January 23, 2025, Message by P. Kevin Clancey
Transcribed by Beluga AI.
All right, well, Romans 3. Hey, I got great news for you. We’re going to deal with depravity and unrighteousness and sin only a little bit longer. And we get our breakthrough tonight. We get our breakthrough. We get our breakthrough into the gospel.
But first, Paul summarizes what he said in Romans 1 and Romans 2. And so we’re going to. He has this, he has this list of verses from the Psalms in the Old Testament that just kind of nail it to the wall. You know, it’s just, this is it. This is the human condition.
And I want you to know there’s, you know, the doctrine of people talking about the doctrine of total depravity. And you know, it sounds like as we read this list that we’re going to read in a second, that there’s just nothing good left in human beings.
It’s not true. We cannot save ourselves. And everything that Paul says and everything that Paul quotes from the Psalms is true. But dear ones, that doesn’t mean.
I don’t believe some people believe that everything about the image and likeness of God has been destroyed in us and we no longer carry anything of the image and likeness of God. Believers, unbelievers. Only when we’re restored in Christ does that get restored.
I believe that everybody still carries the image and likeness of God, but it’s been poisoned and so it’s been twisted. But it doesn’t, you know, I just spent time with my grandchildren and listen, children, anything will convince you of the doctrine of original sin. It’s children. I mean, they are me centered, right?
I want my needs met. You know, my little 2-year-old wants water. She’s 10 ft away from the water, 64 years younger than me. I’m 20 ft away from the water. Like, why do I have to get up and get you water?
And I just told her, I said, this actually worked. I was amazed because I don’t think it’ll work very often. But I said, Letty, you have legs, right? Show grandpa your legs. She kicked her little legs out and said, move your legs. She moved her legs. Those are great legs.
She’s just all excited, moving her legs. I said, now use them to go get your water, okay? And she did it. It’s like, woo. That was a win. Probably I won’t work too many more times. But at the same token, they’re capable of incredible tenderness.
One of their siblings gets hurt, and they run over to comfort them. And so I believe if you want to define the doctrine of total depravity, I’d believe it in this way: that we are all sinners, and we cannot save ourselves.
All right, Paul. I mean, if this is the only list you look at, it’s pretty damning. And it’s all true. It’s just not the whole truth. And so I want to read it to you.
Romans 3:9. What then? Are we any better off? Not at all. For we’ve already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. As it is written, there is no one righteous. Not even one. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks God. All have turned away. All alike have become worthless.
There is no one who does what is good. Not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They deceive with their tongues. Vipers’ venom is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and wretchedness are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.
9 What then? Are we any better off? Not at all! For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin, 10 as it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one. 11 There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one. 13 Their throat is an open grave; they deceive with their tongues. Vipers’ venom is under their lips. 14 Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.15 Their feet are swift to shed blood;16 ruin and wretchedness are in their paths, 17 and the path of peace they have not known18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.(Romans 3:9-18, CSB)
Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are subject to the law. So that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment. For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.
But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the law and prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are justified freely. Freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
God presented him as a mercy seat by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness. Because in his restraint, God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.
Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By one of works? No, on the contrary, by the law of faith. For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. God is God. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, Gentiles too. Since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not. On the contrary, we uphold the law.
19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are subject to the law, so that every mouth may be shut and the whole world may become subject to God’s judgment. 20 For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law. 21 But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. 22 The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. 26 God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By one of works? No, on the contrary, by a law of faith. 28 For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! On the contrary, we uphold the law. (Romans 3:19-31, CSB)
God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. Amen.
14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB)
So I think Paul now concludes his argument on unrighteousness. By the way, here’s what righteousness is. That’s one of those biblical words that shows up a lot, and it shows up a lot in this passage.
Righteousness is having a right standing before God. It is being thoroughly true and holy based on a right standing before God. When the Bible says that God is righteous, it means God is thoroughly 100% consistent with God. No lie ever comes out of his mouth. He is completely unpolluted in any way, holy and pure and good.
When we are declared righteous, we then share that righteousness based on our relationship with God. That’s the start of it. And then because of that relationship, that righteousness, that holiness that is him begins to infuse our lives until we will be not only declared righteous, but based on the relationship, truly righteous.
And Paul’s argument is that human beings are unrighteous. They aren’t in right standing with God. And because they aren’t in right standing with God, there isn’t holiness in their lives. There isn’t truth, there isn’t justice, there isn’t peace, there isn’t seeking after God.
They are a self-seeking race, a violent race, a bloodthirsty race, an instant gratification race. They’re simply, to put it bluntly, what the scientific naturalists say. We are simply the smartest animals on the planet and maybe the wickedest.
And so he talks about his whole argument up to this point. If you go back to remember Romans 1 and Romans 2 and the beginning of chapter 3, he exposed three forms of this unrighteousness. The first form is blatant unrighteousness.
When he talks about the Roman culture, remember that in Romans 1, sexual immorality, idolatry. He just says, look at the secular world. And you could look at the secular world now. You could watch the news and you could look at the different things and the brutality that goes on in the earth. And it’s just blatant unrighteousness.
He says that kind of unrighteousness. Even though they know the right thing to do, they do the wrong thing and approve of others who are doing the wrong thing. And we see that, we see examples of that all the time. It’s like, you know, this is where wrong is called right.
All right, we’re going to celebrate it again in June. In our culture, we’re going to celebrate Pride Month where brokenness is called fixed and wrong is called right. And I remember speaking at a conference one time with a bunch of Methodist pastors. I was talking about, and I was a youth pastor, and I just talked about the impact I saw of divorce on these kids.
And this one pastor took me aside, and he chided me. He said, you know, there’s such a thing as positive, creative divorce. And I said, okay, good. I still know what to say, except maybe ask your kids, ask your kids if that, you know, how that is working for them.
And I get it. Some, you know, I get it. I’m not beating up people who’ve been divorced. It’s hard, I get it. But I’m just, I’m simply saying that no, we’re not going to call wrong, right. We’re not going to call.
You know, you promised somebody, right? You said, till death do you part, and you broke the promise, or they broke the promise. Somebody broke the promise. Somebody broke the promise. And that’s not good.
Well, it was better than our kids growing up in that terrible marriage. Maybe, I don’t know. But either case, two bads, you know, and so that’s the human condition. But we try to justify it by calling the wrong things. We try to call wrong, right? And Paul says, oh yeah, you recognize that? Oh, we all do. We all recognize that.
But then the problem is there’s a second form of unrighteousness, and that’s the hypocritical self-righteousness. Well, I’m not like that. And Paul says, yes, you are. Yes, you are right.
And here’s the thing about hypocrites. Hypocrites are people who do not live up to their standard. And to that extent, when the culture calls Christians hypocrites, they’re absolutely right. Here’s the standard. Matthew 5:48, Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48, CSB)
We don’t live up to the standard. What blatant unrighteousness does is blatant unrighteousness simply takes that bar and lowers it so they can feel righteous. What hypocritical self-righteousness does is we take the sins we don’t commit and decide those are the worst and ignore the sins we do commit.
And Paul, you know, we’re all like that, right? Oh, I’d never do that. Yeah, but you do. You do. I don’t do abc. But you do. Def. And so there’s hypocritical self-righteousness, but nobody lives to that standard.
So when people say, you know, people have their lines about, oh, church is all a bunch of hypocrites. Come on down. We can always got room for one more. Yes, we are.
We have a standard that we don’t live up to. The thing we have to do is be honest about that, confess it, and continually ask Jesus to move us to that standard. We can’t lower the bar. My wife and I just spent a week with our grandchildren.
We have two entirely different bars when it comes to babysitting our grandchildren. My wife goes into babysitting the grandchildren, and here’s her impossible-to-meet high bar: This is going to be the greatest week of their lives. I’m going to take them here, and I’m going to do this.
And we’re going to do this food and we’re going to do this project. And Grandma has shown up, boy, and these kids are going to have, oh boy. And you know, she comes back and she’s exhausted and I go to watch the grandkids. And I also have a bar. And my bar is when their parents return, they will be alive. I have a lower bar. It’s an easier bar to get over. But we can’t lower this bar. God has set it so self righteousness doesn’t work. We none of us make the bar.
And then there’s religious self-righteousness, the third form that he exposes. You are Jews, and you’ve been circumcised, and you’ve been chosen. All right? We can have that kind of self-righteousness. I go to church, I read my Bible, I’ve obeyed the rules.
And yet we’ve all met people who live up to that, who are just mean people, right? Anybody meet mean religious people? Mean, legalistic religious people? It’s like, ah, somehow I don’t think that’s what Jesus was like. I don’t think that’s what Jesus was like.
And Paul exposes in these first couple chapters of Romans all three of those forms of unrighteousness. He quotes a variety of Old Testament texts here from verses 10 or 11 through 18, most from Psalm 5, a few from Isaiah.
This is not one passage from the Old Testament; it’s a variety of those. And he just talks about the ungodliness, the pervasiveness, and the universality of sin. And that’s what he’s doing.
He’s just kind of, as I’ve said these last couple weeks, he’s trying to put us all under this thing where there’s no form of our own righteousness that can break through this thing. We can’t get breakthrough on our own effort.
And so sin at its basicness is ungodliness. We’d rather do it my way than God’s way. And we’re born with that. Man, I don’t know. Original, inevitable. I don’t know how it happens, but kids are born with that kind of. And you know, I get it, they cry because they want their needs met.
But pretty soon, it’s not about their needs. It’s about, I want my way. I want to be king or queen of the universe. I shared this example in Bible study. I’ve shared it many times, but it’s simply the best example ever given under God’s green earth of what original sin looks like.
And it happened in my family. It happened with my children. Their grandfather back in the day bought them a tape player. You know, Isaiah, that’s a cassette tape. It’s a little bit like streaming, but not really. And it’s like a rotary phone.
It’s an ancient technology. Anyway, he bought this cassette tape. I don’t know, Sophia, if you’ve ever seen one. You could actually fix it with a number two pencil. It was incredible.
And so he bought him this tape player. But usually grandpa was really smart about gifts. But a three and a five year old, they only bought one tape player, one little kid boombox for both of them to share. He bought him a little cassette with this beautiful little kids Christian choir singing, you know, Jesus loves me and all these sweet songs and I’ll never forget.
It was the greatest. You know you’re gonna. The Johnsons have heard it a hundred times because I just can’t think of a better illustration for original sin.
But my 3 and my 5 year old were listening. And I will listen to these words. This is how the song went. Angelic children, voices, Sophia. Little sweet angelic voices. And they’re singing this song.
If you share and share alike, love makes it right. If you share and share alike, God’s love is there for everyone. Take that, America’s Got Talent. They’re singing this beautiful song. And as this song is being played, did you hear those words?
The three-year-old and a five-year-old both have a grip on the handles of that little kid’s boombox. They’re pulling, they’re wishboning the thing, you know what I mean? They’re pulling with all their might in opposite directions, screaming at the top of their lungs, mine.
If you share and share alike, I mean the irony of it just was so powerful. And I hollered out to my wife in the kitchen. I said, honey, we did it. And she was not amused, and I wasn’t amused at their behavior. And she said, did what?
We beget original sinners. We did it. We were fruitful and we multiplied, and this is what we got. They didn’t care about the other one’s happiness. They certainly didn’t care about their mother and father’s happiness. Mine, they didn’t care about.
There’s a God of the universe that those kids were singing about. And the key to life is loving and sharing and giving. My little kids, I hate to say it, were ungodly. I don’t know.
I can’t imagine the two Miller boys ever being ungodly. But maybe there’s some stories there, I don’t know. Not as bad as your kids. Well, yeah, I’m sure of that. I’m sure of that. And, you know, I’m pretty sure the two oldest Johnson kids were never ungodly. So there is an ungodliness.
Listen, when somebody says, I can’t believe in God because intellectually it doesn’t make sense to me, and the primary argument is evil, that’s the number one argument. Oh, you know, how can a loving God, all this evil in the world.
And science was used for years. You know, science has disproven God. That argument for the last 50 years can’t be used with any kind of integrity. Overwhelmingly, the 20th century turned that argument 180 degrees back. Now, don’t be afraid of science. It’s all on our side. It’s all on our side.
All right, so. But when somebody says, I can’t believe in God intellectually, 40 years of pastoring, absolutes are dangerous. But here’s my conclusion on that. Can’t lives on wont street. It’s not a matter of I can’t.
It’s a matter of I’m ungodly and I want to be ungodly. I don’t want a God up there structuring and ordering my life. I want to do it my way. I want to be the center of my life. And so I’ll make up an argument about cancer wards, children’s cancer wards, to disprove God.
Children’s cancer wards are a terrible place, but they don’t disprove God. Sin is pervasive cancer. We’ll stick with that analogy. Sin is a cancer to the soul. And one of the things about cancer is you can have a lot of cancer or you can have a little cancer, but if you don’t deal with it, it’s going to kill you.
There are some people, the cancer doesn’t show that much. They’re the good people, what we would call the good people. There’s other people where, oh, man, they got soil cancer, stage four. They’re the rotten people. But even a little bit is going to ruin the whole batch. You may only have a speck of that.
You may have grown up in a great Christian family. You may have been taught ethics, you may have been loved deeply by your parents, and so you have security and emotional stability. But if you still have that thing in you that says mine, and that’s still alive and that hasn’t been crucified with Christ, I’ll tell you what, it’s going to grow and it’s going to spread a little bit, pollutes the whole batch.
Suppose, you know, you were coming over to my house and I’m making you dessert, all right? And I’m stirring up a batch of brownies, and I’ve got a spatula, and I’m stirring those brownies with that spatula. All of a sudden, I hear the dog out back making a ruckus.
So, I knock the spatula clean, and I forget to put it down. I just walk out back to see what’s going on with the dog. As I walk out back to see what’s going on with the dog, I step in something that that dog did. You know, you’ve all been there in the back.
Oh, well, I don’t want to track that in the house. So what do I do? I got the spatula. What better instrument? So I just put my shoe up, put my foot up, and I just get that off and knock it off a little bit.
Then suppose I would never do this, but suppose I did just went back in, took the same spatula, and began stirring those brownies. You came over to my house to eat the brownies. you’re about to take your first bite of that brownie, and I tell you that story.
Are you going to eat that brownie? Everybody I know except one person has said no. My brother-in-law. And this shows you the kind of person who would marry my sister. You know, I’ve never used that piece. That’s going to come up next time I see them.
My brother-in-law, he rubs his chin and goes, well, how much poop was on that spatula? It doesn’t matter. It’s in the brownie mix. It’s in the brownie mix. Sin is pervasive. It’s like you could have a glass of water.
And you could put one drop of blue food coloring in it or 10 drops. you’re not getting a clear glass of water anymore.
And so we can’t judge ourselves by somebody who’s got a lot of sin, even if we don’t think we have a little sin. We’ve got a deadly pervasive disease that is growing in us that, if not checked, if not dealt with, will kill our souls. It is pervasive.
That’s what Paul says. It’s ungodliness, it’s pervasive, and it’s universal. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23, CSB)
No one is without excuse. No one can go to God and say, everybody else’s report card fails but mine. No one except God himself become man. Jesus, all have sinned. And so that’s the problem that he nails down.
And finally he gets to the answer and he says, now a new righteousness. But now, apart from the law, there has been a new righteousness, a righteousness from God that has been revealed, that was foreshadowed, that was talked about by the law and the prophets. And the righteousness is from God, is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
22 The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. (Romans 3:22, CSB)
No distinction, Jew or gentile. There’s a new way because we can’t save ourselves. We’re in a ditch too deep. We can’t climb out. We can’t wish the soul cancer away. We can’t work up our willpower and chase it away.
And God says, I know there’s a new way that’s been revealed. It’s important to realize that Christianity, of all the religions of the world, is revealed religion. What do I mean by that? It’s not something.
It’s not a gospel we made up. We never would have made this up. That’s ridiculous. When people say, oh, you know, Jesus wasn’t truly God, that was an invention of the early disciples, really. Have you read the Gospels?
These 12 Galilean fishermen, first of all, if they would have made it up, they’d have made themselves look better in the Gospels. Because how they come across in the Gospels is they come across as fairly dense. And they were, because they’re just like us. That’s why we identify with them.
And so much of what they came up with is so contrary, so revolutionary, so radical, that it’s basically impossible. You know, somebody said, if I didn’t believe in the Jesus of the Gospels, I’d believe in the guy who made up that story. I’d worship those 12 fishermen.
You see, I studied religious studies. That’s how I got my undergraduate degree in. I’m a religious studies major. I’ve studied Hinduism, I’ve studied Islam, I’ve studied Buddhism, I’ve studied polytheism. And one of the things that’s true is that all religions of the world are not the same.
They’re very different. They’re the same in some ways, in that they all teach some kind of morality, but they’re very different on how to get there or what’s the point and who’s in charge.
Every other religion in the world we could have made up. All right? Basically, Judaism and Islam, basically, are just religions of God is good, God is holy. Do the right things and he’ll bless you. Do the wrong things and you’re in trouble. All right? We grew up with that in school, right? Do your homework, get a good grade.
Don’t do your homework, get a bad grade. We grew up with that. Home, obey your parents. You know, you get to enjoy the trip to Disneyland. Don’t obey your parents, you get grounded or something.
The law. Obey the law. Basically, the cops leave you alone. Break the law, you get caught, you get thrown in jail. We could have made that up. Just makes sense. In fact, it’s the most sensible religion you could come up with.
Proverbs, Psalms, retributive theology. The whole proverbs is, do good, you’ll be blessed. Do bad, you won’t be blessed. And that’s mostly. There’s a lot of truth to that. We could come up with that. Hinduism, all right, a little harder to come up with, but George Lucas did. I know that George Lucas studied Hinduism.
But if you’ve seen Star Wars, right? Hinduism, there’s a force. There’s a spiritual reality behind everything. And we’re all flowing and moving in that one spiritual reality. And so we’re all a piece of this, what you might want to call God or the Force. We’re all a part of it.
So you’re God, and I’m God, and this platform is God, and the chair is God, and the centipede is God. And your individuality is only an illusion. You are a raindrop in Washington falling toward the Puget Sound. And when you fall into the Puget Sound, you simply meld with the cosmic reality, the cosmic oneness.
Listen, you could have. I grew up in the 60s and 70s. You could have come up with that. It might have taken a little weed, but you could have come up with that. Dude, we’re all part of the cosmic reality.
Yeah, let’s go get some Pringles. Cool. You could have figured that out. But this is not based on following the law, but based on the one who made the law coming to earth and demonstrating that law perfectly in love.
And then going to a sinful humanity and instead of condemning them, going to that sinful humanity and saying, all your ungodliness, all your unrighteousness, all your law breaking, what used to be laid upon goats and oxen is now going to be laid upon me. And I’m going to take it and I’m going to swallow it up.
And now you can become the righteousness of God. How? How many hills do I have to climb? How many oceans do I have to swim? How many good deeds do I have to do to get this righteousness of God? None.
But put your trust and loyalty in me, and I will give you that righteousness. 2nd Corinthians 5:21. God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us just so that we might become the righteousness of God. It is given through faith in Jesus to all who believe.
Just as sin is universal, so the offer of righteousness is universal. The offer of righteousness is universal. Romans 3:23. A lot of people quote Romans 3:23: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Is that universal? Is that all meant to be universal? Absolutely. All right. If you believe in limited atonement, explain to me this. They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. Just as all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are. Who’s the they are all?
It doesn’t say they are. It’s entirely connected with 3:23. But the elect, but the few know the all who have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That’s the same who are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented him at his mercy seat by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness. Because in his restraint, God passed over sins previously committed.
23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. (Romans 3:23-25, CSB)
God withheld his judgment on planet earth until Jesus came. And now that just as sin is universal, the offer of righteousness is universal, justified freely by his grace, both pardoned and put in right standing with God.
We are redeemed. He has made sacrifice that has redeemed us. That’s the gospel that’s been revealed. That’s the point Paul’s getting. That’s why he locks us all up under sin. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
But now, now another door has opened. Another way has come to us. And so God’s mercy, God’s plan, God’s word is all demonstrated in the cross of Christ, foreshadowed by the law and the prophets.
Jesus lives the perfect moral life foreshadowed by the law. He dies the sacrificial death, foreshadowed by the temple, the sacrifices. Everything about the Old Testament is pointing to Jesus. It’s his plan to extend his mercy, and his word is upheld in Jesus.
Jesus said, do not think I’ve come to abolish the law. I have come to fulfill the law. Jesus is God’s plan. Jesus is God’s way. And faith is how we enter into that. In faith, we believe the story. But not just believe the story. The devils believe the story.
If you ask any demon, did Jesus die on a cross for the sins of the world? I imagine the demon would say yes. It’s not believing the story intellectually that’s the start of it. You can’t trust something you don’t believe. But it’s trusting in this person, Jesus, in the goodness of God the Father, in his mercy, entrusting. We then become a loyal follower of him.
We believe the story, we trust in God, and we align ourselves with him. That’s why it’s not entirely true to say, come up and say the sinner’s prayer. Once saved, always saved. you’re good. There’s something about that that doesn’t jive with me.
It’s more than just saying the sinner’s prayer. It’s saying I am a Jesus person. I’m not perfect, but I am a Jesus person. I didn’t buy eternal fire insurance. I signed up. I enlisted. Right. Those of you in the service, you enlisted, right?
When you enlisted, what you said was, I’m gonna do what they tell me to do for my country. You know, you didn’t go to boot camp and have some drill instructor yell in your face and say, yeah but Sarge, I was thinking today’s not a great day for the 10-mile run. I was thinking today we play backgammon and build relationships.
I don’t even think in today’s soft military that one would work. Maybe, I don’t know. You know, if you make me run, I’m going to call HR. No, we align ourselves with Jesus. He becomes the center of our lives. I did it 50 years ago. I’m 66. I did it when I was 16.
For 50 years, I’ve walked with Jesus, and it hasn’t been easy, but I’ve seen it. I’ve looked at life, man. I’ve looked at people. I’ve looked at people who don’t align themselves with Jesus.
And I’ll tell you this, I’ve regretted many of the choices I’ve made. I’ve regretted many things I’ve done. I’ve regretted many things I’ve left undone. But one thing I do not regret is being a Jesus person.
Oh, man, I am so convinced this is the truth. We align our. That’s what faith is. I’m on Team Jesus. I love the Jesus movement. I love the fact that we called ourselves Jesus people. That’s not very much unlike the early Christians who call themselves or were called Christians. Little Christ, we’re Jesus people.
We align ourselves with his kingdom. We align ourselves with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We put our daily trust there. Our money, our time, our resources. He’s the center, he’s the priority. He’s the one in which.
He’s the center of the universe. We orbit around that. My marriage is about that. My parenting is about that. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a preacher or a teacher, your job is about that.
That’s what it means to have faith. A lived out trust. So. Well, now you’re talking about works. No, I’m just talking about what trust means. Abraham believed God. We’re talking about it next week. Abraham believed and God accredited to him righteousness.
22 Therefore, it was credited to him for righteousness. (Romans 4:22, CSB)
How did Abraham believe? He left the Ur of the Chaldeans. That’s how he believed. He left. God said, go, and he went. I mean, I don’t think Abraham would have been given God’s righteousness if God said, you know, go, and I will bless you. I believe that’s the word, man. I believe that’s the word of the Lord.
I’m going to stay here with my relatives. But man, that’s. I believe that. Credit that to me as righteousness. No, he aligned himself with that word, and he went. We align ourselves with him. And in that aligning ourselves with him, we earn nothing. We receive everything. We didn’t earn this.
Some people say, well, if you say faith is your choice, that you say you choose to align yourself with God, then faith just becomes another work of the law. Well, in that case, I think it’s ridiculous. I do. In that case, don’t let your kids open their Christmas presents this year lest they think that they earned or deserved them by their effort to open that present.
The gift has been given. If we receive it, we receive everything. We didn’t earn it because we received it. We received it. Because we received it, we earn nothing. But we gain eternal sonship and daughtership of the King of the Universe, and we get the whole package of salvation.
We are justified. We’re pardoned. We’re forgiven. We’re justified. We stand before God and he says, not guilty. And the devil saying, but Kevin did all this. And then Jesus enters the witness box, reveals the scars, and he says, Kevin was on Team Jesus, not guilty. You stand right before me.
But listen, it’s not only that we get our sins forgiven. I alluded to this in my prayer. Heaven would not be heaven if all we got was our sins forgiven. Heaven would not be heaven if we all went up to heaven. We’re still jerks, all right? Even if Jesus was the cop, hey, you know, he’s breaking up every fight. Heaven would not be heaven.
What makes heaven heaven is those words. Christian, Christ, liked ones, little Christ, Jesus, people, people of Jesus. Those words become an existential reality. They become the experienced reality of who we are forever.
There’s two pieces of great news about that. One piece of great news is all those jerks in the world are going to stop being jerks. If there’s traffic in heaven, nobody will cut you off. Nobody will drive rudely. All right? There will be no bullies. If you got bullied, there will be no more bullies.
If you got ignored and treated harshly, nobody will do that anymore. There will be no. If you were molested and injured by a person of power and you didn’t have power to defend yourself, there will be no predators out there anymore. That’s a great piece of news.
You know what else is a great piece of news? You won’t be a jerk anymore. I have more angst over my jerkiness than other people’s jerkiness toward me. Actually, I have more grief over Kev. You know, get it together now. That doesn’t mean I don’t have grief about other people’s jersey. I wish they would get it together.
This is great news, people. This is great news. Those things in life that hold power over you that you don’t seem to be overcome, there will be breakthrough. There will be completion. We will become like him.
What happened is that little piece of cancer that’s polluting our lives has now been injected with the life of his spirit, and it is dead. It has been declared dead. He said, well, why do I still sin? Because the remnants of that thing hang on, all right? But you have been crucified with Christ.
And the life you now live, you live by faith in the Son of God, who loved you and died for you. It’s no longer you who live, but now there’s something bigger that’s been put into your system than that malignant cancer, than that malignant soul cancer.
What’s bigger is the Spirit of God. And he is winning the battle. He is growing and that other thing is shrinking and dying and diminishing. And the good news is that goodness, that righteousness, that holiness will be in us forever. And it will be everlasting joy.
And we will love each other as we were always meant to love each other. We will love Him. People, I can’t tell you how good it’s going to be because I can’t imagine. I can only imagine. Well, I can’t imagine.
But it is our hope. And it all comes not by doing moral calisthenics, but by aligning ourselves in humble faith with team Jesus. We are saved now and forever. God’s law is not abolished by this gospel. It’s upheld by this gospel. Paul says it’s everything the Old Covenant was pointing to. It fulfills it all.
The moral law is fulfilled in Christ. The sacrificial law is fulfilled in Christ. God himself obeys the law, and he. And because everything God does is 100% true, he simply puts that on us. And so it becomes true immediately.
It’s kind of interesting because it becomes true immediately and it becomes true progressively. You understand what I’m saying? You are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. your life on this earth is this becoming who you are.
We’re going to later and talk in Romans about predestination. That’s predestination, becoming who you’re predestined to be in Christ. It’s not. Predetermination doesn’t mean God picked that person, saved that person’s not. It means God created us with a destiny in Christ. That destiny is fulfilled.
God’s law, upheld, perfected, demonstrated his righteousness, his truth, his absolute holiness demonstrated in Christ. And then when we step into that baptismal pool, we’re bathed in it. We’re bathed in it. The burden of the law is off our shoulders. It’s no longer an outward code that we have to try hard to believe.
I’ll confess to you tonight. I break the law. I’ll break the law in a half an hour. I promise you I will break the law in a half an hour. Because I’m going to drive home and I’m going to go faster than 60 on highway, on highway three.
I’m going to. I know, I know. In fact, I know how fast I’m going to go. I’m going to go somewhere around 66, 67, 68, right in that range because I have passed multitude of state patrols going that speed and they’ve never come out and given me a ticket.
So I have a pretty good assurance that I’m not going to get a ticket going 66, 67, or 68, driving a red Camaro. That’s now I’m breaking the law. I’m breaking the outward code.
The outward code does not make me obedient to the law. The outward code makes me fear getting caught. So I approximate the law. I’m not going 74 because I think my red Camaro is going to get busted at 74, but it’s not going to get busted at 68. I could be wrong. Tonight could be the night.
In fact, the roads are wet. I’ll probably go a little slower tonight because that ain’t an all-wheel-drive car out there. It’s an outward code. It reforms my behavior a little bit. Don’t judge me. You who stay at 60, that’s fine. We can find a place where you do that too. Wouldn’t take us long. Wouldn’t take us long to find where you hedge.
All right. Are you going in the order of the speeder? Faster, medium, slower, or the other way? Faster, medium, slower. Yeah. Okay, good for you, Karen. See, we have so much in common. A suggestion. It’s like those one-way arrows in parking lots. They’re suggestions.
But Jesus says this. He says the outward code couldn’t do it. But here’s what’s going to do it. I’m going to put my law in your heart. There’s going to be an inward transformation.
So maybe when I’m entirely sanctified, I will drive 60, I don’t know. There’s going to be an inward transformation that’s going to take place. The outward stuff doesn’t work. It doesn’t change the. It doesn’t get rid of the cancer.
It can modify behavior a little bit, but it doesn’t get rid of the cancer. But oh, the life-giving Spirit of God, when that’s in us, when we put our faith in him and he clothes us in that righteousness of Christ and the Holy Spirit comes and settles into our lives.
Devil’s defeated, sin is dead. God’s righteousness is established in us forever. And dear ones, I hope you leave tonight thinking that’s great news. I hope you leave tonight thinking that’s great news.
So I’m preaching to the choir here. I don’t think there’s anybody here who hasn’t stepped into that allegiance with Jesus. I’m pretty sure I know you all well enough to think, well, you know, you have given your hearts and lives to Jesus, and you’re on Team Jesus.
We sang a song tonight that some theologians had objections to when that came out in the vineyard, Lord, Reign in Me Again. It’s like, well, you don’t need to be re-saved again. You don’t. But it’s. The song is not Lord, Come in Me. Come, Come in Me again. It’s Lord, Reign in Me Again.
Because there are areas in our lives where we’ve put Jesus aside and say, you know, you’re Lord of A, B, and C, but not D, E, and F. And so there’s a repentance that goes on as we’re a part of Team Jesus, and say, you know what, Lord? I want you to have all of it. I want you to have all of it.
And so if there’s a repentance that you need to make, then come to the communion table tonight and make it. Say, Jesus, I want you to have all of it. And they say, thank you. Thank you for this amazing gospel where we earn nothing and gain everything because of his great mercy and love.
Come to the table, his table, and eat.
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