that he knew in the music industry,
invited him to church. And he went, he said much to his
surprise, and then this was your typical free will fundamentalist
type church, I believe. But they got to the end of the
service and gave the invitation, which he had no intention of
responding to, But then he said he suddenly found himself up
at the front of the church. And I don't know what words he
used to describe that experience. But out of that experience came
that song entitled, Why Me, Lord? Why Me, Lord? And if you read
the lyrics to that song, I'm sure that many can identify with it. Because we do, from our natural
way of thinking, wonder why God has been good to us. Why me? We know he's not good
to everybody. Why was he good to me? And this question, it has some
legitimacy, but it's ignoring a couple of
vital points about the gospel and really arises from a natural
way of thinking, not a spiritual way. Why me, Lord? When we ask the
question, why me, Lord, what are we really asking? We're saying,
Lord, what was there about me that made you be good to me? Now, it can be put forth as a
rhetorical question. I understand that. We can say,
why me, Lord? And all we're doing is expressing there wasn't any
reason in me. You know, a rhetorical question
is one of those questions that's really an answer. It's a question
given, and no one's expected to provide an answer because
the answer is obvious. Why me? There isn't any reason. Unfortunately, a great, Many
in broad Christianity think that's a legitimate question to ask
and that there's an answer for it. If you were to ask them, well,
why you and not someone else? You know, someone who claims
to be saved. Yes, well, why did God save you and not someone
else? They could give you an answer. And so they don't have to ask,
why me, Lord? They think they already know. Or there are some who take the
other tack and they say to themselves, well, why me, Lord? I know God's
going to save me. Some, but I can't find any reason
for him to save me. So, you know, I'm just not going
to do anything. I'm just going to sit here and
wait and hope that he saves me because I can't come up with
a reason for him to save me. Now, actually, both of those
attitudes come from the very same religion. It's a natural
religion. It's a religion the mind can
comprehend. It's the religion of works salvation. If I actually ask the question,
why me, intending to have an answer to
it one way or the other, then I am thinking in a fleshly
way. Now there are some, like I said,
who would, if you had said to them, why you and not others,
they could tell you why. For instance, Paul spoke here
in the early verses of Romans chapter 10, and it says they,
in verse two about the Jews, I can testify about them that
they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge,
not based on understanding. And how do we know it was not
based, understanding. Well we know it because of what
they did. It's often said a person ought
to live according to their faith. The fact is everybody does live
according to their faith. And the faith of these people
was that by doing certain acts of righteousness they could obtain
the favor of God. So he goes on to say in verse
three, since they did not know the righteousness that comes
from God. Now the Greek phrase there is
simply the righteousness of God, but I believe that our translator
handled it perfectly, because it can mean exactly that, the
righteousness that comes from God. So, since they did not know
the righteousness that comes from God. Why they read the Bible,
what there was of it, the entire Old Testament. They studied it,
probably studied it, some of them more than you and I do.
I know that the Pharisees, in order to be a Pharisee, you had
to memorize vast quantities of scriptures. They knew their Bibles, didn't
understand them. They knew them. If they had understood them,
then they would have known that there must be a righteousness
that comes from God. If they had understood what they
were reading, they would have understood that none of their
righteousnesses were of any good. In the Bible class this morning,
we got to that scripture in Isaiah 64, all our righteousnesses have
become as filthy rag, meaning our righteous acts, And why had
their righteous acts become filthy rags? The acts that our Lord
was speaking of, the things they had done, which he calls filthy
rags, were the things they had been commanded to do. And they were doing them. They
were offering the sacrifices they were supposed to offer.
They were observing the festivals they were supposed to observe.
They were doing their fasting and giving their tithes. And from all that we could see,
if we had been looking at them, all that we could see of them,
we would have said that now there's a righteous man according to
the law. He's doing what the law says. God in chapter one of Isaiah
denounces all those activities, calls them evil, calls them wicked,
burdensome to him. Why would he call their actions,
which were being done according to the law he gave them, why
would he call them filthy rags? Because they were doing them.
Thinking by their actions, they were providing the reason. for
God to have favor on them. Now there were some believing
Jews that did all those same things. Now they believed God. They didn't have as much detail
about the truth of God that you and I do, but they understood
the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin, so they
realized that they were sinners and not any of those sacrifices
they offered were gonna be able to really put away their sin. And they knew that even though
God had commanded the observance of these festivals like Passover
and the Day of Atonement and all that, and they went and did
them, they understood those things do not give God a reason to be
good to you. They understood that. To whatever level of light God
gave them at that time, like Abraham, they saw Christ's day
and rejoiced in it. They understood that there was
someone who was going to come, a human being, who would come
and would be a suitable kind of human being, that he could
do what all of those sacrifices never could do, even though they
all pointed to him. And that he would do all the
things that those festivals were telling them about. that he would
be their rest, that he would be their atonement, he would
be their redemption. And so as believers, they observed
all those commandments, but they didn't do it. They didn't observe
those commandments thinking that God was gonna be good to them
on that account. Therefore, their righteousnesses
were not filthy rags. God accepted them as they were
given out of loving obedience of one who believes him. But these, if you'd have come
up to these guys that Paul mentions in Romans chapter 10, said, well,
why should God be good to you? And they may have answered you
like that man who prayed and said, I thank you, God, I'm not
like other man. I fast. twice in the week. I give a 10th of everything I
have, and I'm certainly not like that guy over there. He had a
reason. If he'd have heard Chris Christofferson
sing and say, why me, Lord? He'd have said, yeah, I kind
of feel the same way, Chris. I don't see any reason in you
why God should be good to you, but I can show you a reason in
me why God will be good to me. You say, yeah, that's just some
staggering self-righteousness, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And then you have those who will boast in their, and the
Jews did this, boast in their race because they were Jews. Verse 12, for there is no difference
between Jew and Gentile. Now, us never having been Jews,
and certainly not being Jews of the first century, we cannot
imagine, or we can only imagine what a startling statement that
was to Jewish ears. Because as far back as they could
remember, the Jews were special in the eyes of God. Therefore,
they thought that because of their birth into a Jewish family,
and the fact that they had, at least the men, the boys, that
had performed on them that initiating rite into the covenant, the rite
of circumcision, and because from the time they had reached
their bar mitzvah, And later they added bat mitzvah. Bar mitzvah
means son of the law, bat mitzvah, daughter of the law. But they
reached that point in which they figured people were held responsible
to learn and to do the law. They had been doing it. They
are the Jews. They're God's special people.
And they thought that that was why God was good to them. And then you have those, if you
said to them, well, why you? They might respond something
like, in verse six, it says, the righteousness
that is by faith says, do not say in your heart, but these
people will say in their heart. They do say in their heart, who
will ascend into heaven? They have religious experience.
They have ecstatic experience. I've been to heaven. I felt heaven
in my soul. Or, who will descend into the deep? Oh, I've learned my sin. I have
found out how wicked I am. And for lo these many years, I have been in the deep and I
hope that someday God will pull me out. And people look at them and say,
oh, there's humility. Look how humble that person is.
He thinks there's no good in him. Baloney. It's the only polite
word I know to say right there, baloney. And I say that to us
as much as to them. We gotta be careful, we can fall
to this too. In fact, we do. It's in our flesh as much as
it is in their flesh. But for a person to say, oh,
I'm so wicked, God couldn't save me. I'm just so bad, God won't
save me. I've been under the impression
of my guilt and I just get lower and lower. That's just self-righteousness
wrapped up in a very thin layer of humility. Why? Well, number one, such a person
actually thinks that his appearance of humility is a reason for God
to show them good. They hear repent. And so they
get in their idea, well, repentance means to feel bad about sin.
Well, a repenting person will feel bad about sin, but you can
feel bad about sin without repenting. But they will make this show
of repentance. The Lord rebuked the Pharisees. He says, well, he was actually
talking to his disciples, but comparing what they should do
to what the Pharisees did. He said, when you fast, Don't
make yourself look like you're fasting. You know, they would fast during
the day, during the daylight hours, and on the days that they
would fast, these people who boasted in their fasting, well,
that day, they wouldn't comb their hair when they got up or
whatever it is they do. They'd go around looking hungry, go
around looking like they were afflicted. Our Lord said, when
you fast, you will wash your face. I think he may have said, put
oil on your face. We wash the oil off our faces, but back then,
and I imagine in that dry climate, it was a better idea to be like
putting lotion on your skin. But what he was saying is, fix
yourself up, look good, good as you can. Carry on your day
just like you did yesterday. Oh, they were boasting in how
much they suffered for God and how aware they were of their
sin. And even if they were to ask
in a rhetorical fashion, oh, why me? Secretly within their
heart, they are nursing the idea, I'll tell you why me. Look how
bad I feel about my sin. And you just wish that you were
there when they said something like that and say, you don't
have 1 10th of 1 100th of a percent of an understanding of just how
awful you look to God. None of us does. And I suppose
none of us ever will. There's only one human being
who understood and even now understands how wicked man is. And that's the man, Christ Jesus,
because he bore our sins in his body on the tree. But nobody
else knows. Knowing that I'm a sinner does
not give God a reason to save me from my sin. And he will not
for that reason save you from your sin. Why me? Why me, unless it's just
being asked as a rhetorical question, why me is always looking for
something inside of me, which would be a reason for God to
save. And that means that they are
following this pattern. Verse five, Moses describes in
this way, the righteousness that is by the law, the man who does
these things will live by them. So when you think about it, why me Lord, is based upon legalistic religion. It's me looking for a reason
in me for God to be good to me. Now, I wanna be careful here. I'm not preaching this message
so that the next time you say, why me, Lord? Ooh, I'm not supposed
to say that. It depend, again, it's all a
matter of the heart. All a matter of the heart. It
is amazing that God's good to us. But we ask that question
and we know the answer. We know the answer. Because the
same truth that says, why me, Lord, if it is sanctified by God to
our good? if under the instruction of the
law, shall we say. If in the knowledge of our sins,
we say, why me, Lord? And really we're saying that
not with the idea that there's an answer, because we figure
there isn't one. There isn't a reason for God
to save us. And therefore we're not gonna
be saved. In that state, if God is pleased to bring about the
gospel, to show us the gospel, We can be brought to say, not
why me, Lord, but rather, why not me? You say, well, that sounds
pretty arrogant. Well, if you ask that question
under the idea that you're providing the reason for God to save you,
but what does the gospel say? First, the gospel tells us this,
there is absolutely no reason in you for God to save you, none. Do you really believe that? Well,
half of you does. If you've been born again, half
of you believes that completely. But in our flesh, that thing,
that legalistic way just keeps running around in our minds and
it's doing war with that spiritual concept that salvation is by
God's free grace. But here's the beauty of the
gospel. First, it slays us. First, it kills us. First, it
says to us, there is no reason, absolutely no reason for God
to save you. And especially there's no reason
for God to save you instead of somebody else. None. But in the gospel, there doesn't need to be a reason
in you. In the gospel, you can say, why
not me? Because in the gospel, none of
what you are or what you have done has anything to do whatsoever
with whether or not God is good to you. See, the law levels everyone
and says, there's none righteous, no, not one. And the soul that
sins, it shall surely die. So everybody's gonna die. In
Romans chapter 3, Paul said, all sinned and fall short of
the glory of God. And that's as true of the Jew
as the Gentile, as true of the law keeper as the law breaker. It's as true of the heterosexual
as the homosexual. It's just as true of the abortion
protester as the abortion provider. All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God. There's nothing that we do, nothing
we can do that will give God a reason or motivate Him or compel
Him to be good to us. But the gospel, in the gospel,
God says, I'm not looking for a reason in you. I'm not waiting
for you to do something. The gospel says in this business
of salvation, you don't matter. I'm talking about in the business
of accomplishing it. You don't matter. It's based entirely upon what
someone else has done. And that's why Paul in there
in verse six, when he says, the righteousness that is by faith,
says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven,
that is to bring Christ down. Or who shall descend into the
deep, that is to bring Christ up. Now in Christ coming down
and Christ being raised up, God finds all the reason necessary
to save his people. Now we don't know who those people
are, do we? We don't know who he chose. We know that he chose
some. And we know that he chose them,
not because of anything they did or anything he foresaw they
would do, he chose them. of his own free and sovereign
grace. And his reason for saving them
is in him and him alone. And he is saving the very worst
of people. All those things you think of
about yourself which might make you say, oh, why me? I can't
see any reason for God to save me. All those things don't matter. Not in the gospel, they don't
matter. In the law, they matter. All your obvious sins, they matter
in the law. They don't matter in the gospel. All those things you thought
were good, but actually weren't. They matter, they argue against
your blessedness in the law. In the gospel, they have nothing
to say at all, one way or the other. And even if you did manage to
do something good, we'll just pretend here, even
if you did do something, that even God would have to say,
well, that one was a righteous deed. In the law, that might
count for something, but not enough. Because one failure in
the law is enough to send you to hell. So one little act of
righteousness ain't gonna make up for it. But in the gospel, any good you've
done doesn't matter. Not all the acts of charity,
they don't matter in the gospel. Not all the mourning and crying
and moaning under a knowledge of sin, it doesn't matter. Not all the Bible reading, not
all the church going. Not all the baptizing, none of
that. So the gospel first tells me
that I don't have a righteousness, and that might make me say, then
why me? But then the gospel turns right
around and says, but you don't need to provide a righteousness,
God has. It's the righteousness that comes
from God. And there is nothing to block
your way to God's salvation. I'm saying this to two classes
of people. I say it with two classes of
people in mind. Number one, I'm saying it to
those who have not yet believed the gospel and may be struggling
with that question, why me? Quit asking that question. You're
asking the wrong question. Under the gospel, the question
is, why not me? You say, well, because you've
been so bad. That's got nothing to do with it. I mean, how much
worse can you be than the thief on the cross? Why, he was a thief,
and the way that's worded, we indicate that he's probably a
murderer as well. And so he's a thief, he's a murderer,
he's a ne'er-do-well, and he has spent all but the last few hours of
his life in utter rebellion against God. In fact, when they first crucified
him and the one on the Lord's left, both of them were cursing
God and him. Why should the Lord save one
and not the other? For even so, It seemed good in
his sight to do it. So, oh no, he saved the one guy,
because in the middle of all that, he changed his mind. Now,
did he change his mind? What changed it? What did he
see that made him change his mind so that he was no longer
cursing Christ, but was telling and saying, remember me when
you come into your kingdom? There was nothing to see to make
him think that. All he could see was a man who
was actually in worse shape than he was. For the thieves, they
hadn't been flogged first. Our Lord was beat with an inch
of his life, even before they took him out to crucify. He's
hanging there, humanly speaking, barely alive, beaten to a pulp,
nailed to a cross. And nothing about his appearance
changed to make that man change his mind. Why did he change his
mind? God changed it. It's the only
answer you can give. There weren't any preachers telling
him what was going on, because nobody knew what was going on.
John was there, the Lord's mother Mary was there, But they weren't doing any preaching.
They weren't up there at the crosses of the thieves saying,
now, what you see going on here with the guy in the middle, now,
he's dying for your sins. God loves you, and he wants to
save you, and this is how he's gonna do it. Now, if you'll just
turn to him, could you see, he's gonna raise from the dead. They
weren't preaching that to him. He didn't do anything to give
God a reason to save him. God did it because God is God
and that's what he wanted to do. And the first evidence of
that work of salvation was when the light dawned in that wretched
man's mind. This is Messiah. And he turned to our Lord and
he said, Lord, when you come in your kingdom, remember me. God didn't save him because he
said that. He said that because God saved
him. So now here we are, you and me,
sin. More of it than we'll admit to
ourselves and certainly a whole lot more of it than we'll admit
to anybody else. And it may be some of you are thinking, in
a despairing fashion. Why would God save me? You might
say, well, you know, I'm too sinful. Paul said, God saves
sinners, of whom I am the chief. Paul considered himself the worst
man that ever lived. And God saved him. So you're obviously not too bad
for God to save. But here's the thing, your badness
has got nothing to do with it. Your badness, your wickedness
is what God came to save people from. If we could render goodness to
him, we wouldn't need salvation. But the gospel takes our sin
and makes it of no account, literally. Look over here at 2 Corinthians
chapter five. I tell you, this verse has pulled
me out of a ditch of, well, self-righteous despair over my sin. And believe
me, despair is self-righteousness, that's all it is. Because despair is still looking
at self, it just can't find anything there, that's all. But it's still
looking for something there. And that's what self-righteousness
is. But look what it says in beginning of verse eight, all
this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that God was reconciling the
world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. The word there, sometimes you hear it translated
impute. It's actually an accounting term.
What he's saying is under the gospel, our sins don't count
and neither does our righteousness. Nothing about us counts. Therefore there's nothing about
you. Now you, Think about this. There's nothing
about you that would make God not save you. And there's nothing about you
that would make God save you. You're not part of the question.
You're not part of the equation. And if you're not part of the
equation, instead of looking for a reason, what you can say
then is, if I'm not part of the equation, If my goodness or badness doesn't
mean anything, then why not me? Why not me? Say, well, I'm not
old enough. In Christ, the Bible says there's
neither young nor old. Why? Because in sin, there's
neither young nor old. In our need, there's neither
young nor old. Say, I'm not old enough to believe.
You're old enough to believe if you know you're a sinner and
need a savior. You're old enough. You say, well, you know, I am
all grown up and it's been a long time now since I knew the gospel.
I heard it when I was growing up, but I've never really professed
Christ. I just got nothing to do with
it. That doesn't mean that God would
not receive you through Christ right now if you came to him
through Christ. As long as you're looking at
you, God's gonna look at you. As long as you're looking for
a reason in yourself for God to save you, then God will look
for a reason in you and he ain't gonna find any and I hope you
never find any. But if you quit looking at yourself,
and realize you don't count, you're not in this. God's not,
in Christ, in the gospel, in his grace, he's not counting
sins against you. And you already know you don't
have any righteousness. So he's not counting your sins
against you, which means nothing about you counts. Christ counts, that's the only
thing. And Christ is as good for you as he is for anybody
else. Don't ever get it in your mind.
You might think it's humility, but it's not. Don't ever get
it in your mind that you have out sinned the righteousness
of Christ, that righteousness that comes from God. Don't think
for a minute that you are so wicked that not even Christ could
save you. And then to the believer. I know this by experience. I
figure you got some of it too. You know what you are. You know what you do. And you
know that what you are and what you do is inconsistent with the
gospel you claim to believe. And you might Entertain that
thought. Why me? Why me? Your sin still doesn't matter.
It doesn't count. God's not holding it against
you. Wicked as it may be, as much
as it may rightly, truly bring your head down in grief and tears,
it still has no bearing whatsoever upon your salvation. The only thing that matters is
Christ. What is this message of reconciliation
Back in 2 Corinthians chapter five, it says God was not imputing
men's sins, not counting their sins against them. Why is that? For God has made the one who
knew no sin to be a sin offering in order that we might become
the righteousness of God in him. In the gospel, And I cannot be
too radical about this. In the gospel, the only thing
that counts is Christ, who he is and what he's done. You say, well, then what should
I do? Well, theologically, you know, I might wanna say, well,
don't do anything. But remember Henry Mahan pointing out that
In all the scriptures, when someone said, what must I do to be saved
or inherit eternal life, never was the answer nothing. But what we're called on to do
is not something that gives God a reason to save us. We are simply told to confess
him and to call on his name. Now that's not a reason for God
to save us. He will if we do it, but that's not that he won't
do it because we call on him. We call on him because he's already
started the work. But so far as our experience
of his salvation is concerned, here is the promise. And remember
the promises are what we pay attention to. Whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now he who calls on the name
of the Lord is not looking for a reason in himself for God to
save him. He's looking for the reason in
God. And he's found that reason. That
reason is Christ. Paul says, forgive ye one another's
sins as God for Christ's sake has forgiven your sins. He's
not gonna find a reason in you. If you're looking for a reason
in you, the only question to ask is, well, why me? Why me? But if the reason's in Christ,
then you can say, well, then why not me? And you can rest in peace and
confidence of favor with God, even as you are terribly grieved
by your sins. And you who have not yet believed,
don't sit around waiting till you feel bad about your sins
enough, because you won't, you won't ever. Don't wait until
you think you believe strong enough, because you never will. Right now, if you're of a mind
to, right now, call upon the name of the Lord. Because that
name, is as able to save you as it is anybody else. And if you perish, if you die
in your sins, the only one to blame will be
you. Because God puts no obstacle between you and Christ. They're
in one. And if you don't come to Him,
it's because you were still trying to come up with a reason in yourself
why God should save you. But if you'll just give up on
yourself and lay hold of Christ by faith, God will save you. And there's
no reason that anyone here this morning should not be saved. There's no reason in God for
them not being saved, no reason in Christ for them not being
saved. If you perish, it's your fault. If you're saved, it's
to his credit, because he did it all. So quit asking why me, and ask
why not me. Yeah, I'm a sinner, but Christ
died for sinners. I don't have much faith, but
then Christ said to his disciples often, oh ye of little faith. And anyway, God's not looking
for anything from me. And that's what I've got to give
him, a whole lot of nothing. But I'm coming to God through
him who is and has everything. So why not me? Well, may God
bless that to your hearts. You take out your hymnals, and
we'll turn them to number 449. To God be the glory. Number 449.
We'll stand as we sing.