total depravity and that's an
old theological term for thisdoctrine the idea that the world
is not filled with good peopleand bad people, but all people
(12:36):
are lost, all people needsalvation, all people are sinful
?
Total depravity, the doctrineof total depravity will make you
look down on people?
Not at all.
Look what happened to Paul.
If you believe in this doctrineof total depravity and you
think it out and you take it tothe center of your life.
It re-humanizes the human race,all kinds of people that you
(13:01):
would never give the time of dayto you now love and respect.
Why?
Because I'm no better.
Wherever you are socially, yoursocial location makes you prone
to look down your nose atpeople of certain races, certain
classes, certain nationalities,even your vocation does You're
an artist?
Oh, look at the traditional,middle-class bourgeois.
You're a traditionalmiddle-class bourgeois.
Look at these freaky, stupidartists.
You're conservative, you'reliberal.
(13:22):
You really feel about yourpolitics?
Do you really look at the otherside and say I'm no better?
No, you don't say that.
You say we're a lot better.
And true.
No matter where, any place youare in the world, whatever your
racial or your cultural group,your national grouping, you've
got a history with another kindof person, another kind of
(13:45):
grouping that you have alwaystended and your social location
makes you tend to despise them.
But if you believe in thedoctrine of sin, you're no
better.
Do you see the radicalegalitarianism of the biblical
doctrine of sin?
Secondly, we also learn hereabout the trajectory of sin.
Now see, we have to now dealwith the fact that a lot of
(14:06):
people say this is just over thetop.
I did as a young Christian.
I looked at this and I see Paulsaying no one seeks for God.
Well, it sure seems to me likethere's an awful lot of people
spiritually searching andseeking to please God.
And then it says no one doesgood.
Well, that's wow.
Wait a minute, what do you mean?
Nobody does good.
But if you look more carefully,you will see that what Paul is
(14:31):
giving us here is a definitionof sin that goes deep, and what
he's showing us is that sin isrelational before it ever
becomes.
If it ever becomes a behavioralthing like breaking the law,
it's relational before it everbecomes and it doesn't have to
become behavioral in breakingthe law.
(14:51):
Why?
Because look at the word turnaway All have turned away.
And even look at the word seekno one seeks for God.
These are directional words andwhat it's talking about is
trajectory.
It's talking about direction,your aim.
Therefore, sin is not so much amatter of whether you're doing
bad things or whether you'redoing good things.
(15:12):
Sin is mainly a matter of whatyou're doing.
You're doing for, and whatwe're being told is that sin
makes you want to get away fromGod, not go toward him.
Get away.
Sin makes you want to get outfrom under his gaze, get out
from under his hands, get outfrom under his control.
You want to be your own savior,you want to be your own Lord,
(15:33):
you want to keep God at arm'slength and you want to stay in
control of your own life.
That's what sin makes you wantto do.
And, as we have often said, butwe have to say it now again,
there's two ways to be your ownSavior and Lord.
There's two ways to keep God atarm's length.
One is to be a law to yourselflive any way you want.
The other is to be very, very,very good and go to church and
(15:53):
obey the Bible and do everythingyou possibly can and try to
live like Jesus so that God hasto bless you, so God has to save
you, in which case you'retrying to get control over God
and in that case you are notseeking God, you're seeking
things from God.
See, the text doesn't say no oneseeks blessing from God Of
course they do.
No one seeks answers to prayerfrom God Of course they do.
(16:16):
No one seeks forgiveness fromGod Of course they do.
No one seeks spiritual feelingsfrom God Of course they do.
But no, paul's saying no oneseeks God.
And all your so-called servingand all your so-called doing
good is really for yourself.
It's away from God, it's awayfrom others, it's toward
(16:37):
self-centeredness.
That's the trajectory.
Let me give you an example ofhow what looks like selflessness
and sacrificial love andservice is not.
Aa can tell you.
Listen, people involved in AAknow about this sort of thing.
What I'm about to describe toyou happens all the time.
I'm going to describe to you amarried couple in which one
(16:58):
spouse is an alcoholic.
By the way, it could be thewoman rather than the husband,
it could be the, you know,rather than the husband rather
than the woman.
But I'm just going to make itthis way.
I'm going to have the husbandbe the alcoholic, the wife not.
And here's how it often works.
Often, husband's an alcoholic.
And so what does the wife haveto do?
Over the years?
She has to bail him out, shehas to make excuses for him, she
(17:22):
has to clean up his mess, shehas to constantly rescue him.
And then, of course, she turnsto him and says Do you know what
I'm doing for you?
You see, I'm not leaving you,I'm staying with you.
I'm trying to keep thismarriage together.
I'm trying to keep our familytogether.
I'm trying to keep our familyeconomically afloat no help to
you.
And I have to do this and Ihave to do that.
And I have to do all thesethings because look what you're
(17:43):
doing to me.
I suffer so much for you, Igive so much to you, and yet you
do this over and, over and overagain.
So she seems to be the onewho's serving.
She seems to be the one who'sgiving of herself right.
And yet AA will tell you howoften this will happen.
If the husband gets intorehabilitation and begins to get
better, very often the marriagewill fall apart.
(18:05):
She won't like it.
She won't be able to deal withit.
Why not?
If she really loved him?
You want the best for theperson that you love.
If you love the person, youwant best for the person loved
him.
You want the best for theperson that you love.
If you love the person, youwant best for the person.
And the best thing for anaddict is to go sober.
If she really loves him, sheshould love to have him sober,
(18:26):
but she doesn't.
You know why?
Here's what usually happens.
She needed him to be a mess.
She needed him to be a mess soshe could rescue him, so she
could feel good about herself,so she could feel worthwhile, so
she could feel in control, soshe could demand things of him
and other people, so she couldfeel very noble about herself.
She wasn't seeking him.
She wasn't loving him.
(18:47):
She was loving herself.
She wasn't serving him, she wasserving herself.
She wasn't seeking him, she wasseeking things from him.
She was seeking power.
She was seeking power, she wasseeking control.
And underneath all of thatselflessness and underneath all
of that service, she was servingherself and she was being
(19:09):
radically selfish.
She was doing all the rightthings but she was doing it for
herself.
And Paul is saying that is thecase with all of us.
Actually, nobody, unless theHoly Spirit comes in to change
your heart, nobody serves Godfor God.
Nobody's really seeking God.
They're seeking things from God.
(19:30):
Nobody even serves others,because you always serve people.
You always serve God as long asit benefits you, so you can
feel good about yourself, so youcan make demands, so you can
feel noble.
No one seeks for God.
No one does good.
It doesn't mean nobody formallydoes good things.
Of course it is better to giveto the poor.
Of course it is better toforgive somebody than it is to
(19:55):
harm somebody or to spend allthe money on yourself.
Of course I'm not saying therearen't such things as virtuous
deeds, but we're looking at theheart, we're looking at
trajectory and I want you toknow that when I I'll just
finish the little personal storyhere that early on in my
Christian life when I wasstruggling with Romans 3 and
(20:16):
figuring this just seems overthe top.
You know, I feel like I do good.
I feel like I sought God beforeI became a Christian too, and I
just thought that Paul was justbeing over the top.
But I remember sometime earlyin my Christian walk and it
would have been in my early 20sI had a very bad patch.
Everything was going wrong inmy life.
I suppose.
Looking back on it I suppose,you know, I don't even remember
(20:43):
the circumstances For all I know, looking back on it, it might
have been pretty weak tea, butat the time it seemed like the
end of the world.
And I was sitting there and Iwas praying and actually began
to say why should I be praying?
What am I getting out of thisrelationship with God?
It doesn't answer my prayers.
There's all these unjust thingshappening around me.
You know I've worked my fingersto the bone for this man.
And what am I getting out of it?
(21:06):
And I had a thought.
I'll never forget the thoughtnow because I'm a Presbyterian.
I figure it was a hunch.
It's God speaking to me now inmy, in my mature theological
position.
As I think about it, itprobably was God speaking to me
(21:28):
through a hunch.
It was this Now, only now, thateverything's going wrong in
your life.
Now we'll find out whether yougot into this faith to get God
to serve you or in order toserve God.
Now we'll know.
And I began to realize maybePaul was right that really every
(21:51):
single part of my heart eitherdid bad things and now I was
doing good things, I was doinggood things for myself.
No one seeks for God, no one isrighteous, no one is really
doing good for goodness sake, orfor God's sake, or even for
other people's sake, but foryour own sake.
And that radicalself-centeredness is what's
making the world a mess.
And I came to see that I wasrunning from God even in my good
(22:15):
deeds.
Do you?
I hope you do Now.
Lastly, how are we going to curethis?
I mean, this is a problem.
In fact, you know this middlepart of the passage.
Their throats are open graves.
Their tongues practice deceits.
The poison of vipers is ontheir lips.
Their mouths are full ofcursing and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shedblood.
They ruin and misery mark theirways.
The way of peace they do notknow.
(22:36):
You know, whenever I look out ona Manhattan crowd.
Many of you look quitemarvelous, but this is what you
look like to God.
Night of the living dead.
Look at it.
It's amazing, spirituallyspeaking.
And this is the case underneathall of our doing good,
(22:59):
underneath all the good deedsand working for charity and
trying to do the right thing andtrying to honor your parents
all the good deeds there's anger, there's touchiness, there's
turning on people if they harmyou.
There's a great deal ofdiscouragement on happiness
because God's not doing what heought to be doing.
(23:19):
In my life, inside it's all amess and it's like kind of
spiritual leprosy.
You may look great on theoutside, but inside you're
falling apart.
It's like spiritual leprosy.
What will cure us?
And Paul here at the end, tellsus two things that are the keys
to the cure.
The first thing is at the veryend.
Every mouth may be silenced.
(23:40):
Now when Paul says that, youmust remember that this is the
end of his exposition of why weneed salvation.
And starting in verse 21, we'llget to it next week he begins
to open us up to salvation.
He says, but now a salvation ofrighteousness.
But he's bringing us to thispoint and this is his way of
(24:03):
saying you'll never be able toreceive Christ's salvation
unless you shut up spiritually,unless your mouth is silenced.
Now, what does it mean to beshut up?
To shut up spiritually, to haveyour mouth silenced, means no
excuses and no plan B.
See, if you say, oh, I know Idid wrong, god, but I can do
better next time.
(24:23):
I know I've done these thingswrong, but I can turn it around.
I see my motives are bad, but Ican change my motives.
Shut up, see, as long as you'restill saying I know I can are
bad, but I can change my motives.
Shut up, see, as long as you'restill saying I know I can do it
, I know I can do it.
Paul says you haven't shut upand you're not ready for
salvation.
You can't receive the cure forthis sin unless you realize you
(24:45):
can't fix yourself.
You realize that even trying tofix yourself makes yourself
worse, because every effort tosomehow put it together and be a
better person and really tryharder is really just another
effort in self-justification,self-salvation, self-sufficiency
.
You're just making yourselfworse.
And this condition ofspiritually shutting up and just
(25:07):
being quiet so you can receivethe cure doesn't mean, by the
way, beating yourself up oh,I've done so wrong.
Shut up.
You're still centered onyourself.
You've got to get to the end ofyourself.
See, the only way to begin toget pulled out of the radical
(25:27):
self-centeredness of sin isyou've got to get to the end of
yourself, and that means notjust saying, oh I'm so sorry for
my sin, I'll try to do better.
You've got to not only be sorryfor your sin, but even sorry
for the reason.
You did anything right in yourwhole life, which means you've
got nothing to do but receive.
There's nothing you can do now.
You've just got to wait andlisten.
John Gerstner puts it like thisBecause of the gospel, the way
(25:52):
to God is wide open.
No sin can hold you back,because God has offered
justification to the ungodly.
Nothing now stands between youand God, but your good works.
Now listen carefully.
All you need is need.
All you need is nothing, butmost people don't have it.
(26:14):
They've got.
Well, look at the good thingsI've done.
Shut up, but look at how badthese are.
I can really Shut up.
See, what he's saying here isall you need is need.
All you need is nothing, butmost people don't have it.
He's saying the way you openyourself to salvation.
In fact, the only way you canreceive God's salvation is not
(26:34):
just simply to repent of yoursins.
Pharisees repent of their sins.
When they do something wrong,they say, oh, I did wrong and
now I'm going to do better.
They repent of their sins andthey're still Pharisees.
If you want to become aChristian, you don't just repent
of your sins, but you alsobegin to repent of the reason
that you did anything right.
And now you're in a position tosay I need something completely
(27:00):
different than just help tolive the right way.
So, first of all, shut upSpiritual silence.
The second thing you need forthe cure is the fear of the Lord
.
Actually, the cure is there.
I never realized it until Istarted studying this passage
and getting ready to teach it toyou.
And look at this their throatsare open graves, their tongues
practice deceit, poison on theirlips, feet are swift to shed
(27:21):
blood, ruin and misery.
Why?
There is no fear of God beforetheir eyes.
Do you see, if they had fear,they wouldn't have all those
things.
The fear of God is the antidote,it's the cure.
The fear of God is the opposite.
The reason they do all thesethings is there's no fear.
So if you put in the fear, yougot the cure.
What is that?
See, here it is.
What is the fear of the Lord?
(27:42):
All through the Bible, fear ofthe Lord is a major concept.
It sure is.
Do you know how often it saysthe fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom?
It says it in Job, it says itin Psalms, it says it in
Proverbs.
What does that mean?
Wisdom means until you fear God, you can't even begin to think
(28:03):
straight about reality.
Well then, what is this fear ofthe Lord, if it's so important,
if it's the cure for my sin?
Well, the trouble is for us tofear the Lord sounds like being
scared of the Lord, and itdoesn't.
You know why?
First of all, if you actuallystart to look at the way the
text uses the word fear of theLord in the Bible, you hear
(28:24):
things like this Deuteronomy 10says what does the Lord, your
God, require of you, but to fearthe Lord, your God?
It says what does the Lord, yourGod, require of you, but to
fear the Lord, your God, lovehim and serve him with all your
heart and soul?
To fear God is to love him withall your heart and soul.
Well then, why do they call itfear?
Let me go on further.
Psalm 119 says because youfulfill your promise to me, I
(28:46):
fear you.
What?
Because you've been so good tome, I'm filled with fear.
And then Psalm 130, verse 4,which is maybe the classic test
but because you've forgiven me,therefore I fear you.
Whatever the fear of the Lord is, it's increased when you see
(29:07):
and experience God's salvation,his grace, his goodness, his
love.
It increases.
Well, you say, his goodness,his love.
It increases.
Well, you say.
Why Would he call it fear?
It sounds like you should callit joy.
Why fear?
The fear of God is joyful,humbling, awe and wonder before
(29:30):
the salvation of God.
It's called fear because youknow it's not just happiness
when you really see thesalvation of God and what it is.
On the one hand it affirms youto the sky but at the same time
it humbles you into the dust.
That's why it's called fear.
Let's call it the joyful fear,awe and wonder before the
greatness of God's salvation.
But it turns you out ofyourself.
(29:51):
It turns you away from thebeing curved in the
self-centeredness, because onthe one hand you're too humbled
to just be self-centered andyou're too affirmed to need to
be, and therefore, this joyfulfear is the cure, and it happens
.
When you see his salvation, yousay, well, what does that mean?
You mean, see his salvation.
You say, well, what does thatmean?
(30:12):
You mean, see his salvation.
What does that mean?
I'll tell you what it means.
Just think like this and let'sconclude like this Because you
don't seek for God, because youdon't seek for God, because you
don't seek for God, becausenobody seeks for God, god's
salvation has to be God seekingfor us.
(30:32):
You know there's a lot ofreligions that say, oh, human
beings can seek for God.
You know, if you just try hard,you can find him.
So God sits there and sayshere's the rules and here's all
the things that you need to do.
If you pick them up and you dothem, I'm sure you can find me.
In other words, in mostreligions salvation is you
finding God.
But in the Christian religion,in Christian faith, it's the
(30:54):
opposite.
Salvation is God seeking andfinding you.
And if you know what he did todo that, it'll fill you with
this joyful, humbling,sin-curing fear.
Let me just give you one storyto tell you about it.
God says in the Old Testament hegoes to one prophet named Hosea
(31:16):
and he says Hosea, you see thiswoman over here named Gomer,
marry her.
So Hosea says sure, I'm aprophet, you're God, you spoke
to me, I'll marry her.
And it's not long after he'smarried her, he begins to
realize that she has waywardfeet, that she is not being
faithful to him, that she isbeing sexually unfaithful to him
(31:36):
.
And as she begins to havechildren, she realizes they're
not his children.
In fact, he names one of them,not mine.
And finally her unfaithfulnessgets worse and worse and worse
and eventually she leaves him.
She just leaves him and leavesthe kids and goes off to one man
and goes off to another man andgoes off to another man and
(31:58):
finally that last man, becausein a sense she gets what she
deserves because she's sofaithless, she's breaking every
promise, she's lying, andfinally he sells her into
slavery.
And Hosea turns to God and saysRemind me why you asked me to
marry her.
And God basically says so, youwill know something about my
relationship to you Now.
(32:21):
You'll know what it's like forme.
Now.
You know what it's like to beme.
And here's what I want you todo, hosea, he says.
I want you to go where she isbeing bid on and I want you to
purchase her freedom and I wantyou to take her back, and then
you'll know what it's like to beme.
(32:44):
And so there's poor Gomer.
From what we can tell, she'sbeing bid on as a slave.
She's probably stripped nakedbecause they were so that the
buyers could see what they werebuying.
And she's standing there andsuddenly, to her shock, she
hears her husband's voicebidding and he purchases her
freedom and he walks up to herand instead of berating her, he
(33:08):
takes his cloak off and hecovers her nakedness and says
Now you will come home and be mywife.
Well, how moving that is, andit's nothing compared to what
God has done for you.
You know what God is saying toyou through Hosea.
Poor Hosea, he had to do it, soI could use this illustration
(33:28):
Ruined his whole life.
But guess what?
Poor Hosea, he had to do it soI could use this illustration
Ruined his whole life, but guesswhat?
It was worth it.
Because what God is trying tosay is Hosea.
In the end, he's saying to usthrough the word of God Hosea
just had to go next to the nextcity, but I had to come from
heaven to earth to find you.
You weren't seeking me, you,you weren't seeking me.
(33:56):
And for me to.
I had to seek you.
I had to find you and I didn'tjust have to reach, dig down in
my pockets to get the money outto purchase your freedom.
I had to go to the cross andthere I had to suffer and die.
I had to pay the penalty foryour sins.
I look at the sin.
Somebody's got to pay for it.
And I was stripped naked on thecross so that I could clothe
you with a robe of righteousnessand say you come home with me
(34:18):
when you see, not that, oh, weall have the ability if we
really try hard enough to gofind God.
But no, no, no, if you see thesalvation of the gospel, is God
seeking us, finding us, comingto us at infinite cost to
himself.
That will fill you with a holyfear, a joyful fear, and you
(34:40):
will find that the cure hasbegun.
Now let's pray Our Father.
We thank you that now, as wetake up the bread and the cup
and take the Lord's Supper,we're in a position where you
can drive even closer into thecenter of our being the cure for
sin.
We see that you sought usbecause we didn't seek you, and
(35:04):
you had to do it because if youhad sat and waited for us to
come find you, we never wouldhave.
We thank you, therefore, thatit's such a moving story.
What you have done for us, butmost importantly, is the
objective work of Jesus Christon the cross that opened a way
for us.
So now the only thing standingbetween us and you is this
(35:25):
belief that we still havecontrol of our lives, that we
can earn our salvation.
Help us now to set aside oursin, and even set aside our
righteousness, and receive yourfree salvation.
Cure our sin, cure our heart.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
Hello, my name is Michelle Tolliver and Biblical
Talks book offer for the monthof July is Saints, sufferers and
Sinners Loving Others as GodLoves Us.
Helping the Helpers by MichaelEmlett.
Loving Others as God Loves Us.
Helping the Helpers by MichaelEmlett.
A friend feels rejected.
A counselee is angry.
A church member's child is ill.
You want to help, but where doyou begin?
(36:01):
Author and counselor Michael BEmlett outlines a model of one
another ministry based on howGod sees and loves his people,
primarily as saints, whilebringing comfort to the
sufferers and faithfullyspeaking truth to the sinner.
Filled with everydayillustrations as well as
counseling examples, emlettdemonstrates what it looks like
to approach fellow believerssimultaneously as saints,
(36:22):
sufferers and sinners.
Emlett unpacks scripture anddraws on his many years of
counseling experience to helpcounselors, pastors and friends.
Love others wisely and well.
This book is scripturesaturated.
Michael Inlet has given us atreasure in this book.
For any amount of donation toBiblical Talks, we will send you
the book.
Please go to biblicaltalkscomand click the Donate here tab.
(36:45):
Thank you for listening toBiblical Talks.
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