If you can, turn in the Bible
to Romans. There it goes. We start chapter 4 this evening. Romans chapter 4. And this is
where we start to get the questions that Paul asks in relation to
the righteousness of God being upheld in the giving of Jesus
Christ. I say something about this often,
almost every week. Of course, every week we will
hear about the sovereignty of God and election and salvation
and the grace of God because every text of Scripture is centered
on and around that thing. And the reason that it is so
imperative to hear and the reason that it is so repetitive in the
New Testament is that especially with the Apostle Paul who came
up as a Pharisee, who was of the tribe of Benjamin, who was
a Jew of Jew, Paul wanted to be sure that his readers, both
Jew and Gentile, understood that the law had its place and it
was for a specific purpose and for a specific reason. Because
it is of the human nature, especially in our depravity, to consider
the Law something to be held on to, or the Law something that
could help us along the way, or that the Law of God, as we
call the Ten Commandments, or as Paul would refer to the Law
of God in Romans 2 and 3, as the Scripture itself. That we
think that the Law of God is something that makes us right
with God, or holds us in a higher place with God in the sense of
affection or pleasure. Well friends, we need to understand
that because we believe that in our flesh and because it is
something that has been catered to us in our culture for 150
plus years, we have a false gospel of works plus grace. We have
a false gospel of the freedom of the will plus faith alone. We have a false gospel of Jesus
Christ plus anything. Anything that adds to the gospel
of grace is a false gospel. And Paul would say to the people
of Galatia, it is no gospel. That means it is not good news.
It is, matter of fact, very bad news. For as Jesus teaches us
in John chapter 3 that this is no gospel at all, Jesus would
say that the wrath of God remains. that the wrath of God remains
because those who do not believe completely and only in the Son
of God and His finished work on the cross are condemned already. See, we've come to a place in
our world where if you look around our community, how many steeples
do you see? You ever thought about that?
Everywhere you go, there's another so-called, quote, church popping
up. There's another congregation there. There's another so-called
man of God starting a new work. And there's some new things happening
at an old church. And every turn, you see this
new opportunity to engage in what people would call the body
of Christ when, in reality, there is no unity at all amongst any
of us. I mean, what unity do we have
with the church across the street? What unity do we have with the
church down the corner? What unity do we have with the
church across the highway? Or the twin churches here? Or
the other 63 churches in Evans County? What other kind of church is
there to be except the church of Jesus Christ? And of course,
we all like to say, well, it's because we have a different flavor
of what we look for. This is how I was taught years
ago in my 20s by a very, what I thought at the time, a very
wise man of God, who said, well, son, you know, sometimes, sometimes
people just have a certain flavor that they enjoy when they worship
the Lord. And what does that mean? It means you like spicy
tacos or mild tacos or inferno tacos. Or maybe you don't like
tacos at all. You just like hot wings. Or maybe
you don't like anything but vegetable. Maybe you don't like anything
but tofu. Or maybe you're just a big meat and potato guy. You
like to really chomp down on the T-bone, but you like it well
done. You want the hellfire and brimstone
T-bone. You don't want the little mansy
pansy rare T-bone. And I bought that for a long
time. And as God began to show me the Word of God, His Word,
the Scripture, in its completeness, in its totality, I began to recognize
that Paul and the apostles had never written to a multitude
of churches. Paul never wrote to the Baptists
and the Methodists and the Episcopal churches. Paul wrote to the body
of Christ. Paul wrote to the church. To
the church. of Ephesus. Paul wrote to the
saints of the region of Galatia, where there probably might have
been 400 congregations. And Paul wrote to the church
of Philippi, and Paul wrote to the church, etc. And Paul here
is writing to the church at Rome. And so if Paul were to write
this letter to us today, he would write to the church of the regions
of the Low Country and Coastal Empire. Probably a 200 mile radius. He would write to the Christians
of that region where the elders would receive that and the elders
of those churches would be working together to give oversight to
the totality of every congregation in every corner of every cave
and every living room and every marketplace. I heard today someone tell me
that the cultural issue of Paul's teaching to the church at Ephesus
through Timothy was only to those people. Same thing, out of the
same mouth said that the issue of what Paul was rebuking the
Corinthian church for in his letter that we know as 1 Corinthians
was only because of what they were particularly doing. Yes,
the letter was written to them, but the letter was written for
all the body, for all of eternity. The Word of God complete, the
Word of God effectual, the Word of God powerful to teach the
church. So when we think about that,
and we look and examine where we are in our culture, what has
happened? Is it really that we have become
so consumer-based in our culture that we do have to have a certain
type of music? We have to have a certain zeal
from the pastor? We have to have certain visualizations?
Certain types of scripture? Oh, lo, this is the only true
word of God I've heard many times. If you're not reading out of
this translation, you're teaching heresy. Well, I mean, if you
and Eugene Patterson were friends, maybe. And the message would
come along, and there's no message in the message, by the way. It's
a message of garbage and demons, but beside all that, the point
is true. Can we even say we know one person
from other congregations within 10 miles of us? Two miles of
us? Half of mine? Now I do, because
I make it a business to know other people, but is there intimacy
there? No, not at all. Why? Because
when it comes to being the body of Christ, we who are in the
faith are in the faith because we hold to the one true faith.
Now, of course, Presbyterians would say, well, the Presbyterians
are the true Reformed people, and they hold to the right standard
as we sprinkle our babies and they come into the world of covenant. And we Baptists go, no, you don't
get saved in spots. You're not going to get wet in
spots. And the babies can't walk the aisle, so we're not going
to dunk them yet. You've got every different type
of flavor. We might find some camaraderie
in our doctrine. That means what we believe the
Bible teaches. But in the end, what are we divided on? We're
divided on the practices. For example, our Presbyterian
friends would say that they believe that you ought to baptize infants
as a sign of covenant. Well, I believe the Holy Spirit
is the sign of the covenant. Baptism is something different. That's
why we are called Baptists. It's for believers. But we're
not going to split hairs over that. We'll practice what we
practice. They'll practice what they practice. Another difference
between us and Presbyterians is that we are not subject to
the Baptist church across the street, by the grace of God. Or the Baptist church in California
that sent us here to plant this church, by the grace of God.
And we're not subject to some men that sit in desks and wear
big suits and get big paychecks that say, no, this is what we
believe that we've got to do and say now. Praise God. Because
if you know anything about the Methodist church and you've watched
any of the liturgical news of Methodism lately, those Methodist
Pentecostal brothers of ours, yes, Methodism is the birth of
Pentecostalism. Those Methodists are about to
split sideways ten times over the issue of ordination of homosexuals.
You're thinking, wow, are we really in unity there? Friends,
the point is, as you've already guessed, is that there is really
no unity amongst professing Christians in any given community. I did
not mean to make a rhyme there. But there is none. There is no
intimacy, really, in the midst. We can say, Lord bless you, and
they'll say, God bless. Or, you know, if we get a little
excited, we'll say, God is good, all the time, all the time. You
can never get out of the parking lot. You know, it's just back and to,
back and to. Or you may give your holy high five, or your
pious elbow, or whatever it might be. But if we're not believing
the same truth about the news of Jesus, which is good, we are
not brothers and sisters in Christ. And if we are brothers and sisters
in Christ, we have a unity that is supernatural, that is spontaneous,
that is irrevocable. And as we've come to Romans chapter
4 this evening, we've come to a place where Paul is going to
begin to explain some things that he so passionately hammered
in to his readers for the first three chapters of this letter.
Mainly that no man is righteous according to the works of the
law. No man is justified according to the works of the law. That
the law in itself cannot save in any portion, in any manner,
even so much, as we'll learn later, that God never, ever,
ever gave Adam a true and fighting chance to obey and stand in righteousness
in the Garden of Eden. When He said to them, Do not
eat, God had purposed and understood and established the covenant
of grace, though He decreed the covenant of works. And so, those
of you that might not understand that vernacular, a covenant is
something that is a two-way street. It's a promise. A covenant is
something, sometimes, that is a one-way street. That's a promise. The covenant of works could be
understood in this way is that God would say to Adam and Eve,
if you walk this way and do not do this, then you shall live.
If you do what I say not to do, you shall surely die. The covenant
of grace is what God gives in the explanation of Jesus Christ
in Genesis chapter 3 when He says, the seed of a woman will
crush the head of the serpent. which is the gospel of grace, is that
God would do everything possible and everything necessary. See,
that sounds desperate, doesn't it? God will do anything possible.
The old third day song, I heard it said, a man would climb a
mountain just to be with the one he loved. I heard it said the man would
swim an ocean. You know that song? It's old, 20 years maybe. Jesus climbed
the Mount Calvary. It's a desperate song. I used
to love it and sing it. Then all of a sudden it's like,
wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Yes, that's good for me, but is that
true for everybody? No. So we better be careful what
we sing, because God's love is not a desperate love, and He's
doing everything possible so that He might save everybody,
and is discouraged when not everybody comes to faith. God is a sovereign
God who saves everyone that He intends to save, because Christ
is an absolute Savior, and He's a gracious God that effectually
loves all of His people before they ever existed. And God's
love is effectual in the giving of the Son Jesus, who paid and
atoned for the sins of those for whom He loved. And the gospel
is proclaimed to every person, to every creature, to every hilltop
and every valley. Believe on the person of Jesus
Christ. Believe the good news that Jesus
is who He is and has done what He's done. And you have life
eternal in His name. Believe the good news of Jesus. And this is the argument of Paul,
not just here, but everywhere in the New Testament. It's the
teaching of Jesus everywhere. As he started his public ministry
and he began to preach, he would go into the synagogues and into
the temple, and he would read the Word of the Lord. And people,
he would say in their hearing, this Scripture is fulfilled this
day. And they would love Him and say, oh, how gracious are
His words. But then He would quote other Scripture about God
shutting the heavens and shutting the wombs of women and not saving
His people. And He'd say, that's who you
are. I'm taking this message to the Gentiles. and they would
hate Him and want to kill Him. You know why? Because He stabbed
them in the heart of their conscience. He stabbed them in the heart
of their religion because He showed them that there was nothing
that they had done that made them worthy of His grace. and
there was nothing in their being and their existence, even though
they were Israel, that gave them the right to proclaim and hold
the promises of God for themselves. It was only by the mere pleasure
of God and the grace and the mercy of God upon sinners who
were undeserving. And so when we think we're deserving,
God will never give us grace. It is the one who says, oh, have
mercy upon me, a sinner, that God gives grace to. And that's
what He's about to show us. Now the Jews of this audience,
of course we've seen, they've been told they weren't righteous,
they've been told that they weren't obedient to the law, and if they
were, even then they were condemned. He goes to say, look at verse
1 of chapter 4, he asks a question which is very customary of Paul
to do, and he says, what then shall we say was gained by Abraham? Who is Abraham? He says it. Our
forefather according to the flesh. What shall we say was gained
by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? What shall we say?
Now what is this gain? What does he mean? Well, Abraham
was not a Jew, was he? No, he wasn't a Jew. He was a
Chaldean. Abraham was a Chaldean and he
worshipped the moon. He worshipped in the ziggurat
of Ur. In Assyria, he was not a follower of God. He never knew
God. He was blinded. He did not know
the truth of God because long had the Word of God been in a
place of famine. But God came to Abraham and said
to Abraham, Go. And Abraham believed God. And
Abraham did not obey God. He lied, and he covered his own
behind, and he manipulated people, and he worked against the plan
of God. He took things into his own hands
and decided he was the one who would come and bring about the
fruition of God's promises and God's covenant. Oh, I know what
I must do, for my wife is old. It is my servant Hagar that shall
be the promise giver. Abraham was not a man of obedience.
Abraham was not a man of faith in the context of his following
after God, but Abraham believed God. And it says there in that
question in verse 2, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has
something to boast about, but not before God. You see, I find that interesting
because Paul says, then what has been gained by our father
Abraham? What has been gained? by Him according to the flesh.
For if Abraham was justified by works, then he has something
to bust about. And that's a true statement.
Man, look at how I live. Look at what I believe. Look
at how I dress. Look at how I sing. Look at how I preach. Look at
the ministry that I do. Look at how I love my neighbor.
All these things that Abraham could say. I followed after God,
and yeah, I made a few mistakes, but oh, look at us now. Look
at Abraham. Look at him, the father of many
people, the father of a nation. And through Abraham came Isaac,
through Isaac came Jacob, and Jacob became Israel. And through
Israel came Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, the Lamb
of God that takes away the sins of the world. And now here we
see Paul saying, if Abraham was justified by the law, he could
boast, but even then he could not boast before God. For what does the Scripture say?
Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
So what does that mean? That means that because Abraham
believed God, that Abraham was counted righteous. Long before
Abraham did or did not do anything according to the plan of God.
Even in the midst of when Abraham, just like King David, when he
was a murdering, adultering liar, God said out of His own mouth,
this man is after My own heart. In the midst of the hiding, in
the midst of the lying, in the midst of the adultery, in the
midst of the murder, Before it even came to the public view,
God says, this man is a man after My own heart. And we look at
him in our culture and we say to ourselves, how in the world
can God say that? David was a terrible man. He's
no more worse man than I am. He's no more worse man than any
of you men. I won't say anything about you
ladies this evening. He's no worse off than any of us. We're
no worse off than Him. As a matter of fact, before God,
we're equally guilty. We have no way of boasting. And
so Paul explains it. He's already explained it through
the first few chapters, but here he begins to explain it. That
because Abraham had faith in the person of God, in God, in
His being, in His promises, in the fact that God had said, go,
and Abraham believed. Even though he was faithless,
he still believed. The Bible says that it was accounted
to him as righteousness. In other words, he was not righteous,
but his account was filled with righteousness. that Abraham was
spiritually bankrupt and could not boast before God, but because
he believed God, God filled his account full of righteousness
that was never his. He didn't take a little bit of
what Abraham had and add to it that he might become richer in
righteousness. Abraham was a bankrupt, wicked man, full of depravity,
with nothing to offer. We too are the same way. We have
nothing to offer God. We have no skill that God must
use. We have no creativity that God
must grab hold to that we might honor Him. We have no purpose
in our mind and in our flesh that God is desperate to employ
that His glory might shine. God uses the nothings of this
world to bring to nothing the things that are something. And
He uses the lowly things, He uses the stupid things, He uses
the weak things to overcome the strong. and the wise and the
majestic. And that's what Abraham was.
A nothing. A nobody. He wasn't skilled. One of the
worst things that's ever been told to me in my younger days
of ministry is that I had a lot of skill and a lot of gifts that
the Lord could not wait to use. What a lie! Because for a long
time I employed those gifts and I employed those abilities and
they were used but not by God. God operated in spite of those
things. And God worked in spite of those
things. And then God opened my eyes to see that it was not about
me. And at many times, in many ways,
God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets. But in
these days, He speaks to us through His Son, whom He has declared
to be the heir of all things, who is above all things, and
who did the work of atonement and sat down at the right hand
of God. You know what's not in that text
in Hebrews chapter 1? Me. God did it all, and He didn't
need me. I heard a man three years ago
say in a public forum here in this county, God's plans will
fail if we don't step up. And I'm thinking, what in the
world did that man just say? And worse than the fact that
he said it, he rolled out AMENS from the entire 300 count congregation. May we be a people who don't
let God down, he said. How about this? We are a people
who will let God down. Abraham let God down. But you
know who has not let anyone down? Jesus Christ the righteous. Jesus
Christ the righteous has not let anyone down. Friends, I have
more failures as a pastor than I will ever see successes. I
have more failures as a husband. Don't you shake your head back
there, yes. I have more failures as a husband, she's like, than
I will ever see successes. As a father, as a man. You men know what I'm talking
about? You feel like a failure as a man? There's a lot of times we think
we're something when we're nothing. No. This, verse 4, to the one
who works. See, no one's saying anything
about not working. This text is not antinomian,
which is against the law, that we don't believe that the law
of God is standing today to judge. But that's what it is. It is
judgment. It is not righteousness. It is righteousness that God
judges the sinner by the law. It is also righteousness, we
just learned this in 321-325, it is also righteousness that
God judges Christ by justification of the sinner
or against the justification of the sinner. Because He declared
us righteous when we're not. That's a lie. But He declared
us righteous because the finished work of Jesus made it just that
He has declared us righteous. Because Jesus is the righteousness
of God and then took on our sin so that it makes God's forgiveness
righteous. So the righteousness of God is
displayed in the judgment according to the law and then the forgiveness
according to the gospel. And now to the one who works.
So here we are, verse 4. His wages are not counted as
a gift. So see that word twice. He says,
Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness,
but the work that a man does, his wages, what is that? That's
what he earns, is not counted as a gift. You see? So if I build, you know,
how many of you, some of you in here helped me build the staging.
We worked on that. Some of us put up these electrical
outlets. Some of you helped paint and
clean. So we look back and say, look
at our wage. Look what we earned. We worked and the product of
our working produced the outcome, the harvest. Look at here. We
did it. And that's okay to say. If we
work, then we get paid by the hour, paid by the job, a wage,
it's earned. And they're not a gift. It's
not a gift. If you go to work and you work,
your employer, when he pays you, you don't say, oh, that is so
sweet of you to think of me. No, I work for you. You owe me.
That's the point. You owe me. Abraham, even if
he worked and could be justified according to the work of the
law, he could never stand before God and say, you owe me. And
that's what Paul has brought this argument to this evening.
We can't say, you owe me, God. Now let me take this into a different
direction that a lot of times people don't understand, and
it's why we believe that decisional regeneration is a work when you
trust in it. When you say to God, I chose
you, you owe me, God laughs. I BELIEVED! YOU OWE ME! And your
belief in itself is a work. God doesn't owe us. God saved
us by His mercy. That's where our faith is, in
the person of Christ, in the work of Christ, in the true teaching
of the Gospel which says God, in His infinite mercy, without
any consideration of who you were and your worthiness, saved
you through the person of Christ. You are guilty. Christ is not. He took your sin and God forgave
you. And you say, I believe that.
There you go. I believe that. That is the only
gospel. That is the only gospel that
has ever existed in the universe. It is the only gospel that God
gave Adam in Genesis chapter 3, who was just a few hours old
and had failed all of humanity. It was the only gospel that God
gave through the prophets. It is the only gospel that God
gave to Abraham, and it's the only gospel that God gave to
the apostles, and it's the only gospel that is the gospel of
Jesus Christ. Anyone who trusts in another
gospel but that one is on their way to hell and are condemned
already, for the wrath of God remains on them. And I'm not
mad, I'm desperate for them to hear it. Are you? I want you
to hear it. The truth. is that what we work
is not a gift, but it's what we do. It is not a gift, but
adds his due. And Paul is talking about the
law. He's already said, for by the
works of the law, chapter 3, verse 20, no human being will
be justified in his sight. What does that mean? You remember
we talked about that a few weeks ago? It means that the law cannot
repair sin. The law cannot repair sin, but
rather what? Exposes it. We know what we should
be, we know what we've been commanded to be, which is perfect, and
the law shows us that we're not. The law shows us. So to go back
into this, this is the argument of Galatians, to the Galatians,
I won't go into it tonight, but it could be said here. Paul argues
to the church of the region of Galatia, why are you going back
into the yoke of slavery? Don't touch this, don't eat that,
don't say this, don't go there, don't go this. What are you doing? Like he would tell Peter, what
do you think you're doing? Peter's like, well, I don't want
to eat this idle food. This is idle food. And Paul said, I think
I might have even said this Sunday, you better get your belly full.
You better get your belly full, Peter, because you're offending.
You're offending the gospel of grace. You are working against
the work of Christ by not eating this food that is good because
God made the food. It doesn't matter what purpose
for it was cooked. There is no such thing as evil food. There's
no such thing as evil food. Eat it. Romans 4, verse 14, if
you look on down there, it says, For sin will have no dominion
over you, since you are not under law, but under grace. So we're
not saying that we can just go sin. There's nowhere in Scripture
that teaches us that. As a matter of fact, John would
even write, these things are written that you may not sin, but if you sin,
What is it? We have an advocate. We're not
judged according to our sin any longer. We're not given the wage
of our sin, for the wage of sin is death. Listen, the wage of
right living is death if we put our trust in it. And the argument
that we see in Christendom today, there's really, and probably
nobody in here but maybe me and Trey and Jesse and a couple of
other guys who have asked might even know this is going on, but
I mean there's this debate in Christendom now amongst the Reformed
tradition about justification not being the only way to salvation. Because people would like to
argue, Justification by faith alone, you're justified by faith,
but you know what? It's your works that give you
eternal life. What's the difference? What's
justification if it's not eternal life? Nothing. So we don't put our trust in
these things. We don't put our trust in how we live, or how
we operate, or what we do. Though these things will be evident,
they won't always be evident. I mean, if we walk in a manner
worthy of the gospel, in our eyes, is it really purely worthy
of the gospel? I mean, ask the question of yourself. Are we really ever purely worthy
of the gospel? Are we ever really purely holy
in our motives? Are we ever really purely holy
in anything we do in this life, because the flesh is always bearing
witness against the Spirit and trying to fight us. That's why
it is a war. And when we get to chapter 6
and 7, we will really see the argument come to life in the
context of how Paul answers that question. We are dead to sin
and alive to Christ, in Christ. But if the law was effectual,
faith would be worthless. For the adherents of the law
who are to be heirs, faith is null, and the promise is void."
It's void. For the law brings wrath, but
where there is no law, there is no transgression. See, the
law produces judgment and wrath upon all who follow it and trust
in it. This is the argument that Paul's making. When we go on
down and start to see All these things that Paul writes in this
letter, if we keep on going in Romans 5 verse 20, what does
it say there? Now the law came to increase
the trespass, but where sin increased... What the world does that mean?
Grace abounded all the more. So that as sin reigned in death,
grace might also reign through righteousness, leading to eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So eternal life and righteousness
comes through Jesus Christ our Lord, not the obedience and adherence
to the law. You know what happens to the mind of the believer who
is fearful of sinning against the Lord every
second of their life? I'm not saying we don't be mindful,
but fearful. They never have freedom. They never have freedom. They
never have joy. They never have peace. The peace that surpasses
all understanding is not just circumstantial, And it's not
just about the issues that we're dealing with, it's about the
Spirit of God working in us mightily to give us the mind of Christ
and the peace of Christ that is not able to be comprehended
by the flesh. Paul would say just in the book
of Romans, let me read some more of the Roman argument against
this issue of the law giving anything but the wage of death. The law produces judgment and
wrath upon all who follow it, 415. For the law brings wrath,
but there is no law, there is no transcription. The law increases
sin, 520, that I just read. Now the law came to increase
the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abound all the more. So
that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through
righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ. The
church then is not under the law. Beloved, listen to me. We're
not under the law. If we're under the law, We're
condemned. We're not under the law. You
see, there's a lot of popular, what they call free grace or
hyper grace people. Jesse knows some of them. We've
dealt with them. and we've seen them, and we've
seen people who we've had to counsel that have really been
overwhelmed by the great message that they supposedly preach,
but they don't preach a great message. They preach that you
can do whatever you want to do and sin however you want to sin,
and it doesn't matter, you shouldn't worry about it, and if you do
this, or you do that, or you commit an adultery, or you're
murdering your neighbor, well, peace be with you. Now that doesn't
make any sense because the Scripture shows us that we are in Christ,
what? We're dead to the law, but we're
alive in Christ. We have to be careful because
we can't say that we measure the confidence that we have in
the gospel by the outcome of our fruit. Because the fruit,
though it may look good to us, it's not really good to God.
It's not really good to God. We're not able to stand and go,
woo, look at the fruit we've got. We know that we're in Christ
because we know a lot of people who are not in Christ who can
also produce good works. But when those good works disappear
and sin comes into the life of the Christian, what does the
church do? The church goes, uh-uh, uh-uh. No, ma'am. No, sir. You are dead to that. You don't
have to do that anymore. Put it to death. And the Christian
says, yes. Thank you for the grace of discipline.
And when they say, mind your business, we go get somebody
else, don't we? And then we come back, and when
they say, mind your business again, we take it to the church,
and the church kicks them out. Why? So that their life is ruined. Their life is ruined. Paul says
it very clearly, he says, when people continue in sin, and they
don't listen, or if there's a sin that's so vile it just violates
the public purity of the church, you kick them out. He says these
words, turn their bodies over to Satan for the destruction
of their flesh that their soul might be saved. Because what
does shame do? It causes us to think, doesn't
it? Discipline causes us to think. When my daddy disciplined me
as a boy, it caused me to think about what I was doing. It caused
me to change my mind about the desire I had for that. You know
what the Bible word is for that? Repentance. I don't want to think
that way anymore. I don't particularly care for
the consequence of that. For the believer, the consequence
is repentance. And we come back to what? Intimacy.
And it's not like, okay, this is strike four for you. We're
going to give you one more shot. And what happens again? Strike
five. We're done. Nope. Strike one. See, that's
what forgiveness looks like. You offended me today. You sinned
today. This person continues to make
this sin every few years. It's the same old thing every
few months. It's like with children, it's like every few days, every
few seconds. When are you going to learn? I don't know. Children,
if you were wise... No, don't say this. I say, I don't know.
Same time you will, Dad. I mean, don't say that because
you will die. A quick death. But just as God is gracious with
us, we are also gracious with each other. We also know that
discipline brings about repentance. And those who are in the faith,
the Bible teaches that the Spirit of God works in us to bring us
to repentance. Godly sorrow leads to repentance.
But for those who don't, we know that they are removed from the
fellowship. And that has nothing to do with
coming in this building. That's just where we assemble. The fellowship,
the word kononion, by the way, what Jesse preached Sunday, the
phrase take part in is the Greek word kononion, all things in
common, which is translated in the English fellowship. We're
going to take part in the what? Ministry to the saints. So when
we give, when we pray, when we suffer, when we forbear, when
we do all these things, we do it because we have everything
in common. And it's not always going to be pretty, it's not
always going to be easy, it's not always going to be joyful,
it's not always going to be the most pleasant thing that we have
going for us, but it will be a divine thing. And we do not
trust in the law, we trust in the gospel. We're not under the
law. Sin will have no dominion. And
the church has delivered, according to Romans 7, from all aspects
of the law. Do you not know, brothers, for
I'm speaking to those who know the law, that the law is binding
on a person only as long as he lives? The perfection of the
law can never cause anyone to be perfect or holy. Later on
in that chapter 7, he says, what shall we say then? That the law
is sin by no means? Yet if it had not been for the
law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what
it is to covet if the law had not said, You shall not covet.
And that's the Ten Commandments, by the way, the ones that were
written on stone. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment,
produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Why? Because when the flesh hears,
Don't, we say, Yes, I will. I had the question yesterday
in our homeschool group. A high school student asked me,
Do you have any evidences of depravity in babies and children?
And I gave them explanation. I got some evidences. I got five
children and they act like children. They do what children do. I said,
here's the deal. You take a child and you give
it its cell phone because it reaches for it and it just learned
to use its hands. And what does it do with it?
Right in its mouth. And you think, I paid too much
for that cell phone. I don't want to do short circuit through an infant.
So we take it away, and what does the child do? I gave four or five examples
like that. And then you take an eight-month-old who's learning
to toddle around, and you teach them not to do this, or not to
say that, or not to go there. And they go there, and you pop
their hand, or you move them back, and you sternly say whatever
you do as a parent. And then they go toward it again. And this time they're not just
going toward it because it's like a moth to a flame. They're going
toward it and they're looking back over their shoulder with
this smirk. Like they're getting closer and
closer and closer and like, do something. And they don't even
know that thought. They're just like by nature going,
tell me no, I'll show you. And then you whop them again.
Depravity. Friends, we're going to act like
humans because we're humans. We're going to act fleshly because
we're fleshly. We're going to do things in the context of our
Christian life that are unpleasant and not pleasing to the Lord.
But nowhere in the life of the church is the church to sit down
and go back to the law of Moses and say, if we want to be a holy
church, we've got to do this, and we've got to do that, and
we've got to do that, and we've got to do that. Because you know
what? That is a bondage. That's why
we don't teach out of Malachi when we talk about giving. We
teach out of 2 Corinthians. That's why we don't teach in
Deuteronomy when we talk about worship. We teach out of 2 Corinthians. We teach out of Colossians. We
teach out of John 4. Because the law makes a promise.
And what is the promise? The promise is, if you obey the
law, you live. Remember what I started the sermon
out with tonight? But what does Paul say about that promise?
He says, the very law that promised me life brought me death. So is the law a lie? No, the
law proved I could not follow it. proved death to me, because the
sin that comes from the law is immeasurable." When we come to
the law and we see the conflict, we see the law breaking of our
hearts, we see not only individually but as a people where we are,
the law brings death and the sin is immeasurable. Romans 7
verse 13, "...did that which is good then bring death to me?"
Paul would ask. The law is good. Did it bring
death to me? No, it did not. By no means. It was sin producing
death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown
to be sin. And through the commandment might
become sinful beyond measure. Let me tell you what that looks
like. Thou shalt not covet. I haven't coveted in 55 years. But you did once, so the sin
of covetousness is immeasurable. Have you ever lied? The sin of
lying is immeasurable. Against what? Be holy, for I
am holy. All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God. The sin that comes from the following
after the law is immeasurable. And the law has no power. I want
you to hear this, church. This is the argument of up through
chapter 8, actually, of Romans. The law has no power. It has
no power to help us. What does it do? It condemns
us. In Romans chapter 8, what is
that awesome, incredible text? First four verses. There is therefore,
listen to this, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You follow the law, you're still
guilty of breaking it. You follow it even better, you're
still going to die. You do even better than that,
you're condemned already. You're dead. What is going to
save me? Oh, what wretched man that I
am. Who will deliver me from this
what? This aggravating situation? Who will deliver me from this
frustration of ministry? No. Who will deliver me from
this body of death? That's what Paul calls his flesh. A body of death. Paul said that
when he followed the law, he was blameless. And the gain that
he got from that was poop. That's a literal translation
of that word, poop. Except most people would tell
you that it's a little bit of an off-color explicative for
the word poop. It's what Paul used in his vernacular. That's a bunch of baloney, hogwash,
or bull jives, what I like to call it. It's garbage. It's garbage, it's
refuse, it's human waste, it's excrement. What's the excrement? Following after the law of God.
For it does not do anything for me. That's what Paul said. The
blamelessness of my obedience is garbage. All the gain that
I had is garbage. Why? Because it doesn't gain
us anything. You see the problem? You see
what we've done? Remember what I talked about
culturally? What we've done? And why we don't have unity for the
true gospel? It's because we have decided that the law marries
grace. And they have little gospel babies
called the church. No. Grace alone produces the
children of God. The law brings us to the knowledge
of sin. And we try to say, well, the
fruit of grace is obedience. No, it's not. Paul doesn't argue
that. No, it's not. The fruit of grace
is faith. Believing. No matter how much
you strive to obey, you will fail and your faith better be
in the finished work of Jesus or you are condemned. Now people
come to this and they say, well, you know, you can't tell me that
because I'm doing well. You are not doing well, beloved.
You're not doing well. Paul told the Thessalonians they
were doing well and they should do well better. Remember? I pray that you would love greater
than you're loving, but you're loving so greatly, that the Word
of your love and the Word of your faith is spread all out
Macedonia, all around Achaia, and all the surrounding regions,
that when we get there and begin to preach, they'll say, hey,
what did you give the Thessalonians so that they could be the people
they are? Wow! And Paul said, you're doing well,
but you better do better. And then he told them these words.
In the introduction to his letter to them, he says, he who began
a good work in you is faithful to complete it. So even when
we strive to be a people for God's own glory, we best believe
it is by His grace. There is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit," this
is beautiful y'all, "...has set you free in Christ Jesus from
the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law
weakened by the flesh could not do." God has done what the law
could not do because the law is weakened by the flesh. By sending His own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, He condemned sin in
the flesh. See that? In order that the righteous
requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. Tattoo that
on the heart of your conscience. Romans 8. 1. through four. And we who walk
not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. And
then Paul will go on to say those who walk according to the flesh
put their minds on the things of the flesh. The things of the
flesh, according to Paul's argument in the first eight chapters of
this text, is that the argument is the flesh puts its mind on
living so that it might please God. living that it might earn
favor, living that it might have pleasure, living that it might
work in the covenant of works. It is not about works. So we
see separate things. We see the gospel of grace, which
is by itself, which is the only effectual, operative power of
God to produce salvation and to produce intimacy and to produce
life. And then we see the call of the
Spirit of God through the Scriptures for the church to walk in this
manner. They're not the same thing. One is a reflection. through
which we will see ups and downs, we will see good times, we will
see bad times, we will see obedience, we will see disobedience, we
will see striving, we will see apathy, we will see bitterness,
we will see joy, we will see all these things in our lives
individually, and we will bring them in here together when we
assemble, and we will rub off on each other in those ways,
and the Lord will work through us with the oversight of the
scriptures through the elders, and we will see ourselves grow. That's got nothing to do with
the gospel of grace. That's got everything to do with the call
of God for the church. Those who are already born again.
Those who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Those who live by
faith, not by works. Do you see how great that is?
Have you ever heard somebody talk
about somebody that just really hurt them or did something and
they tell you how close these people are. I was sharing that
with someone yesterday, a particular person that came to me in 2002. Three weeks after I started my
new position as a pastor in Virginia and said, I need to talk to you,
this man said, and he sits me down and he says, we have made
a huge mistake. Three weeks. We have made a huge mistake.
You are the worst choice we could have ever made to bring to this
church. And this was an elder. Pray tell, please inform me. And he begins to give me a list
of all these things that I'm not. And none of them are wicked,
they're just not me. The first on the list was the
fact that I did not go to the football games of the local high
school. Because if I really cared about reaching the community
and investing the lives of the people who comprise this congregation,
then I would care about what they cared about and I would
go to watch football. I'd rather watch people paint than watch
football. I'd rather watch people paint.
I'd rather watch people paint a football than watch football.
Or paint a football field than watch football. I'm just not
interested. It's boring to me. It's like,
okay, great. You made a million dollars. I don't care. But I wrote it
down, and I began to go to football games. Was it a God's requirement of
me? No. But the elders of the church thought that as an elder
of the church, that it would be better for me to go to football
games. And then after they realized just how little interaction I
had with anybody, because I could not talk about football, because
I would not watch football, and I just sat there and ended up
with a bunch of geeks and band nerds hanging out with me, they
realized that this isn't our constituency, so pastor, you
do what you want to do. Also, one of the things that
they told me that I was doing wrong is that I was sitting with
my family during services when I wasn't preaching. You need to be interacting with
the church, you see. And your wife's just going to
have to deal with it. And for five years, I never sat with
her in service. And two years after we left there,
she said to me one day, you know, all those years, you never sat
with me in service. And so all these burdens they
put upon me that weren't even biblical. And then burdens of
things that would take place. We oftentimes have these burdens
where we feel like we're not good enough, or we're not doing
well enough, or we're not helping enough. And it might even be
true. But we're not condemned. And we're not severed from Christ. Paul would tell the Corinthians,
and this is it. Now if the ministry of death 2 Corinthians 3 verse 7, Now the
ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such
glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because
of its glory, which was being brought to an end. You hear what
he's saying? Sort of like the writer of Hebrews.
We've not come to the Mount Sinai. We've not come to the tempest.
We've not come to the place where they said, please let us hear
no more, that even if an animal touched the mountain, it should
be stoned. We have come to the festal gatherings
of the saints. We have come to the multitude
of angels, and to the glory, and to the worship, and to the
celebration, to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And we have
come to Jesus. We have come to Jesus. We are no longer following the
stones of death. We are no longer standing in
this glorious... and the law was glorious, y'all,
because it displays God's beauty and His perfection. And the Israelites
couldn't bear it, but it was being brought to an end. If this
is the measure of the glory of the law of death, the stones
of death, the ministry of death carved in stone, which is a representation
of its permanence, it does not pass away. Jesus Christ fulfilled
it for us that we are now the righteousness of God, and therefore
because we are the righteousness of God, there is no condemnation
for us from God, who is the epitome of holiness and the law. Therefore
there is no condemnation between us. And then Paul, as he always does,
asks this question. Will not the ministry of the
Spirit have even more glory? Will it not? What's more glorious? That we get it right as a church?
That we all act the way we should? That we all follow an act of
obedience that we find? It's one of the reasons we kicked
out some of Lifeway Press's stuff back in 2008. Because they taught
out of Deuteronomy that the way to become more mature in Christ
was to print out the Ten Commandments and put them on the refrigerator
and work on them. Good luck with that. You know
what we need to work on? Believing in the finished work
of Christ. And when we believe in the finished work of Christ,
we will have a relationship with each other that is unparalleled.
And I'm going to preach about that this Sunday. That relationship
that is ours in Christ, intimacy and what it is, what it costs,
and how we reconcile, and what our consciences actually do for
us, and how they relate to one another in accord to the gospel. And I thought, Lord, how beautiful
of a segue with Romans 4 right here on our doorsteps. for me
to do that. It is about faith, aloneness,
and Jesus Christ. The law is used for God's purpose,
but we only find ourselves right with Him because of the grace
of the Gospel. Let's pray. Glorious is the Spirit, Father.
God the Holy Spirit, the forgotten Person of your being. Lord, help us to be sensitive
and not quench the Spirit. Help us to not put aside those
means of grace, intimacy, honesty, forgiveness, the Lord's table,
baptism, assembly, worshiping, hearing, teaching, preaching,
receiving, meditating, praying. Help us to strive to walk in
the light and to be patient and bear with one another and to
be a people, as we have said since before this church existed,
a people for Your glory, by Your grace. God, how creative I thought
I was regurgitating what Scripture shows. Lord, that is our heart's cry.
I pray You continue to work in us. I pray You continue to grow
us. I pray You continue to help us
reconcile with each other, with our neighbors, with our enemies,
And Lord, that we would continue to see Your Word and the Gospel
as all we need. For Your divine power gives us
all we need to live godly lives. And we thank You for that in
Jesus' name.