that we could praise you for,
and we would never stop. But until we have that privilege
of not stopping when we truly enter into the fullness of your
rest, Lord, we will not know what to do except to worship
you. Father, this life doesn't It doesn't end. It's a constant
barrage of stress and frustration, but Lord, in the midst of it
all, we know that your word is truth and your gospel is peace
and everything that we desire and long for can be found in
the simple doctrine of scripture. So drive us therein. Help us
to pray for one another. Lord, help us to hold each other
in a way that only you can orchestrate. And we pray these things in the
name of Christ. Amen. Tonight, we are going to close
out Romans by looking at verse 26 of chapter 16, where it says... Actually, I just want to talk
about the idea. I preached it last week. But
the idea and the doctrine of the obedience of faith. The obedience
of faith. In Romans chapter 1, we started
out seeing that same phrase, the
obedience of faith. And in our culture, when I say
culture, I could mean the world in which we live, I could mean
the community at large, I could mean the worldview of most people,
or I could mean the religious community. And tonight, when
I say culture, I mean the religious community. religious community. You've heard me be somewhat deprecating
to the label and to the people who we would identify or who
would identify as evangelical. Now evangelical as its root meaning
is not a bad term. We want to be evangelical. The
word evangel is where we get the translation of good news
or gospel. And so to be about the gospel
or gospel-centered, to be about sharing the gospel, preaching
the gospel, that's great, right? But just like anything else,
like the word Catholic. The word Catholic really means
universal. But now when we hear the word
Catholic, we think of Rome. We think of Romanism. We think
of Roman Catholic. So words are only as understood as they are
defined. And they are defined as they
are used. Context determines the usage. Now, I don't know what all Bibles
you have. Some of you may have King James.
Some of you may have New King James. Some of you may have ESV.
Some of you may even be reading the NIV or whatever. I don't
know that anybody uses the NIV, but I don't want to say I know
that nobody does. But some of you may have an NASB. Some of you may have an ASV.
It doesn't really matter, but when you get into those paraphrases
and you get into a lot of those other weird things, you're going
to find problematic stuff. Well, in the KJV you're going
to find problematic stuff when it comes to verse 26 of chapter
16 of Romans. If I remember correctly, and
they haven't updated it since then, you may hear this phrase,
to bring about the obedience of the faith. But it's not the
faith. There's no definite article in
front of the word in any of the reliable manuscripts. So when
we see these interpretations and the different variations,
and there's three ways in which people interpret this phrase,
they do so either by context or by ideology or by theology. Let me give you the difference
backwards to first. By theology, that means that
they know what they believe about obedience, and they know what
they believe about faith, and so they make their theology work
by saying, which brings about obedience because of faith. That's
wrong. It's wrong. It's not what the
Bible teaches there. It's not the whole context of
the book of Romans actually refutes that very thing. So we know that
the Lord is not telling us that the reason that Paul was preaching
the gospel of free and sovereign grace is so that he could get
people who had faith to live a life of obedience. The other
idea of being ideological is that, well, maybe it's the point
that, you know, Obedience and faith go hand-in-hand, so it's
the fruit of faith. So it's not really theological,
it's ideological in that what happens when somebody believes,
of course, they would butcher James in this sense, there's
going to be works. So they're going to believe and
it's going to produce good works. You may think, well, what's the
difference? Well, it depends on how they're, why they're interpreted
that way. It might sound the same, but
it's not necessarily the same. And then the way the Bible actually
is supposed to be interpreted is contextual. There in that
scripture it is to bring about the obedience of faith. And what
we need to recognize is that obedience in most of the New
Testament written to the what? Church, all of it, is typically
dealing with believing. It's typically dealing with believing.
And so if we are to ask ourselves how to close this out and how
to really pound this in, we need to just approach the idea of
obedience as it relates to the Christian life. That way we can
understand that what this text is actually saying is that believing
is obeying. That's what it says. believing
is obeying. Now why do we say that? And it
takes a long time and I'm not going to bore you with all the
details and all of the grammar and all of the different Greek
words and things of that nature. It's not important. If you want
to study it, and I ask you to study it in the context of the
scripture that you read. Don't go to Google and YouTube
and all these other places and start trying to find different
points of view. Read the Bible and watch the
Lord teach you. By the way, if you're not reading Colossians,
please read Colossians. And if you haven't started sharing,
please start sharing on our Lord's Grace Truth chat. Obedience. Obedience. When we
look at the gospel of John specifically, and it's been good for us to
be in Romans and John together because the correlation there
has just been dynamic. I think it's just amazing how
the Lord divinely works in the scene of this teaching through
the narrative of a gospel. And then seeing the didactics
of Paul in this same doctrine with a letter to a mixed group
of Christians who are also Roman citizens, Gentiles and Jews alike.
And so what is the purpose of obedience in the life of the
believer? Well, obedience can be understood in many ways. Obedience,
if we look at the Old Testament and we say to ourselves, well,
you know, in the Old Testament, God gave conditions upon certain
promises that if the nation of Israel would obey certain things
he's asking to do, then he would provide for them the promise
that he gave. If you do this, then I'll do
that. If you do this, then I'll do that. Some people also think
that Israel did obey in certain ways. But let me ask you this,
who in this life has ever obeyed God? Who? Name one person, Jesus,
that's it. Jesus, the Christ, God the Son,
the Son of God, the God-Man, is the only one who ever obeyed
Christ. Now here is where we need to be reminded of something.
Is that Jesus is righteous because He is God, and Jesus in His human
nature, He is still God, and He also is still truly and fully
man, but He is righteous in His humanity because He's not born
into sin. So Jesus did not earn righteousness
in his humanity, he is righteous. Ergo, his obedience is a result
of his righteousness. And some people use that idea
to say, oh, that's how, that's why we believe this is what it's
saying, so we need to obey. But then comes the question,
how are we to know we're obeying the Lord? And people say, well,
the Decalogue, it is the rule of life, it's the rule of faith.
No, it's not. Because I've yet to meet anyone And I just said
in my class on Tuesday that I have sat down before and tried to,
on a piece of paper, write down certain seasons or times in my
life where I actually believed I had overcome temptation and
obeyed God in a particular instance. And I've never been able to rightly,
with good conscience, say, you know what, I obeyed God that
day. I've never had a day in my entire life where I've actually
obeyed God. Why? Some people will say, well,
you just live in lucidiousness and lucentiousness and all this
other la-la-la and itchinesses. No, but if I'm not perfectly
obeying the law, I'm not obeying God. The law was not written
to give us a list of how to live. The law was given so that we
may know that we're condemned. The law was given as a shadow
of righteousness. The law is the standard of God's
essence. and is only fulfilled in Jesus
Christ. The picture of the Decalogue is a foreshadowing of Jesus,
the coming of the Righteous One, the Holy, and the Anointed One
of God, who is the King, who is the Son of God in every way,
even in His humanity. He is righteous. Because of that,
He is also impeccable. He cannot sin. And for us to
then say, then, how do we obey God? Now, can we do temporary
and temporal and fleshly obedience? Absolutely. We can do that, and
we should do that. We know what is good and what
is right because not only does the Lord's Word teach us that,
but the Lord's Spirit teaches us that. But just the same in
our flesh, if we are not found in the righteousness of Christ,
we are guilty. We are guilty. How many of us
have at all times and in all ways and in this very moment
loved the Lord with all of our heart, mind, and strength? None
of us. Now you can lie and say that
you do, and then I can ask you to provide evidence of that,
and you can't. As a matter of fact, we could, as your brothers
and sisters, all gather around and you could show in my life
where there's evidence that I don't, and I could show in your life
where there's evidence that you don't. But it is sometimes very hard
for us to see in our own lives evidence of our inability and
sometimes sin to be able to love the Lord with all of our heart
and mind and strength. I mean to love the Lord God with
all of our heart means that every desire that we have is for the
glory of God. And that there's never a time when we give into
any desire or any thought or any feeling. We never feel murder.
We never feel anger. We never feel fear to the point
of giving up and wondering how we're going to establish in our
flesh the answer to those things. that every motion of our bodies
comes because of the root of the fact that God is so glorious
to us that we turn on the television, sola deo gloria. We sit down
and log into Netflix, Soledad Gloria. We walk down the aisles
of Belk or Nordstrom or JCPenney or Walmart or wherever it is,
we might go buy clothes. I don't buy clothes unless they're
at Goodwill or eBay. But either way, we just, or they
give them to me as a gift. But you know, we don't walk down
those things looking at the nice clothes for winter saying Soledad
Gloria. I think I'm gonna look nice.
I mean, I was just telling the sisters here, I gotta have bifocals,
but I don't want those old man, Mr. Magoo bifocals. I don't want
big glass like here with a half a window down here and a Jeep
thing up there. I mean, so I've learned in just
pure vanity, I just want normal glass. Vanity. It's vanity. That's not for the
glory of God, and I know it. And you know what? I'm not going
to change that. I'm not going to just concede and go, well,
I know I'm vain, so I'm gonna get ugly glasses. I'm gonna get
ugly glasses. I mean, and people say, well,
you should. Maybe you don't really love the Lord. That's what I'm
trying to tell you. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I mean,
I got a pair of shoes on right now that aren't even a year old,
but they are falling apart. These poor children in Bangladesh
that made these Nikes. I mean, look at this. I've glued
this back together four times. Oh, there's a dollar in there.
No, I'm playing. And just walking. I mean, these are my good shoes.
These aren't my yard shoes. These are my good shoes. These
things are falling apart. And I think to myself, people
probably think I'm homeless when I walk around in these shoes
every now and then. What am I going to do? Well, when they go back
on sale for 20 bucks, I'll buy me another pair. Do I love the
Lord? Am I thinking about the glory
of God by complaining about my shoes? No, I'm not thinking about
the glory of God. I'm thinking about the fact that my first
world complaint is I need shoes that don't have a hole in them.
And it's not even materialistic, for Pete's sake. It was raining
yesterday and my feet were soaked all day long because I got holes
in the bottom of my shoes. So in a practical sense, I could
say as a good steward, I need new Nike. I mean, you know, we've
just got to get real, guys. We don't love the Lord our God
with all of our heart, all of our desires. I mean, I want things
for my children. The ultimate end of my heart
for my children is that they love the Lord, is that God saves
them, is that they grow in the understanding of the grace of
the Father's mercy toward them and love toward them in Christ,
and that they do everything that God permits them to do for the
sake of Christ in their lives, even if it costs them their lives.
But I also want them to marry well and have a good job and,
you know, and not be dumb as a bag of hammers. I want those
things. Are they important? No, not at
all. Yet I still want those things. So my desires are not always
considerate of the glory of God. That doesn't mean that my desires
should dishonor God. No, that's a different story.
But don't our desires sometimes dishonor God? My sense of humor
finds itself in a very dark place sometimes. I'm not the type of
guy that cannot laugh at something I find funny. I'm not a good
actor. When I see things funny, I don't
want to be in public sometimes when I see them because if you
show me something funny and it's not supposed to be funny to a
Christian and I laugh, you're going to think less of me. And
you're going to go, that wasn't a joke. And I'm going to go,
I'm so sorry. And I am genuinely sorry, but sometimes satire just
makes me laugh. But satire hurts the consciences
of some people. Satire is awesome. I'm not talking about crude stuff.
I'm not talking about things that are just obviously wicked,
but somebody may be. Somebody may find that kind of
stuff funny. Are they just gone? Are they lost? Are they depraved? Are they unregenerate? Maybe
they're just unwise. Or maybe they're just unlearned. Maybe they're just unsettled. Why do we judge them? We've already
learned that in chapter 14, 15, right? Let's be careful to welcome
each other in Christ. We have the gospel. That's the
problem with the world now. I talked to a man this afternoon,
shared the gospel with him. And he said, well, the reason
I don't come to church anymore is because the man in the pulpit is living a
life the same way I am. He's telling me I shouldn't be
living this way. See, that's the point. People think that
the gospel is change your lifestyle, change your desires, change your
heart, change your thinking. We don't love the Lord with all
of our heart every single time, and we don't love the Lord with
all of our mind. What do we think on? I don't know about you, but
I know a brother in the back back there was thinking about
his car today because he had to get it fixed. I've been thinking about
my shoes today because my feet's been wet. I mean, am I really
thinking about the glory of God with all of my mind? Is my mind
focused on everything? No. My mind's been focused on
some of you and how I wish I could have permission to pull out some
canes and straighten some people out. I wish I could come and
shake some folks good real good so that if they just listen to
what I have to say and the wisdom that I have flowing out of my
awesome head, they could straighten their lives out real good, you
know? Now I'm conceited, arrogant, a little bit prideful, thinking
that I'm as good as God the Holy Spirit for straightening people
out. Wow, my mind's really idolatrous. Sometimes I think in my mind,
why can't I just have a season of peace? Why does this person
always have to be accusing me of something? Why does this person,
why does my dog have to die? My dog died Sunday afternoon.
Why does my, or Monday, why does my dog have to die on the day
that I felt good? Because God gave you the energy
to bury it. I mean, you know, that's really the way it is.
Thank you, Lord, for the great energy. Oh, I know what I'm going to
use it on now. With my old nasty shoes. Then I covet what my neighbor's
dog has died. My friend down the street, he's
10 years older than me and he don't have problems with his
back and shoulders and neck and arthritis and don't have to have
Mr. Magoo glasses. What's going on? We covet. Covet
is idolatry. And that's my mind being occupied
at moments in my day where just like you and everybody that listens
to my voice must agree with what I'm saying. One of the forums
I'm in, somebody posted, you know, the way of the master. wicked evangelistic strategy
thing today. The good person test. So I went
and took it. And I lied. Have you ever lied? I said, no. He says, are you
sure? I said, no. Never lied. OK. Have you ever
stolen? Never. Are you sure? Never. Have you ever committed adultery?
Ever. Never. Have you never looked at someone with desire? I hate
everybody. No. Never. And I went through the
first five just lying. And at the end, you know what
it says? Well, I'm sorry you feel this way, but you're wrong
because the Bible speaks differently of you. Then it tells me to continue
and it asks me the question, how does God see you? How do
you think God sees you right now? And it had two options.
And this will be a paraphrase because I can't remember exactly.
But option number one was guilty before him of sin or innocent
before him. And I clicked innocent because
it's true. See, I've been born again by the Spirit of God. The
death of Christ was beneficial for me. It was effectual for
my righteousness. I'm righteous before God. As
if I've never sinned, justified. Before the foundations of the
world, God had purposed to save me. And so I clicked that. And
you know what it said? You're wrong. God doesn't see
you that way. I'm like, that's a lie. But do you see the problem with
that implication? Why that's not evangelism? Why that's actually
satanism? Because it's humanism? It's demonic. And I know that those statements
make people upset, but that ministry is demonic. And the people who
are sucked into that ministry don't see it because they can't
see the gospel for its beauty. They sometimes in their minds
lay down at night, thank you God that I've loved you with
all my heart. Thank you God that I've loved you with all my soul,
with all my strength, with all my mind. And then they'll say,
God sees me as guilty sinner. God doesn't look at you, beloved,
as a guilty sinner because he looked at his son, the precious
lamb of God, and convicted him as a guilty sinner when he was
not a sinner so that we could be the righteousness of God. The implications of a works righteousness are deep. The addendum of the
Galatian heresy is as alive today as it's ever been in the world.
So my mind, we've just seen that the pastor's heart and the pastor's
mind doesn't even love the Lord with all of its power at all
times. And I'm here to tell you that
no one could stand beside me and say that. How about my strength? I mean,
we could play with this and we could actually, and you're not
even supposed to parse these things out, mind and soul and strength
and all that and stuff. It's just a way of saying everything
that you are, you should love God. But I'm just like, boy,
I haven't done a topical sermon in so long, I thought I'd just
be creative. It's all about strength. The things that I do with my
body, the things that I do with my life, the things that I exert myself
for, the things I strive for, the things I move for. Yes, 99%
of the time, in my own view, I probably think it's like 40%
of the time, but in your view, you probably think 99% of the
time, pastor is like living for Jesus. Nope. No. I confessed yesterday to
class about how I wanted to pray like some of my mentors through
the years. And I remember setting up a closet with a little chair
in it, and I slept like a baby. You know, I'm going to be real
righteous and holy and strive for prayer, buddy. And I told
him, I said, I claimed Romans 8. In my weakness, the Holy Spirit
prayed and interceded on my behalf. Because I slept. I went in there,
I had my Bible in my lap. Wake up an hour later, I don't
even know what time it was. That's about as strong as it
gets. And I'm in good company, too, because the inner three
of Jesus in the very peak of his passion before the arrest
of the cross, when he was sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane,
Gethsemane, Semeny, Semeny, Gethsemane, soul. All right. When he was
sweating blood, they're praying, but they can't because their
flesh is too weak. Their flesh is too weak. So they
go. They weren't condemned by it. And we're not making license,
we're not making excuses. You notice nothing I've talked
about today has been wicked. Nothing that I've talked about
today in the way we would gauge morality and gauge spirituality
in the life of the person is just evil at the core. It's not
evil to need new shoes or to think about something else or
to fix our cars or to deal with dreams and aspirations of our
children that are actually normative in the culture. There's nothing
evil about it. But don't pretend like we are loving the Lord with
everything we've got. So if we can't do that, how can
we do the others? It's not going to happen. The law was never
written to be obeyed by humanity. Now see, that is why people call
me antinomian. And if that's what it means to
be antinomian, so be it. Give me the grace of God through
Jesus Christ all day long and leave the law where it's supposed
to be, pointing to Him. What is the law of Christ? Law
of Christ then we see in the New Testament is to love each
other as He has loved you. So there's two things that happen
in that context. And that's where we are on Sunday.
We're learning to abide in the Lord through what? Faith. And we're learning to
rest in the sufficiency of His work. And in that, we're learning
of His love for us. And in learning for His love
for us, then we begin to see the model, or more than the model,
the mindset of how we're to love one another. So we can say, OK,
we can obey the law of Christ. Of course, it's ours to obey.
Even the law, though. I mean, we're not supposed to
murder, steal, lie, covet, commit adultery, disobey our parents,
have other gods before us or not love the Lord. I mean, of
course not. Nobody's saying that that's off
the hook. I'm just saying the purpose of it wasn't to show
us how we can make righteousness. It was to convict us of our unrighteousness
because we can't do it. And because we can't do it doesn't
give us a license to just go ahead and try to not do it. Because
our striving is different. But being motivated by love to
give honor and glory to the Lord Jesus is so different. It's night and day different
than thinking that if we don't do these things then we're not
right with God. Or if we don't do these things
we're not assured of our righteousness. Or if we're not able to do it.
Listen, admit now to you and to the Lord that you are unable
to fulfill righteousness and obedience. You cannot do it. And anyone
that thinks that you can is a liar. And they're self-deceived. And
here's how I'll settle that. Anyone who thinks that or who
is continuing by fear to work out obedience in their life so
that they have assurance of their eternal life has never been converted
by God. They have not been born again.
Now we will struggle with that, and we will fight that, and our
flesh will knock and tap us on the shoulder. The devil will
accuse us, but we will stand convinced that Christ is enough. So we can't even obey the first
one. How about the second one? Thou shalt have no other gods
before me. Is that what he's talking about?
The obedience that comes from faith? The obedience of the faith?
No. And most of us go, well, I've
never worshiped a false god. Come on, guys. Most Christians
we know, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, most Christians
we know have a false god. When the questions come up and
say, do Jews and Christians worship the same god, but just look differently? No, Jesus says that the Jews
worship Satan, but we who are born again worship the true God
of scripture, who is Christ. Don't ever forget that. Jews
aren't almost Christians. Just like the Judaizers were
not almost Christians. Or Christians that were wrong.
They were wrong and they were lost. Because their hope was
added into the obedience that came from faith. Just like the
Jews found their justification through their obedience. We have false gods all the time.
We have false idols all the time. We have false Christs all the
time. We're inundated with them. I'm in a conversation Sunday
night about some specific contemporary music that I was not privy to,
thank God. I mean, y'all know how much,
quote, Christian music out there is actually satanic? You know,
you'd be better to listen to the 60s and 70s oldie stations
and those old rock metal bands. You'd be better off listening
to some interesting war music. Then you would listen to some
of this new stuff coming out of Bethel, coming out of Hillsongs,
coming out of all these places. Just evil doctrine. Stuff, they
just make stuff up, say this is how God is. And people learn
about who God is based on this music. Music is powerful, y'all.
Music is powerful. When I was in music school, we
did Carl Orff's, we did the full rendition, two pianos and everything,
Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. And it was a difficult piece
to do. Not only was it in several languages
and it was hard, but the actual story that we're singing is just
really blasphemous. But I see that, you know, oh,
fortuna, velut, luna, aduna, semper crescis, you know, that
kind of stuff. I see that song being used for all sorts of stuff.
And it's a song about just being, just diving head first in, carpe
diem, with the winds of fortune, and just jumping in and living
the life to please the flesh. And yet we see it being used
for what? Like scary movies, war movies, We see it. It's the same thing as when people
sing certain songs. They think they're worshiping
the God of the Bible, but they're not. They're just singing cool
music that sounds really neat. And they think they're caught
up in something spiritual, but they're not at all. And young people
are really susceptible to it. Music is powerful. It's powerful. I've told you many times over,
one of my favorite things to do in the world is go and see
a symphony perform. And even better if it's an opera
with a live symphony. And I want to sit in certain
sweet spots in that place because I know what resonance feels like
when it's in the right spot where those types of sounds hit my
bones. And whether they're playing a
chord, or whether they're warming up, or whether they're tuning
from the top to the bottom down, I get chills up my neck. I'm
remembering that and I have chills running up the back of my neck
right now. It's powerful. It's very powerful. And don't think that we're not
idolatrous in that power. And can we help it? No. First
time I saw the beauty of the West, driving cross country,
looking at trees that were big around as this building. Couldn't
see the top of. I mean, I was in awe. Now, very
quickly, I came to be in awe of God, but man, I was in awe
of the tree. I loved the creation for a few
minutes, and I stepped back and can love the creator. Or even
worse, when I was a photog, I started taking pictures in the 5th grade.
I had the nickname 6th, 7th, and 8th grade of Flash, because
I took so many pictures. That's 35mm, 50mm lens. I mean,
that's when you had to actually print them and deal with them. We got 40 billion pictures a
day in our household. Pictures everywhere. Buying,
I mean, 700 pictures of the same child in the same second, because
you're doing But back when I was a kid, you had to take pictures,
you had to take them with you. And sometimes I would see things,
and I'd travel, and I would see things, I'd take good pictures,
and then I would love the picture of what I took. I'm thinking,
man, look at what a picture taker I am. I must be a professional
photographer. I must, man, look at that. And
I would even love, I would worship in a sense, the fact that I was
able to capture that. And then when I had kids, oh
my goodness, talk about idols. I mean, I took more pictures
of my children. Certain lighting settings, you
know, I'd be sitting there with a child trying to scream, shh,
shh, just to get a picture, come on, shh, you know? And I loved
it. So I've had other gods before
me. Have you had other gods before you? Yes, you have. You do right
now. And by the mercy of the Lord,
we see them. By the mercy of the Lord, we put them in the
right place. But none of us have probably ever bowed down to a
false idol. None of us have probably ever
burned an offering to a statue in our house. None of us have probably ever
done that. But oh my goodness, have we really dressed up like
weird people and tailgated at a ball game and yelled till we
couldn't speak the next day. Some of us. You don't yell that
hard at a chess championship or a nine ball tournament. But
buddy, if you could, I would have lost my voice. What do we do? We can't obey
those things. It's not the point of it. And
the more we strive, people have this idea, well, the Lord's going
to help us. We're going to get better and better and better
and better. What is better? What is better? I have cancer
of the brain and it doesn't spread. I still have cancer of the brain. The day you're born, you're one
day closer to death. And the next day, you're one
day closer to the day you're going to die. See, the glass half full. You
can look at it that way. I think that's how we need to
look at obedience when it comes to following what the Scripture
doesn't prescribe. But do you see what I'm saying
to you? Have I told any of you to go sin? Have I taught us that
we should sin? Have I taught us that we should
violate the laws of God? No, but that's what unconverted
people will accuse us of saying. As a matter of fact, what do
we do when we deal with disobedience, just blatant disobedience? We
try to correct it. We try to restore it. We try,
and when we can't see, when the Lord doesn't grant the change
of mind in that brother or sister, we expel them from our lives.
So that that shame, that humility, and that frustration, and that
fear, if they are truly in Christ, they would be drawn back. And
even that is in the Lord's timing. We don't get to determine. Well,
after one month, we can just call them apostate. I mean, how
long did it take Jonah to get it? God put him in a fish and
he still didn't get it. He went because he was scared
of the fish. He still hated the Ninevites. Was Jonah a reprobate? No. He was the elect of God.
He was a prophet on equal standing with Jeremiah. That'll put it
in perspective. I had somebody ask me today,
so you mean to tell me I can murder somebody as a Christian?
I said, you can. You have the ability to. You
shouldn't, but neither should an unbeliever. Well, I never thought about that.
What happens if I do? Well, you go to prison and you'll
bring shame to the name of Christ, but you'll be the freest man
in death row. Something to think about. Well, a true believer
wouldn't do these things. Well, a true believer wouldn't
consider the flesh as hope. That's what a true believer won't
do. A true believer will not make provision for the flesh.
in their righteousness. But don't we try? We knit ourselves. We knit ourselves a little fleshly
garment. We try to put it on. We think,
because we do find solace in it. Isn't it easier to just exist
in the world? than to stand firm in truth.
Isn't it easier to not worry about Bibles, and not worry about
worship, and not worry about purity, and not worry about our
mind and our heart? Isn't it easier to just exist
in the world? Can I just be the normal guy
that goes and buys a Mountain Dew at the 7-Eleven, or goes
to Burger King and gets a Whopper, or sits at the park and just
watches the squirrels? Do I always have to have everything
coming in? See how much easier it is to just be an unbeliever?
It's our best life now. But we're compelled. We can't
help it. Everything that we do in life exists around the presence
of Christ. And whether it's obedient or
disobedient, we are aware of it in that way. And the Lord
is faithful, and He will discipline us, and He will prune us, and
He will charge us, but He will never condemn us. So the obedience of faith is
to believe. Obedience of faith is to believe. And I could go
on and on. I've spent too much time giving examples, but you
get the point. The obedience of faith is the purpose of the
preaching of the gospel because the proclamation of the gospel
is the command in and of itself. Right? To proclaim the finished
work of Christ and then to teach the words of Christ is to teach
the command that Christ taught. In the Bible, does Jesus ask
anyone to come after Him? Nowhere does He suggest they
follow Him. Nowhere does He plead for them
to believe. He commands them. Look it up.
Follow me is a command. It's not, now if you follow me, We see those conditions in the
negative. We see the negative doctrinal statements in that
way. If you do not believe in me, you will die in your sins. If you do not believe that I
am. And he continues to make these commands all related to
belief. So believing in God's grace,
which is the gospel, which is fulfilled in Christ and His work,
His whole life, We've got to throw philosophy out there. We
cannot philosophically impart to the Scripture that which the
Scripture does not philosophically reveal. I'll give you an example.
We can't divide Christ from His work. We can't divide Christ's
work in His life. He's obedient unto death, even
death on the cross. So the obedience of Christ is
all that Christ said, all that Christ desired, all that Christ
did. Because He's righteous, it's
effectual. Because He's God. Because it's effectual. Because
He's man. It was effectual. So the admittance
of faith is to be understood that way. We can't even get through
the first two commandments and find any day. What day have you
done it? Not today. But was there ever a time in
Christ's life when it was not about the Father's business? Was there ever a time in Christ's
mouth when He was speaking in a way that was not honoring to
the Father? Was there ever a time in Jesus'
actions that He wasn't obeying the Father? He Himself, I know
that's incorrect, but He declares of Himself, that which I do is
the Father's doing. That the Father was doing now,
He says, was working, now I work. Father is speaking, now I speak.
So even what he was doing was the work of the Father, for the
sake of the Father. And we've seen that over the
last 117 sermons in John's Gospel. So what's our hope? We believe. And even that is not our own
doing, but is a gift of God. So faith is obedience. And that's what Paul's been trying
to tell us. That's why he preaches what he does. That's why he proclaims
the beauty of the grace of God. That's what the gospel is. And
all of the nuts and bolts and all of the intricacies and all
of the nuances of how our Christian lives are going to sort of melt
together and work out our salvation, it is always and only ever effectual
by faith. And that's why some of us seem
a little more mature and spiritual than others. But I'll be honest
with you, if I have to stand at the end of the day and when
God knocks on the door of my life, He's not. If He were to charge me by the
way my life ever turned out, I would still be condemned. So
He will credit me the righteousness of His Son. I'll leave you with this example
many of you have seen already this week. If a cop comes to my door, with
reports of a crime that I have not committed, I have no fear.
I cannot be charged. Well, I mean, we're talking about
conspiracies and false accusations. We're not talking about that. No evidence, no nothing. They
cannot charge me. I did not do it. I have no fear. But if God
rings my doorbell and he's got his law in his hand, I'm guilty of every one of them
right now as I stand. right here before you in this
place of honor, place of vital importance, the teaching platform
of an assembly. I'm still guilty if God, if God
judges me by his law, but he will not judge me by his law.
He will judge me by the righteousness of Christ, which is who is the
fulfillment of his law. Believing in that is, I believe,
the foundation and the icing on the cake of the gospel of
free and sovereign grace. And I pray that you would be
overly encouraged by it, that it would shake your flesh. It
needs to shake your flesh. You need to think about Romans
7. You need to think about how Paul long to be free of his flesh. Don't you? I just can't stand
it. In the midst of it? No, I'm a
warrior. When I sit down and really think about it, I can't
wait. I can't wait to stop having to deal with my flesh. Can't wait. To the praise of
the glorious grace of God, though, because I appreciate the life
I have. For to live as Christ But to
die is far better. Because to die is to be with
Christ. But to live is for the sake of
Christ. And we live by faith in Christ,
who loved us and gave himself for us. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for Romans.
We thank you for Jesus. We are not ashamed of the gospel
of Jesus Christ, for it is your power unto salvation for all
of your elect, Jew or Greek. Father, you have freely given
us faith. You have freely given us your Spirit. You have freely
given us to your Son. You've freely given us understanding
of the gospel. Father, you know the true labor
that we have. You know that we're fighting
not only our own flesh, but each other's. We're fighting temptation. We're fighting the world of Christianity,
the world of evangelicalism, the world of evangelism. We're
fighting this great Babylonian business called the church. Lord, strike pride from our hearts. Humble us. Grow us more intimately
with You and with one another. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.