Morning. Alright, we're going to be in
Romans 3 this morning. We'll be looking, well our text
is Romans 3, 9 through 19, but we're not going to get through
the whole of this text, this portion this morning. So in this
portion though that we're looking at, what Paul is doing here is
he's setting the record straight. He's just clearing out, he's
done with the objections, he's answered the objections of unbelievers,
and the natural man, and carnal man, and whatever he's raising
to justify himself and to feel better about himself. And now
he's going to the Scriptures, and he's going to show that the
testimony of God in the Scriptures is that all are sinners. All come forth under the reign
of sin. And so man has nothing to boast
in and man therefore is unrighteous before God. But he's really bringing
this home and it shows the hardness of our hearts and how difficult
it is, how impossible it is for us to hear the truth of God except
God reveal it to us. And so he's just chipping away
at man's pride and man's arrogance and thinking that he's something
when he's nothing. He just keeps chipping away at
it and it is humbling. It's meant to humble us and to
remind us of what we are. So the purpose here of Paul,
and the purpose of God showing us our sin, and our iniquity,
and our trespasses, and the wickedness of man, is that our mouths would
be shut, and that we would cease from boasting, and cease from
defending ourselves, and listen, hear what God says is how he
sees, and what God reveals to us that he is pleased with. And
we find always that God is pleased with His Son, Jesus Christ. That's where God always brings
us to, alright? So my hope is that the Church,
we the Church, rightly understands that Salvation, our salvation,
our fellowship with God and our reconciliation is grace. It's all the grace of God that
He shows to us freely, apart from our works, in spite of our
works, that He shows to us and pours out abundantly upon us
in His Son, Jesus Christ. And so if anyone here is yet
hoping in their works, is yet looking at their religion and
their service here and their works here, that we would see
that's not salvation. That doesn't mean anything before
God. That doesn't earn us favor with
God. We need to hear Christ. We want to hear His voice. We
want to hear of his faith, of his faithfulness, and we're begging
God and pleading with the Lord. Father, please reveal to us this
hope of salvation in your Son. Have mercy upon me, a sinner
Lord. And that's what we're praying.
And that's where we're always seeking is the Lord for mercy
in his Son. And that's where we rest and
hope. Alright? So our title is Setting
the Record Straight. And for now I'll call it part
one. I don't know if that's where
we'll be next week or if that's what I'll call it. part two,
you know, setting the record straight part two, I don't know,
but for this week we'll call it setting the record straight
part one, and we'll get to two divisions seeing how what God
is doing is it leaves one thing to us, that it must be by election. It must be by God's choice. Salvation
must be according to God choosing sinners before sinners ever choose
God. Alright, and then we'll get into
this passage here, verse 10 and following, and see the terrible
reality of what is true about us, that we are sinners desperately
in need of God's grace. And what a mercy it is that he
brings us here to hear what we are by nature, that we might
hear Him when He declares to us and reveals to us that His
salvation really is in His Son, Jesus Christ. Alright, so our
first point, this leaves election. Now in religion, we know, we
hear a lot of confusing things. Religion tells us that in these
things, in this you're doing, in your coming here, in what
you're doing, in the sacrifices that you're making, in these
things is the hope of your righteousness. In these things is your life. So they're always pointing you
back to self, always pointing you to something in the law,
something in their church, something in their bylaws, something that
they do and say is righteousness. but they never point you to Christ.
Or they say, yeah, yeah, it's a little bit of Jesus right in
the beginning, and after that, then just start doing what we
tell you to do, and that'll be your salvation. That'll be your
comfort. If you're doing what we tell
you, that's your comfort. If you don't do what we tell
you, then that's your distress and your anxiety. And be afraid. So it's not Christ. But that's
what God shows us, that it is Christ. So the confusion The
darkness of understanding, it comes forth from us. It comes
forth from us naturally. Because that's how man is speaking,
right? He's talking about what he knows. And naturally, none
of us knows the true and living God. knows or understands how
to approach unto God. So, by nature, man is under the
reign of sin. The scriptures teach and reveal
that man is bound up in a prison of darkness so that all he can
do and all he desires to do is that which is sinful and that
which does not please the Lord in what he does. So, in ourselves,
we have no hope of freeing ourselves We have no hope of reconciling
ourselves to God. We're desperately in need of
the grace of God and the mercy of God to do something for us. Because we're in darkness. We're
in the prison. We're shut up to the things of
God. So there's no possibility, and
this is what Paul's been showing us, for the Jew or for the Gentile,
there's no possibility that they will save themselves by their
works. And it doesn't matter if you're
religious or you're without religion. No man or woman can save themselves. None are gonna be justified or
deemed, judged righteous by God by their own works. None of us
will do that, all right? So Paul asks the church, all
right? He's asking us, the church, who
are reading this letter, who are hearing this being read and
preached, he says, what then, in Romans 3, 9, what then? we
better than they? Are we better than those Jews
that we looked at? Are we those religious Jews?
Are we better than those irreligious Gentiles that we looked at in
chapter 1? Are we better than they? Is the
church any better? No, in no wise, for we have before
proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin. And we fall into one of those
categories. We're either religious or or we don't care about religion
and we're just philosophers and we just look and trust in our
own works and in ourselves. But that's us by nature. But
no matter our background, no matter what it is that we choose
to boast in, Paul is summing it all up here to say and to
show us we're all sinners. We're all sinners. We have nothing
to boast in. And you can raise your objections
and you can cry and whine and complain that God honors and
speaks well of what you do, but he's showing us, nope, that's
not our salvation. That's not our works, alright?
What God has done is God has provided salvation. He hasn't
left us without hope, just left us hopeless in ourselves, but
he has provided the hope and he has provided salvation in
his son, Jesus Christ. And the Lord reveals this salvation
through what we call the Gospel, the Good News of God, which He
reveals to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what He makes
known to us, is that this is where I'm going to meet you,
this is where I'll be found of you, in my Son Jesus Christ. It's not in your doing, it's
not in your works, it's not in what you cease doing, I'm meeting
sinners in my Son Jesus Christ. Because when I see the blood,
blood of my Son, I will pass over. Your sins are forgiven. They're put away in my Son, Jesus
Christ." That's what the Lord is showing us through the Gospel.
Every time we come together and every time we meet, this is what
He's revealing to us. Don't look to yourself. Don't
boast in self. I'm not pleased with it. You
shouldn't be pleased with it either. Look to my Son. That's
the one in whom I'm pleased and that's the one in whom you shall
be justified. Alright, so the Lord reveals
this to us in the Gospel, revealing, through the preaching of it,
it's revealing faith. It's imparting to us, as God
pleases, if He wills, when He attends the preaching, for chosen
sinners, He's revealing faith. He's giving you faith. And He's
revealing Christ to the faith which He has given. You that
hope in Him, you that believe Him, Have nothing to boast in.
That's not a work of the flesh. You that are resting in Christ,
that is the work of God. Be thankful for that. Rejoice
in that. Be very thankful and be very
rejoicing for that because that's a work of God that He does not
do for every sinner. Everyone needs it, but not everyone
has it. Many are called but only called
and only hear naturally with the natural ear and don't hear
the voice of God. They don't hear the voice of
the Son of God and they don't follow him. Alright, so God reveals
this in scripture and we'll see this but in Romans 9 11, if you
want to look there, Romans 9 11, Paul speaks of the twins that
were in Rebecca's womb. She had two boys in her womb,
Jacob and Esau. And it says, for the children,
being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, they didn't
do anything, good or bad, according to man's judgment, but that the
purpose of God, according to election, might stand. It's not
of works, but of God that calls. It's the work of God that calls
us, that shows us our need of Him. Because if you looked at
the works of the two boys, Jacob and Esau, Esau was the better
boy. Esau was the nicer one, the one
with more character and the one who was more moral and pleased
his father well. But that isn't the one that pleased
God. His son Jesus Christ pleased him, and Jacob coming through
Christ, being brought under the blood of Christ, was made a son
of God by faith. And that's how we all come, as
children of faith, believing Him, not trusting in our works. So that leads us to our next
point, which we see is a terrible reality for us. It's a terrible
reality for us that we're all sinners. And so what he does
here to prove to us that we cannot save ourselves, that we can't
make ourselves righteous, Paul begins to quote scripture. And
that's what we do in the preaching. to show you don't just listen
to me, don't just believe me because I'm up here talking to
you and that I'm called to be a pastor, but rather believe
what I'm saying as you see it revealed in the Word of God.
Because God's going to show you in His Word that indeed none
of us is righteous in our own works, that we all need that
grace and mercy of God. All right, so we should hear
what Paul is saying. And the reason why we pause,
because we've heard this, we've heard this numerous times, but
it is humbling. it is humbling to be reminded
that I'm the sinner. That I'm full of iniquity and
I hide sin and iniquity in my heart. That's what iniquity is.
It's the hiding, the laying up, the keeping and protecting of
sin in my heart because I don't want it to be found out and I
don't want the Lord to take it away. And that's what we are
by nature. We're protective of what we want
to be protective of, but the Lord comes and reveals. He pulls
down that curtain and He shows us what we are so that we're
constantly being reminded that we are humbled and shown our
pride and shown how we protect and defend ourselves. But God
shows us, no, you do need Christ. You need this grace. You need
this gospel. You need to hear it. And so He
brings us down this way. And it's good for us because
in the proportion that we understand what sinners we are, as God shows
us what sinners we are and shows us our need, as He reveals how
He's provided everything and how He's sustaining us and keeping
us, it draws out that love and that faith and that hope and
that following after and seeking after Him and staying upon Him
It's commensurate with the degree to which we see what sinners
we are. The deeper we might go and see
what awful sinners we are, the more we see the grace and love
of God shown to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. to whatever
degree of the sinner we are, Christ is able to save. There's
none out of his reach whom he is determined to save. He's able
to put away the sin of the most vile and wretched sinner. So
let's go through these and see if we can't better understand
these things. And it'll even translate to how we treat one
another. Because as we understand, well God's forgiven me, and I
see what a sinner I am, It helps us when we're dealing with one
another as we're reminded and see, well, I'm the sinner. Who am I to say anything, you
know, to judge them harshly and deal with them different than
how I hope that they would deal with me, right? So the Lord shows
us this. All right, now Paul starts off in verse 10. Romans
3.10, he says, as it is written, there is none righteous, no,
not one. None righteous, no, not one.
This here reveals to us our status before God. This isn't talking
about our works or our deeds or our actions. This is saying
this is how God deems us. This is how God judges us. There's
none righteous, And in case we don't get that or don't understand
it, he confirms it. No, not one. None of us is righteous before
God. None of us can stand up and say,
well, not me. Not me. I'm righteous. I'm good. God is pleased with my works.
No, the Lord is declaring to us all of us are in the same
boat. We're all unrighteous before
him. Then he says in Romans 3 verse
11, there's none that understandeth. None that understandeth. So this
is God's assessment of the wisdom of man. This is what God says,
this is what you know. There's none that understandeth.
None of us knows God by nature. None of us knows how to approach
Him. None of us knows how to worship
Him. None of us knows how to keep ourselves in the graces
of God and in the mercy of God. None of us knows how to approach
unto Him. There's none that understandeth. And when Paul was writing to
the Corinthians, He was challenging, over in 1 Corinthians 1 verse
20, he was challenging the thinkers of man, the philosophers of man. He challenged them and said,
well, where are you? Where are you that can stand up and go
toe-to-toe with God and answer him? Who are you? Where are you?
Where are you now before God? And he says, where is the wise?
Where's the scribe? Where's the disputer of this
world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For
after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not
God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. And so God is displaying his
power. He declares to us, none of us
knows him naturally, but he's displaying his power that through
something so foolish as preaching, and none of us naturally likes
to be preached to. We don't typically, that's not
always an effective learning tool. It's being preached to.
It's humiliating, really. It's humbling because our mouths
are shut and there's another one speaking. And we're just
listening to what this other one is saying. That's how God
has made it. Because again, before the law,
that's how our mouths should be. Close and say, whoa, I'm
not fit to stand before God. Well, Lord, how is it then that
I'm made to stand before you? And so it's through the preaching,
he's declaring, he's stripping us down and declaring how he
saves sinners, which we see is in his Son, Jesus Christ. Alright? Then also in 1 Corinthians 2,
14, Paul phrases it a little differently when he reveals to
us that it is by revelation that we know then. That's how God
is going to make known to us what we need to know, by revelation. So that it goes from just being
up here as a head knowledge, we might be good at learning
doctrine, we might be good at following steps, and what people
are saying, but the reality is that if we're His, He's going
to reveal it. He's going to make it known to
us in our heart, and we're going to believe it. going to really
believe it, not just say, yeah, yeah. I used to have a friend
who I'd grow tired of hearing them talk, and so just to be
done with the conversation, I'd be worn out and just agree with
them. But then I'd go away and I didn't believe it, and I didn't
agree with it. And so the Lord is the one that
makes it known to the heart. He reveals it to the heart. And
so Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2.14, But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned. And so that true spiritual wisdom
whereby we know God, it comes from God. It comes from God revealing
it to us by His Spirit. And that's why the apostles emphasized
and made known that God has poured out upon us his spirit, whereby
we know him, whereby we walk, and how we continue to walk by
faith, and therefore, we're not looking to the law to be whipped
and beaten and forced into a certain way, because now we walk willingly
in the new man, we walk willingly before our God, trusting him
and looking to him. Alright, so, man, until the Lord
does his work, remains in that darkness, remains without understanding
in the knowledge of God, and having no wisdom in the things
of God. Alright, until the Lord reveals
it. And then, actually, it says in Romans 3.11, in the second
half of that verse, he says, there is none that seeketh after
God. And we see this naturally, and
man, we even see it in ourselves, how little we understand of how
desperate we are that God is God, He is our Creator, He's
made all things, He's made us, and He's our judge. And He promises
that He's going to judge the world. There's going to be a
day in which God ends it all, just wraps it up like a scroll,
just gathers it all together, and we'll all be standing before
God. And man doesn't understand the terrible judgment and the
wrath that he's born into, that he comes into already an offense
to God, already without hope and without salvation. God is
judging man and he's judging man's ways and man can't hear
the trumpets blaring. He doesn't see what's going on
all around him so that he's not even motivated to seek after
God. He doesn't even understand that he needs God's grace and
mercy to save him and to put away his sin and to make him
righteous to stand before God in that day. Turn over to John
5. John 5 and go to verse 39. All right, John 5, 39. And what
we have here is Christ is speaking to the Jews. And so we see that
man can be very religious. So if you think that being religious
is synonymous with knowing God, well, you're wrong and that's
because the scripture shows the opposite that it's not religious
people that know God and that's what well he shows us that you
can be religious but not know the salvation of God and he says
in verse 39 search the scriptures for in them ye think ye have
eternal life and they are they which testify of me and ye will
not come to me that ye might have life and so People attend
all around this country, around the world, today, yesterday,
Friday, and every day of the week there's some religious service
going on all the time. And people are in there practicing
those things. Some are lighting candles, some
are banging gongs or listening to gongs being banged, some are
going around in effeminate robes. Some are chanting and singing
and doing all kinds of things. Some are volunteering and participating
in the service in some way, and they're trusting in those things
because they think that in their religion, in their practice,
just like these Jews who thought their study of the scriptures
and their ability to speak of the scriptures to one another,
they thought that was their salvation. They trusted in those things
and naturally that's where my hope was. I looked at the degree
to which I was participating in religious things and having
some kind of hope and trust in that and thinking that is my
salvation. That's my hope. That's my salvation. That's like just being a little
ship on the raging sea. There's no hope in that. You're
just tossed to and fro because none of us finds any rest or
peace in those things. We shouldn't find it, but some
people do in utter darkness and confusion. But Christ is saying,
none of that is leading you to me. I'm the salvation that God
has provided. And that's why he said, ye will
not come to me that you might have life. And so that's where
we begin to see that stumbling of the Jews. The reason why the
Jews stumbled over Christ is because they thought in their
religion, in their works, in their keeping of the law, that
was their life. That's my righteousness. That's
my hope and my goodness. And so they stumbled over Christ
who said, that's not your life. That's not your hope and your
righteousness. Christ and Christ alone is the righteousness and
the hope of his people. So, people who are sitting in
churches even today where they speak of Jesus, they don't believe. They've never come to Christ
because they think that in their service and in their doing and
in their denomination or their church, that is their life. And it isn't. It's just not.
And the Lord's got to deliver us from that. And he says, they're
all gone out of the way. And who of us is in the way of
God? Who of us has ever been in the
way of God? Naturally, we come forth out
of God's way. We don't walk in the way of God. And so by the state of nature
that we're born into, we're happy and content and we're
not looking to get back into the way of God because we don't
even know that we're out of the way of God. We're not seeking
after him as a result. And in Proverbs 16, 25, we're
told, there is a way, there is a way that seemeth right unto
a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. And so, it's
Christ that's the light of man, but the darkness of man is so
great, we don't see that light, we don't receive that light,
we don't believe that light, we don't have anything to do
with the light, because we don't know. We're just in darkness,
we have a veil over our hearts and our eyes by nature, so that
we don't even seek after the Lord. Now, let me just wrap this
up, because we're not through it yet, but the Lord Jesus Christ
reveals to us in Scripture. and reveals to us by His Spirit,
He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no man comes
to the Father but by Me. And that's how we're going to
be received of the Lord, is by Jesus Christ. And it's not going
to be by our righteousness, because the Lord tells us that we're
not righteous. It's not going to be by our wisdom, and our
intellect, and our understanding, because the Lord shows us we
have no understanding. And he says, if you would seek
after Him, you'll find God, you'll approach unto God through the
Son, Jesus Christ. And it's through Christ that
we walk in the way of God. It's not by our works, not by
our religion, not by our dutiful keeping of the law of God and
doing good works and things like that. But the Lord shows us that
you that are sinners, you that hear him and believe him when
he says, we're sinners, we're unrighteous, we can't save ourselves,
you that hear that word and hear that he also says, but I've provided
salvation in my son Jesus Christ, look to him. you that look to
Him and believe Christ, that God has provided everything necessary
in His Son, Jesus Christ, that Christ, as the Lamb of God, came
a substitute for the people of God. He came to put away their
sin, to work righteousness for them, and by His blood, He purged
our sin, and He purged the stain of sin, and put it away, so that
now, when God looks upon us in Christ, We're righteous. We're holy. And by His Spirit,
He reveals to us the knowledge of God that we approach unto
God and worship God in spirit and in truth only in the Lord
Jesus Christ. God makes all that known to us.
He's the one that does that work. So you that hear and believe,
yes Lord, Give me Christ. Plunge me in His blood. Wash
me in the blood of Christ. Lord, I have no other hope but
what You've provided in Your Son. You that believe, have eternal
life and rest in the Lord Jesus Christ and continue to rest.
And He'll guide you He'll lead you by His Spirit and you'll
walk in Him, before Him, upright and accepted of Him in the faith,
the faithful work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He promises
to keep you. He'll keep your heart, He'll
keep your steps, He'll correct you and turn you. He'll chasten
you as you have need of chastening. And I heard a good message from
Greg this Wednesday when I was there, and he said, that chastening
isn't just a one-time rebuking or whooping, not at all, but
rather it's the whole teaching and training up of a child. The
Lord in everything, all encompassing, teaches His children. And so
He keeps you. He takes away those things that
are keeping you from the Lord, He's instructing you, He's teaching
your hand not to touch what you shouldn't touch, and He's having
you to lay hold of eternal life through His Son Jesus Christ.
He's doing the whole work. everything necessary for life
and godliness, God has provided for you through His Son, Jesus
Christ. He's earned that for you. He's
obtained that righteousness for you, brethren. So that's a good
hope. That's a good rejoicing. And
so I pray the Lord will warm your hearts, comfort your hearts,
that though we be humbled in ourselves and our own flesh,
we have a better hope in His Son, Jesus Christ. So I pray
the Lord will fix your hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ, anchor
you in Christ the Lord because we have life in Him, alright? So let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank You for the salvation You provided in Your Son, because
You show us in Your Word that we in ourselves and our flesh
have nothing to boast in. But You've provided salvation
that we might have a boast, a boast of our Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ, that in Him we are accepted of You and that we may stand
before your throne and follow us in the day of judgment, knowing
that Christ has put away our sin and worked and obtained righteousness
for his people. Lord, we pray that you would
cause us to rest in your Son, Jesus Christ. It's in his name
we pray and give thanks. Amen.