I've titled today's message,
Our Best is Not Good Enough. When most people speak or think
about keeping or breaking the law of God, they usually are
referring to the Ten Commandments, which is the moral law. But the
law of God, the law that God gave to Moses, The Mosaic law,
we call it, includes much, much, much more than 10 commandments. Matter of fact, God's law includes
hundreds of commandments that regard civil and ceremonial matters. Fallen men and women, those who
are dead in trespasses and sin, can't keep one of the Ten Commandments,
much less all the hundreds of other commandments in the Law. But the Lord Jesus did. Every
single one. It's impossible for us, and this
is why. God's Law demands perfection. God's law requires perpetual
obedience. God's law requires sinless, lifelong
obedience in every facet of life. Not just outwardly, but inwardly. Not just in the heart, but in
the mind. You know, the Lord Jesus said,
you may not have committed committed adultery outwardly. You may not
have lay with another man or woman's husband or wife, but
if you look at a woman to lust after her, then you've committed
adultery. He said you don't have to commit
murder outwardly in order to be guilty of murder. If you hate
a brother without a cause, you've committed murder. So It's impossible for you and I
to keep the law because if we hadn't done it, we sure have
thought it. Perfect, unceasing compliance
in all things is God's holy standard. That's what God requires. The
law of God is not used in a grading curve. Now, when I was back in
school, and I was thankful for it at the time because I wasn't
the smartest or the sharpest tool in the shed, as they say. Had a guy tell me one time I
was a few fries short of a happy meal. That I was. But back then they would grade
on a grading curve, and what that was is that if someone in
the class, the highest grade was like an 88 out of 100, they'd
make the 88 100, and then they would add those 12 points there to the other's lowest
score. So if I made a 70, I actually
made an 82, which was the difference between a D and a C. So I kind of like that grading
curve. But listen, with the law of God,
it's pass or fail. There's no grading curve. One
failure condemns. One lie condemns. One lustful
thought condemns. One selfish moment, and the law
is broken. Whosoever keeps the whole law
and yet stumbles at one point is what? Guilty of all, James
2.10. The law renders the sinner totally
unable. No man can come to Christ if
they might have life. That means man's not able to
come to Christ. He doesn't have the ability to
come to Christ. Romans 3.10 says there's none
righteous. No, not one. Not a single man
or woman born of woman is righteous. Not a single one. There's none
that understands. There's none that understands
the Scripture. There's none that understand the Gospel. There's
none that seeketh after God in order to be saved. None. There's none who does good. All are gone out of the way. All together are unprofitable. The Word of God is very clear
about where we stand in this. Romans 8, 7 tells us that our
fallen nature, including our minds, are enmity against God. Enmity means hostile. There's
a difference between being upset and being hostile. And that's
what we are to God. Our carnal, fleshly mind, hostile
towards God. Not subject to God. And Paul
adds, and neither can be. So we don't find any hope there
whatsoever. We don't just fail the law, we're
hostile to it. Sin's not only our actions, sin's
what we are. In our hearts, our will, and
our desires, sin is what we are. The law was given to show us
our need. Now, we've said that many, many
times. Those of you who trust Christ
know that to be so. The law was given to bring, actually
to drive us to the Lord Jesus Christ, Galatians 3.24. The law
comes, through the law comes the knowledge of sin. The law's
not a ladder to climb to heaven. The law is a mirror that reveals
our uncleanness. The law reveals sin, it awakens
guilt, and it kills pride so that we might flee to Christ
in mercy and grace. You know, when the Lord Jesus
said, no man will come to the Father, except the Father which
has sent me draw him." That word, draw, in the original language,
means drag. Now, I don't want you to get
the impression that God drags us to heaven against our will.
It doesn't mean that. But what it does mean is that
He makes us willing in the day of His power. It's a forceful
word. He draws us. It's irresistible. If He draws, you're going to
come. You're not going to resist, because you can't. Who hath resisted
His will, the Scripture has? The Bible is not a self-help
book. I've heard men say that. It's
blasphemy to say such. It's the revelation of the believer's
rescue. It's how God saves sinners. That's
what it reveals. And no need for salvation equals
no desire for a Savior. Who desires a Savior? Those who have need. Those who
have no need of Christ have no need of a physician. He's the
great physician. The law is not a means of salvation. It's never been. The law is a
revelation of sin. The law tells us what God requires.
The gospel tells us what Christ provides. Big difference. We live in a world that believes
and teaches that rules can make us righteous. Well now, if you
do this, turn right and go straight. Can't do it. Do this, do that,
can't do it. Not perfectly, not as the law
requires. But the Word of God reveals a
much deeper truth. God's law can point out our sin,
but it can't fix it. Now, turn with me to Romans 7,
if I hadn't already told you. Look there with me again. We taught out of the latter part
of this chapter a few weeks back, talking about The bondage within us, but. Look
at verse one here in Romans chapter 7. I want us to. To get a grasp on the fact that. That our best is just not good
enough. We gotta be perfect. I remember a friend of mine telling
me one time he said, Well, I know you're into religion and all
that, but he said, I honestly believe, the guy never cracked
open a Bible in his life, he said, I honestly believe that
if you do the best you can, that you'll wind up in heaven. Well, your best ain't good enough.
Your best ain't good enough. Verse 1, Romans 7, Know ye not,
brethren, for I speak to them that know the law, how that the
law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. For the
woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband
so long as he liveth. But if the husband be dead, she's
loose from the law of her husband. Verse three, so then if while
her husband liveth, she be married to another man, She shall be
called an adulteress, but if her husband be dead, she is free
from that law so that she is no adulteress, though she be
married to another man. So Paul begins to explain this
with an illustration from marriage. The death of a woman's husband
releases her from the law of marriage. Paul is teaching us
here that we're bound to the law of God while we live. But
if we'd be dead with Christ, we die to the law. The law no
longer has its bondage or rule over us. That's what the next
verse tells us, verse four. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also
are become dead to the law, how? By the body of Christ. that ye
should be married to another, even to him, even to Christ,
who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit
unto God." Now, a woman was only bound to her husband legally
while he lived. If we die to the law through
the body, the death of Christ, then we're no longer bound to
the law as the means by which we're justified and made right
with God. The purpose of dying to the law
is to be joined to another, and that is Jesus Christ, our heavenly
husband. Therefore, we're released from
the obligation of the law to be married to Christ. This is
important to understand. As a result of this is the bearing
of fruit, and we bear fruit only in Christ. Now this is something
that the law could not produce for us in our sinful nature.
Our fruit is produced in Christ. All the blessings that we have
All the spiritual blessings that we have in heavenly places is
in Christ Jesus. There are no spiritual blessings
in and apart from Him. If God loves you, it's in Christ.
If God forgives your sin, it's in Christ. If you have perfect
righteousness, it's because of Christ. And in verse 5, we see that very
thing. For when we were in the flesh,
the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members
to bring forth fruit unto death. This describes our state before
we were united to Christ. This describes our state while
we're living in the flesh. This refers to living under the
dominion of sin. This refers to our life apart
from the Spirit. Rather than restraining the sin,
the law actually aroused sinful desires. Now, you might ask,
well, how so? Well, human nature is so fallen
and so rebellious and so depraved that when God's law says, do
not, The sinful, deceitful, desperately wicked heart says, I will. Kind of like a wet paint sign.
What do you want to do when you see a wet paint sign? You want
to touch it. It makes you want to touch it.
Why? I don't know. Same reason the law makes us
want to sin. Human nature is so corrupt, so
rebellious, that it twists the holy commandments of God into
an occasion for rebellion and sin. Sin using the law, well,
it produces behavior that leads to condemnation and condemnation
to eternal separation from God and eternal separation from God
to death. Verse five is teaching us that
before Christ saved us, we were dominated by sin, the law, even
though it's good. And this didn't make the law
bad, the law is good. Even though it's good, in the
end, it makes things worse by provoking our sinful, depraved
nature within to rebel. And this leads to death rather
than life. Look at verse six. But now, boy, I love those words. But now, we are delivered from
the law that being dead wherein we were
hailed, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not
in the oldness of the letter." We're under the spirit now. We're not under the law. We're
now released from the law, having died to it. We died to the very
thing that kept us captive. But now, a change has occurred. And here we have the turning
point. We're turned from the bondage of the law to the freedom
of the Spirit. And Paul here contrasts our past
life under the law with our new life in Christ. And boy, what
a new life it is. Being joined to Christ, we're
released from the law. We're no longer under the law's
condemnation. That's what he tells us in the
first verse of the next chapter. There is therefore now no condemnation. To who? To them that are in Christ
Jesus. Who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. We're released from the law. In our personal Obedience is
no longer the means of saving us. Now, does that mean that
we just live like hell? No, no, no. It means that we
trust in what Christ has done for us. Our lack in ability to obey God's
commandments condemn us, but now we're freed from the law
as a covenant of works. And we're now under a covenant
of grace, where Christ worked out our perfect righteousness
for us. Just as it was in marriage, death
severs the legal bond. You know, best I know, in the United States,
and I'm pretty sure it's in every state, I don't know how Utah
deals with it, with Mormons, Whatever, but it's against the
law to have two husbands or two wives. But if our spouse dies, then
the law of the land releases the one that's still alive and
enables them to legally marry another. And our union, our marriage
with the Lord Jesus Christ in His death has broken that hold
that God's law had on us. We've been set free from the
condemning power of the law through our union with Christ in His
death. So now, instead of trying to
obey God through our external effort, and there's a lot of
folks trying to do that, we serve God through the power of the
Holy Spirit with Christ in His death. We serve God through the
power of that Holy Spirit with hearts made new. And it's the difference between
slavery and sonship. It's the difference between law-keeping
and a Spirit-led life. Our best is not good enough. Not good enough. So here's the
real question that we consider. It's found in verse seven. What
shall we say then? Is the law sin? Answer, God forbid. Is the law bad? No, the law's
good. It's not bad for this reason,
verse seven. I had not known sin but by the
law. And that's Paul saying what I
endeavored to say in the introduction. He said, For I had not known
lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. So we see
that the gospel begins with a diagnosis. We would not have known sin,
except the law had revealed it. The law of God exposes our sin,
not to save us, but to show us that we need saving. People by nature don't see themselves
as guilty. If you don't believe me, just
ask them. Are you a sinner? Just ask somebody. Ask a religious
person if they're a sinner. Chris that or Luann that, they
know the answer. But ask somebody that's religious
if they're a sinner. I used to be, but I'm not anymore. The most common and consistent
message response that I've gotten from such people is, well, I'm
not perfect, but I'm basically good. Basically good. Without the law, sin remains
hidden. People don't see it. Without
the law, grace remains unnecessary. Do you hear me? You can feel
fine, naturally speaking. You can feel well and have something
bad wrong with you and not even know it. The law of God has been compared
to an x-ray that reveals internal damage. Verse 8, but sin, taking occasion
by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law, sin was
dead. That is, the law in this context,
particularly the commandment that you shall not covet, it
didn't cause sin. Listen, the law doesn't cause
sin. It reveals it. It gave sin a springboard, so
to speak. Just as we've already said, a
rebellious heart provoked by the restriction of the law caused
sin to take advantage of the commandment. It stirred up even
more of a desire within us for that which is forbidden. It's
just like you tell a child, don't you touch that. They're going
to do, listen, they're going to touch it. I remember a story
I heard a long time ago, and I thought it was humorous because
it was so true. You know, the humorous things
are the true thing. And I told you this, I've used
it as an illustration, little boys jumping up and down on the
couch, new couch. And his mama said, boy, you sit
down, you're ruining my couch. And he sat down, and he's all
mad. And then he starts smiling. And
she said, what are you smiling about? He said, I'm still jumping
up and down on the inside. Well, that's the way we are,
isn't it? Don't you touch that. OK, I won't. The law doesn't mean sin was
non-existent. It means that it was unrecognized. The law woke our sin and our
conscience up, and the law gave sin the ability to condemn us. The law revealed sin's truth.
We must always remember that even the most used men and women
of God were men and women, born of a woman. There's no difference
in sinners, just the same as there's no difference in believers. The difference is the difference
that Christ makes. And all sinners are the same.
And all believers are the same. We're saved by God's grace through
faith in the Lord Jesus. And in verse 9, Paul writes,
For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment
came, sin revived and I died. Now Paul gives us something here
of his experience as a sinner. He wasn't claiming that he was
spiritually alive here. What he means that he was doing
fine. He was physically alive, self-righteous,
yes. Listen, Paul was a Saul, who
became Paul, or who was Paul, was very self-righteous. He was successful in religion,
no doubt. He knew all about the law as
a Pharisee. He said, I was a Pharisee of
the Pharisees. Among Pharisees, I was a Pharisee. Other Pharisees looked up to
me. That's not anything to brag about, but it was so. But one day, the Lord awakened
him, gave him eyes to see the true knowledge of sin, and He
describes it as the day when the commandment came. When the
commandment came, sin was no longer hidden to him. It sprang
to life in his own awareness. Sin didn't just suddenly start
existing. It had been there all along.
Paul, like you and me, was conceived and born in sin. His sin became
unmistakably sinful to him. The law exposed Paul's sin. The
law revealed spiritual death within him. The law didn't cause
it. Paul died in the sense that he
realized his lost condition. The law didn't kill him. It stripped
away any illusions that he had that he was saved, that he had
spiritual life. He saw himself as condemned.
Do you remember when you saw yourself as condemned? He saw himself as spiritually
dead. Do you remember when you saw
yourself as spiritually dead? He was dead in trespasses and
sin. Have you seen that you're dead
in trespasses and sin? Before a thrice holy God we are,
the law shattered any false sense of righteousness that Paul had. And we've got plenty of it in
and by and because of self. That's why it's called self-righteousness.
That's all it is. It's righteousness that we think
that we conjured up. Can't do it. And it was then
that Paul, as it is with every believer, saw his need of grace. Saw his need of Christ. And the
Gospel became clear to him. Verse 10, in the commandment,
which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. Paul was saying
that the very commandment that promised life proved to be death
to him. Now I hope you get this, as we
said in the beginning. The law of God promised life,
but it was conditional. You had to keep the law in order
to have it. You could actually be saved by keeping the law if
you could keep it perfectly. But that was why no flesh could
be saved and justified by the law, because we can't keep it.
Not as God commands it to be kept. It demands
perfection, perfect and continual obedience. There's no problem
with the law. The problem's with us. That's
why Paul said, for what the law could not do and that it was
weak to the flesh, God sent him his own son in the likeness of
sinful flesh and for sin. Don't leave out those three words.
That's why God sent his son in the world for sin, our sin, condemned
sin in the flesh. That weakness which Paul refers
to is our flesh. The salvation comes only by the
obedience of Christ. And that's why God sent His Son
into the world. In the likeness of sin, God sent
His Son for sin. He knew no sin. He did no sin. He was made sin for us. Why? Can anybody tell me? That we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He sent his son
to condemn sin in the flesh. And that's why the gospel is
the person of Jesus Christ. He's the only perfect one that
could save us. Verse 11, for sin, taking occasion by the commandment,
deceived me and by it slew me. And wherefore the law is holy
and the commandment holy and just and good. was then that which is good made
death into me, God forbid, but sin, that it might appear sin,
working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment
might become exceedingly sinful. So Paul here is just hammering
home the fact that the law is not the problem. Just as the
serpent begowed Eve, Sin deceives us by twisting what is good and
making it bad. See, that law of God, it ain't
no good. It's not the law that's evil. It's us that's evil. The law reflects God's character.
The law shows us how holy God is. The law shows us how unholy
we are. The problem isn't the law, the
problem is the sin in us. You know, the law is like a spotlight. You ever seen those spotlights?
I know you know something about them. Man, it's like a spotlight. The law is, it doesn't create
sin, it just shines the light of Christ on the sin to reveal
it. Sin is so evil that it turns
the good law into an instrument of death and deception. The purpose
of the law, I'm going to say it again, it's not to save sinners. The purpose of the law is to
expose that sin within us that corrupts us. The law was not
given in order for us to keep it. Why was it given then? To show us our inability to keep
it. to bring us to Christ, to drive
us to Christ, to draw us, to drag us to Christ. So with the few minutes that
I have, I'm not going to keep you much longer. I want us to
talk about the gospel of the Lord who fulfills the law. He
fulfilled the law to save us. First, Christ fulfilled the law
by His perfect life. The Lord Jesus fulfilled the
law by living perfectly as a man. He himself said, think not that
I've come to destroy the law or the prophets. I came not to
destroy, but to fulfill. The Lord Jesus came to keep the
law for his people. And he kept every command. He
kept every mortal fleshly demand of the law. Every jot and tittle,
he crossed every T, he dotted every I, and he did so with flawless
obedience. For we have not a high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Christ's obedience was representative,
for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, all were
made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Righteous, Romans 5.19. Christ's righteousness is credited
to believers by believing in Him, by faith. And you know the
verse 12, we've already quoted it once, 2 Corinthians 5, 21.
For He, God, hath made Him, Christ, to be sin for us. Who knew no
sin? He's going to make that point
clear. He wasn't a sinner. That we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. And every true believer will
be. found in Him, not having their own righteousness, which
is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ,
not our faith in Christ, but His faith, the righteousness
which is of God by faith. Secondly, Christ fulfilled the
law by dying under its curse in substitutionary death. God's
law doesn't only demand obedience, friends. God's law demands justice. It demands death for lawbreakers. The Lord Jesus bore the believers'
punishment. One who goes out to meet God
in eternity without the Lord Jesus Christ is going to suffer
forever in hell. We're not going to sugarcoat
that. That's what God teaches. The worm doesn't die. A place
of worm doesn't die. God said, behold, all souls are
mine, as the soul of the Father, so also is the soul of the Son,
is mine, and the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Every child of
God has been made to know that the wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
On the cross, the Lord Jesus satisfied the lost penalty. He
endured God's divine wrath. All the wrath that you and I
deserve fell upon him and he died as our substitute and he
fulfilled the demands of God's justice. He was wounded for What? Our transgressions. He was bruised
for what? Our iniquities. The chastisement
of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes, you and I are
healed. That sounds like substitution
to me. To God's chosen people, it's
written, the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Christ redeemed us from the curse
of the law. How? By becoming a curse for
us. And cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. I hear people talk and say that
the cross was an act of love. Yeah, it was, no doubt. But it
was first and foremost an act of justice. Sin's gotta be dealt
with. It ain't just swept under a rug.
God placed Christ on a cross and He poured out His holy wrath
and judgment upon Him. The holy justice that the law
demanded. And thirdly and lastly, Christ's
fulfillment of the law means justification for His people. We are justified because of His
righteousness. to declare, I say at this time,
His righteousness." Are we going to declare our righteousness?
What righteousness? Our self-righteousness? We're going to declare at this
time His righteousness that He might be just and the justifier
of him which believeth in Jesus Christ. Romans 3.26. Again, there
is therefore now no condemnation to them who walk an hour, say a sinner's
prayer, join the church, to them who are in Christ Jesus. Justification means being declared
righteous by God. That righteousness was not earned
by us. It couldn't be. It was proven
and given to us by Christ. Our sin was charged to his account
and his obedience and his righteousness was credited to ours. The law
is satisfied. Did you hear me? The holy law
of God has been satisfied. It hasn't been ignored or bent. It's been honored and fulfilled
by Christ. And it's our hope, and it's our
comfort, and it's our assurance. And God didn't lower the standard
of the law to save us. He Himself kept it. He fulfilled every command in
His life. He satisfied every penalty in
His death. free from the law, no condemnation. We have peace with God, Romans
5.1. We rest in His righteousness, Philippians 3.9. And I say to
anyone who's trying to earn God's favor by keeping the law, you're
under a curse. You're under a curse. If that's
how you're endeavoring to be saved, you're under a curse.
But if you look to Christ, who fulfilled God's law, For sinners,
you'll be saved. There's life in a look. The serpents
of sin have stung us and poisoned us and we're dying. What's the
message? Look and live. Look to the grass
serpent upon the pole and you'll be saved. That's our message. Whosoever believeth on Him, it
says, the Scriptures, Romans 10, 11, shall not be ashamed. That phrase, not be ashamed,
means the believer's not going to be disappointed, not going
to be disgraced in the end. God's promises will hold true. What God's promised, He's faithful
and just to bring to pass. The Jews pursued righteousness
by the law, but they failed to attain it. because they couldn't
keep the law. The Gentiles, who didn't pursue,
found righteousness through faith in Christ. That's how we're saved.
So that clarification of whosoever doesn't make salvation universal.
Well, see, it says there, whosoever shall believe. I don't have a
problem with that. I'm one of the whosoevers. All
God's people are. Whosoever believes will be saved. That's the qualification. The law was the means that God
exposed his people's sin. Listen, your best ain't good
enough. God's law tells us that. It was given so that we might
see our need of a sacrifice and a substitute. And those who trust
in Christ, they won't be let down. In Christ, there's security,
there's salvation, there's honor. No believing child of God will
ever be ashamed. Our best is not good enough,
but let me tell you, Christ's finished work was. And I'll leave you with the words
of Paul in Romans 5. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of
the glory of God. God gets all the glory and we
want Him to have all the glory because that's our hope. If He
did the saving, we're going to be saved. If we did the saving,
there ain't no hope. Ain't no hope.