Post by arete on Feb 17, 2014 22:41:15 GMT
Introduction:
Is 99% good enough? What would parts of life look like at 99%?
No phone service for 15 minutes each day.
1.7 million pieces of first class mail lost each day
35,000 newborn babies dropped by doctors or nurses each year
200,000 people getting the wrong drug prescriptions each year
Unsafe drinking water three days a year.
Three misspelled words on the average page of type.
2 million people would die from food poisoning each year.
Now, I am not going to speak on the need of perfection. Rather, mankind seems to think that there is some percentage of good behavior versus bad that earns God’s favor. This morning in Romans, Paul will dispel any thought that mankind can hope to score high enough to earn grace. Instead, he will show us that apart from Christ, we do not score 1% let alone 99%...
Context:
So far in Romans, Paul has taught that the Law cannot save, but still has a role in the lives of believers. Through the Law, we learn how to live to please the one who saved us by his grace. Also, we must take care to avoid the pitfalls of legalism & hypocrisy – otherwise, we may be guilty of causing others to blaspheme God. Now Paul narrows his focus on the righteousness of God as contrasted by the righteousness of man. First, man’s faithlessness is not to the fault of God – because God is always faithful. Next, Man is an expert at twisting and suppressing truth – finding excuses, however weak, to allow sin. Man even claims that God is wrong to punish sin. While the reader of Romans might try to excuse themselves as not belonging to this view of mankind, Paul now moves to removing any presumption that man is in anyway righteous or that man has any claim to the free grace and mercy of God…
Body – Romans 3:9-20 – ESV
No One Is Righteous
9 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, 10 as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Standing Equal v. 9
Paul has explained in the previous section that there is value in being a Jew. First, the Jews have been God’s covenant people and have received the written Word of God.
However, greater privilege means greater responsibility. So Paul moves to another likely question – are the Jews better off than the Gentiles?
Answer – not even a little bit. Regardless of whether someone has the general revelation God made of himself in the world around us – or the written revelation of the Bible – no one has ever lived up to God’s standards.
Both Jew & Gentile are under sin. What does he mean by under? It is a figure of speech. We are weighted down by the terrible burden of sin. We are under the weight of sin, the power of sin, and the penalty of sin
Illustration:
Paul Bunyan wrote a book called the Pilgrim’s Progress where the main character’s first major obstacle was a terrible burden, “who goes through life stumbling underneath the dreadful weight of sin…crushing him. It is only when he comes to the foot of the cross & meets the Savior that the burden rolls off his back and he is able to stand upright, free.”
Application:
All people in their natural state are bowed down under the weight of sin. Some say that they do not feel such a burden. One pastor then responded by explaining that a dead body does not feel the weight of the earth upon it. Regardless of who we are, what country we were born in, what people we call our own, what denomination or religious background we have – we all share the same basic natural state. Apart from Christ, we were dead in our sin. Romans leaves us with no conclusion other than all sin, all are under the penalty of sin – unless they have trusted in Christ. For those who have been saved, we share in the great freedom of new life and freedom in Christ.
String of Pearls vv. 10-18
Paul moves to the bulk of this section. The rabbi in him comes out. He uses a technique hear called stringing pearls. He references 6 OT passages in one chunk to show the biblical support for what he is saying.
The Hebrew also comes out. These pearls reference several parts of a man – lips, mouth, tongue, throat, feet, & eyes. In Paul’s native language – there is a common figure of speech to use several parts to reflect the whole. He is making a statement about the entirety of a man
None is righteous – not even one – There is only one instance of a person being totally right in keeping God’s standard – Jesus Christ
No one understands – understands what – no one truly grasps God’s righteousness nor how to be righteous themselves. Our hearts, minds & will are as fallen as our bodies.
No one seeks God – this stands at odds with current Christiann models of a seeker sensitive service. In some sense people seem to seek, but what they are seeking is freedom from the guilt they feel. They seek the benefits of God while still fleeing from the Person of God. They want freedom from guilt without answering to their Maker.
All have turned from God’s way – in the pursuit of righteousness – everything we do is worthless. Some might say that we see unbelievers doing good things. That appears to be true. However, God regards the heart and motive as well as the act. Any act of apparent goodness, done in rebellion to God’s standards of righteousness is evil.
Just in case we missed it before, Paul repeats – no one does good
All throats are like open graves – this is tied to Paul’s culture – the most unclean thing is a dead body. The throat is unclean. It also is a tunnel to the inside of a person. Like Jesus said, it’s what is in us that makes us sinful. Our sin wells up from within
We lie. God doesn’t. We are at stark odds with God concerning the truth. This again builds on Paul’s primary charge – men suppress the truth. When we lie, we are aligning ourselves with the Father of Lies.
Our voices are used like deadly poison upon one another and we speak curses and bitterness. Our voices are meant to praise our God and encourage and build one another up. We live at odds with what God requires of us
Pain, misery, and bloodshed are an absolute constant in the history of man on every continent and in every time
We don’t even know the way to peace, and we definitely don’t walk in that way. It’s important to note that God defines peace not as an absence of conflict – but in living a complete and whole life with all the blessings he intends for those who love him. This peace can exist in the heart of a conflict
Finally, there is no fear of God in man’s eyes. Our perception of the world does not include any fear that God will judge. We sometimes fear that he might – but there is no might – he will judge. Furthermore, the fear here bears the emotion of fearing to please one you love as well as fearing punishment. There is no respect for God or his will when men look at the world.
Illustration:
This passage is a basic starting point for a teaching of the church called total depravity. By definition, “The doctrine that fallen man is completely touched by sin and that he is completely a sinner. He is not as bad as he could be, but in all areas of his being, body, soul, spirit, mind, emotions, etc., he is touched by sin. In that sense he is totally depraved. Because man is depraved, nothing good can come out of him and God must account the righteousness of Christ to him. This righteousness is obtainable only through faith in Christ and what He did on the cross.”
Application:
Sin affects every aspect of our human existence: our minds, our wills, and our bodies are affected by sin. Every dimension of our personality suffers at some point from the weight of sin that infects the human race. This does not mean that every human being is as wicked as it is possible to be, because we know that is not the case. As much as we sin, we can always contemplate sinning more often, or more grievously than we presently do. Why is this important enough to dwell on this Sunday morning? We need to do away with the illusion that there is anything good in anyone apart from that person being saved by grace and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. No one can earn the least speck of God’s favor. We have to know how totally and fundamentally lost we are apart from Christ. This is because such lostness is a necessary part of the Good News. It helps us revel and rejoice in the grace God has bestowed on us if we are his children. It also helps us understand the terrible predicament our friends, family & neighbors are in if they are not God’s children. It lights a fire in us to share the good news that while man is totally lost, he can totally trust in Christ to save him totally.
Sin & Law vv. 19-20
Concerning the God who will judge – when we stand before him as judge, our mouths will be stopped. That means that we will not have any excuse or extenuating circumstance to plead. We will have to agree that his charge is just. The only things we can vocalize will either be wailing at our lostness or pleading the blood of our savior.
We will definitely be quiet in regard to anything we could hope to add to our salvation. We have no righteousness to plead. No human being will be just in the eyes of God on his own merit. The only thing we bring to the table concerning our salvation is the sin we desperately need to be saved from
People have the wrong ideas when it comes to the Law and the keeping of the Law. We cannot please God by our ability to keep the Law because we can’t keep it. The Law was never meant to be used that way. The Law’s purpose is first and foremost to teach us how lost we are and how we need a Savior. After we are saved then the Law is a navigational tool, used by the Holy Spirit to instruct us – and any ability to keep the Law is not empowered by the Law nor by us. Our ability to please God is empowered by God. By grace he saves us and with grace he enables us to live to his glory.
Illustration:
Psalm 46 says “Be still and know that I am God.” We often take this to mean that we should have a moment of quiet meditation and consider God. The language of that Psalm says something different. “Be still” is a command, not a suggestion and it is emphatic. It means to shut up. That psalm is a command to stop talking and stand in the knowledge that there really is a God and he has standards and we are responsible to him for how we live.
Application:
More prayer time should be given to quiet. More devotional time should be given to quiet. We should quietly contemplate the nature of God & the nature of man so that we might tremble before God – both in fear of sinning and in the joy of knowing that as bad as I am – I am totally depraved. I am sinful in my cells. Still, God looked on me with grace and called me to himself. So let us resolve to Be still and to know the true God.
So What? What do we do with this?
We are never more precious in God's eyes when we are lepers in our own. Thomas Watson
We may be tempted to think we are better off since we go to church and read the Bible. We must never lose sight of the fact that like all people, we are sinners. When we keep a realistic view of ourselves and a true view of God, we please him and we rejoice is his grace
The total lostness of unbelievers should help us to understand why they act – lost. Unbelievers are supposed to be depraved – it is their nature. Christians, however, have been redeemed from such depravity and should be marked by an ever growing sense of the sinfulness of sin and our utter dependence on God to live right lives.
We have no excuse or plea other than God is right, we are sinners even when we are at our most noble by human standards – as one writer remarked…
…obligation to God covers all of every man’s being and actions. Even if the act be correct in outward form, which is done without any reference to his will, he will judge a shortcoming. ‘The plowing of the wicked is sin.’ The intentional end to which our action is directed determines its moral complexion supremely. R.L. Dabney
So let us confess that we are not 99% righteous in ourselves. Let us confess that we are not even 1% righteous in ourselves. Instead, let us confess our absolute absence of self-righteousness and instead, trust wholly in Christ’s righteousness.
For those who haven’t – admit your sin, confess it to God. Trust in Christ alone to pay the debt you owe to God.
For those of us who have trusted in Christ – Praise God and Hallelujah
Benediction – Hebrews 13:20-21
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Is 99% good enough? What would parts of life look like at 99%?
No phone service for 15 minutes each day.
1.7 million pieces of first class mail lost each day
35,000 newborn babies dropped by doctors or nurses each year
200,000 people getting the wrong drug prescriptions each year
Unsafe drinking water three days a year.
Three misspelled words on the average page of type.
2 million people would die from food poisoning each year.
Now, I am not going to speak on the need of perfection. Rather, mankind seems to think that there is some percentage of good behavior versus bad that earns God’s favor. This morning in Romans, Paul will dispel any thought that mankind can hope to score high enough to earn grace. Instead, he will show us that apart from Christ, we do not score 1% let alone 99%...
Context:
So far in Romans, Paul has taught that the Law cannot save, but still has a role in the lives of believers. Through the Law, we learn how to live to please the one who saved us by his grace. Also, we must take care to avoid the pitfalls of legalism & hypocrisy – otherwise, we may be guilty of causing others to blaspheme God. Now Paul narrows his focus on the righteousness of God as contrasted by the righteousness of man. First, man’s faithlessness is not to the fault of God – because God is always faithful. Next, Man is an expert at twisting and suppressing truth – finding excuses, however weak, to allow sin. Man even claims that God is wrong to punish sin. While the reader of Romans might try to excuse themselves as not belonging to this view of mankind, Paul now moves to removing any presumption that man is in anyway righteous or that man has any claim to the free grace and mercy of God…
Body – Romans 3:9-20 – ESV
No One Is Righteous
9 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, 10 as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
13 “Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Standing Equal v. 9
Paul has explained in the previous section that there is value in being a Jew. First, the Jews have been God’s covenant people and have received the written Word of God.
However, greater privilege means greater responsibility. So Paul moves to another likely question – are the Jews better off than the Gentiles?
Answer – not even a little bit. Regardless of whether someone has the general revelation God made of himself in the world around us – or the written revelation of the Bible – no one has ever lived up to God’s standards.
Both Jew & Gentile are under sin. What does he mean by under? It is a figure of speech. We are weighted down by the terrible burden of sin. We are under the weight of sin, the power of sin, and the penalty of sin
Illustration:
Paul Bunyan wrote a book called the Pilgrim’s Progress where the main character’s first major obstacle was a terrible burden, “who goes through life stumbling underneath the dreadful weight of sin…crushing him. It is only when he comes to the foot of the cross & meets the Savior that the burden rolls off his back and he is able to stand upright, free.”
Application:
All people in their natural state are bowed down under the weight of sin. Some say that they do not feel such a burden. One pastor then responded by explaining that a dead body does not feel the weight of the earth upon it. Regardless of who we are, what country we were born in, what people we call our own, what denomination or religious background we have – we all share the same basic natural state. Apart from Christ, we were dead in our sin. Romans leaves us with no conclusion other than all sin, all are under the penalty of sin – unless they have trusted in Christ. For those who have been saved, we share in the great freedom of new life and freedom in Christ.
String of Pearls vv. 10-18
Paul moves to the bulk of this section. The rabbi in him comes out. He uses a technique hear called stringing pearls. He references 6 OT passages in one chunk to show the biblical support for what he is saying.
The Hebrew also comes out. These pearls reference several parts of a man – lips, mouth, tongue, throat, feet, & eyes. In Paul’s native language – there is a common figure of speech to use several parts to reflect the whole. He is making a statement about the entirety of a man
None is righteous – not even one – There is only one instance of a person being totally right in keeping God’s standard – Jesus Christ
No one understands – understands what – no one truly grasps God’s righteousness nor how to be righteous themselves. Our hearts, minds & will are as fallen as our bodies.
No one seeks God – this stands at odds with current Christiann models of a seeker sensitive service. In some sense people seem to seek, but what they are seeking is freedom from the guilt they feel. They seek the benefits of God while still fleeing from the Person of God. They want freedom from guilt without answering to their Maker.
All have turned from God’s way – in the pursuit of righteousness – everything we do is worthless. Some might say that we see unbelievers doing good things. That appears to be true. However, God regards the heart and motive as well as the act. Any act of apparent goodness, done in rebellion to God’s standards of righteousness is evil.
Just in case we missed it before, Paul repeats – no one does good
All throats are like open graves – this is tied to Paul’s culture – the most unclean thing is a dead body. The throat is unclean. It also is a tunnel to the inside of a person. Like Jesus said, it’s what is in us that makes us sinful. Our sin wells up from within
We lie. God doesn’t. We are at stark odds with God concerning the truth. This again builds on Paul’s primary charge – men suppress the truth. When we lie, we are aligning ourselves with the Father of Lies.
Our voices are used like deadly poison upon one another and we speak curses and bitterness. Our voices are meant to praise our God and encourage and build one another up. We live at odds with what God requires of us
Pain, misery, and bloodshed are an absolute constant in the history of man on every continent and in every time
We don’t even know the way to peace, and we definitely don’t walk in that way. It’s important to note that God defines peace not as an absence of conflict – but in living a complete and whole life with all the blessings he intends for those who love him. This peace can exist in the heart of a conflict
Finally, there is no fear of God in man’s eyes. Our perception of the world does not include any fear that God will judge. We sometimes fear that he might – but there is no might – he will judge. Furthermore, the fear here bears the emotion of fearing to please one you love as well as fearing punishment. There is no respect for God or his will when men look at the world.
Illustration:
This passage is a basic starting point for a teaching of the church called total depravity. By definition, “The doctrine that fallen man is completely touched by sin and that he is completely a sinner. He is not as bad as he could be, but in all areas of his being, body, soul, spirit, mind, emotions, etc., he is touched by sin. In that sense he is totally depraved. Because man is depraved, nothing good can come out of him and God must account the righteousness of Christ to him. This righteousness is obtainable only through faith in Christ and what He did on the cross.”
Application:
Sin affects every aspect of our human existence: our minds, our wills, and our bodies are affected by sin. Every dimension of our personality suffers at some point from the weight of sin that infects the human race. This does not mean that every human being is as wicked as it is possible to be, because we know that is not the case. As much as we sin, we can always contemplate sinning more often, or more grievously than we presently do. Why is this important enough to dwell on this Sunday morning? We need to do away with the illusion that there is anything good in anyone apart from that person being saved by grace and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. No one can earn the least speck of God’s favor. We have to know how totally and fundamentally lost we are apart from Christ. This is because such lostness is a necessary part of the Good News. It helps us revel and rejoice in the grace God has bestowed on us if we are his children. It also helps us understand the terrible predicament our friends, family & neighbors are in if they are not God’s children. It lights a fire in us to share the good news that while man is totally lost, he can totally trust in Christ to save him totally.
Sin & Law vv. 19-20
Concerning the God who will judge – when we stand before him as judge, our mouths will be stopped. That means that we will not have any excuse or extenuating circumstance to plead. We will have to agree that his charge is just. The only things we can vocalize will either be wailing at our lostness or pleading the blood of our savior.
We will definitely be quiet in regard to anything we could hope to add to our salvation. We have no righteousness to plead. No human being will be just in the eyes of God on his own merit. The only thing we bring to the table concerning our salvation is the sin we desperately need to be saved from
People have the wrong ideas when it comes to the Law and the keeping of the Law. We cannot please God by our ability to keep the Law because we can’t keep it. The Law was never meant to be used that way. The Law’s purpose is first and foremost to teach us how lost we are and how we need a Savior. After we are saved then the Law is a navigational tool, used by the Holy Spirit to instruct us – and any ability to keep the Law is not empowered by the Law nor by us. Our ability to please God is empowered by God. By grace he saves us and with grace he enables us to live to his glory.
Illustration:
Psalm 46 says “Be still and know that I am God.” We often take this to mean that we should have a moment of quiet meditation and consider God. The language of that Psalm says something different. “Be still” is a command, not a suggestion and it is emphatic. It means to shut up. That psalm is a command to stop talking and stand in the knowledge that there really is a God and he has standards and we are responsible to him for how we live.
Application:
More prayer time should be given to quiet. More devotional time should be given to quiet. We should quietly contemplate the nature of God & the nature of man so that we might tremble before God – both in fear of sinning and in the joy of knowing that as bad as I am – I am totally depraved. I am sinful in my cells. Still, God looked on me with grace and called me to himself. So let us resolve to Be still and to know the true God.
So What? What do we do with this?
We are never more precious in God's eyes when we are lepers in our own. Thomas Watson
We may be tempted to think we are better off since we go to church and read the Bible. We must never lose sight of the fact that like all people, we are sinners. When we keep a realistic view of ourselves and a true view of God, we please him and we rejoice is his grace
The total lostness of unbelievers should help us to understand why they act – lost. Unbelievers are supposed to be depraved – it is their nature. Christians, however, have been redeemed from such depravity and should be marked by an ever growing sense of the sinfulness of sin and our utter dependence on God to live right lives.
We have no excuse or plea other than God is right, we are sinners even when we are at our most noble by human standards – as one writer remarked…
…obligation to God covers all of every man’s being and actions. Even if the act be correct in outward form, which is done without any reference to his will, he will judge a shortcoming. ‘The plowing of the wicked is sin.’ The intentional end to which our action is directed determines its moral complexion supremely. R.L. Dabney
So let us confess that we are not 99% righteous in ourselves. Let us confess that we are not even 1% righteous in ourselves. Instead, let us confess our absolute absence of self-righteousness and instead, trust wholly in Christ’s righteousness.
For those who haven’t – admit your sin, confess it to God. Trust in Christ alone to pay the debt you owe to God.
For those of us who have trusted in Christ – Praise God and Hallelujah
Benediction – Hebrews 13:20-21
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.